Easy to Read & Languages
Easy to Read books are nowadays read by a broad and varied audience, from people with intellectual disabilities to unused readers, and those who are learning a new language. Should we provide different criteria and various Easy Languages for the diverse reader groups?
In this globalised world, we increasingly meet people from different cultural backgrounds. In school, pupils with other cultural backgrounds often find that the schoolbooks and materials they are studying do not reflect their own reality. What kind of literature do they need so that they can recognise themselves?
For a person with dyslexia school might be a challenge, when reading is difficult and slow. Letters change places and jump on the line. Is reading the only way to learn, or are there other possibilities?
Teachers and experts recommend audio books especially for people who are not used to reading.
But does listening with the ears develop the brain as much as reading with the eyes?
How should Easy Language and Easy to Read be defined? Is Easy Language a constructed or a natural language? Are the language and the contents in Easy to Read books poorer than in books in standard language?
Easy to Read books contribute to the learning of languages. An example from Bulgaria shows that reading a book in English and working with tasks from the website Edu Bokpil can increase interest in the language.
Multilingual videos with haiku poems by Fazile Nasretdin and Sabira Stahlberg have recently been publiced on the YouTube channels Bokpil Multilingual and Bokpil Flerspråkig.
Bokpil participates this year in the Helsinki Book Fair with two Swedish-language programmes.
Two international events in October 2021 host panels presenting Easy to Read and multilingualism.
Haiku in three languages: garden, tree, home and season, cat and smile.
Marianne Ståhlberg’s new book Åtta dahlior – Eight dahlias – Kahdeksan daaliaa talks about life and nature in Swedish, English and Finnish.
This year it is 20 years since Sabira Stahlberg’s first Easy to Read book was published. Since then Sabira has written more than 20 Easy to Read books.
Easy to Read books for supporting minority and endangered languages are discussed by Sabira Stahlberg and Fazile Nasretdin in a special issue of Journal of Endangered Languages.