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📖 From Reluctant Reader to Storytelling Dad
I’ll be honest—school almost ruined reading for me.
Despite a strong start in my early years—when my mum did what she could to get me into stories— I loved dressing up and role playing, getting involved in drama, and even taking on LAMDA speech, verse, and prose up to level 5 💪
But then secondary school completely hammered any joy of storytelling out of me, and it took a long time to get it back.
The first book I was introduced to was Animal Farm—which may been fine, except we weren’t actually supposed to "read" it. Instead, we had to pull it apart, analysing every one of Orwell’s accurate representations of Communism in real life.
Sweet mercy! 🤪
I wasn’t a reader, and this killed it. Then Shakespeare piled on top in a script that made even less sense to me—a recurring theme in my language journey.
By that point, school English class had succeeded in making reading a chore.
So when I became a parent raising trilingual kids, I knew one thing for sure:
📌 I wanted reading to be a joy, not a struggle.
And I learned something incredibly important along the way:
👉 Stories do so much more than teach kids to read.
For bilingual children, they’re a game changer so here’s why stories matter more than you think when raising a bilingual child:
📚 How Stories Help Bilingual Kids Build Vocabulary & Speak with Confidence
A child can only use the words and grammar they hear.
But in day-to-day conversations, language is often repetitive.
Without stories, most kids hear the same functional language on repeat:
🗣️ "Put your shoes on."
🗣️ "Eat your dinner."
🗣️ "Stop that."
Books, however, throw them into wildly different language environments, especially when reading in their heritage language. They introduce:
🔹 Advanced vocabulary (without needing flashcards).
🔹 Complex sentence structures they’ll absorb naturally.
🔹 Playful language like rhymes, puns, and metaphors.
🔹 And lots, lots more!!!
Research shows that kids who hear more words—especially through reading and storytelling—develop bigger vocabularies than those who don’t.
📌 In Our Home
We were reading a book about dinosaurs and the word “gargantuan” popped up. Not long after, our son walked into the kitchen, pointed at his dinner and announced:
"That is a gargantuan plate of pasta!" 🤣
That’s the power of stories.
They introduce uncommon words in a way that sticks—far more effectively than any vocabulary list ever could.
📌 Bonus: Stories also reinforce pronunciation and sounds. Hearing words in context helps kids fine-tune how they say them, which is crucial for bilingual children navigating multiple language sound systems—and boosts their confidence to speak!
💬 How Stories Help Bilingual Kids Connect with Their Heritage Language
Children don’t simply learn a language—they have to feel connected to it.
📌 If English (or any heritage language) is merely "the language of school work" or "the one mum or dad speaks," kids are less likely to embrace it.
But when it’s the language of their curiosities, adventure, laughter and magic, they’re far more willing to speak and engage in it.
Stories help create a personal bond with the language:
👉 A child obsessed with Minecraft can't say no to books set in pixelated worlds.
👉 An older child fascinated by teenage life will suddenly want to read diaries about wimpy children
📌 This isn’t just about reading—it’s about creating a multilingual mindset.
When kids see their interests reflected in different languages, it makes learning feel effortless rather than something they have to do.
🗣️ Why Storytelling Is the Secret to Raising a Strong Bilingual Speaker
We can't forget stories have been around forever—literally.
Long before we even had written texts people gathered around fires, sharing tales that:
✅ Passed down knowledge
✅ Explained the world
✅ Kept cultures and languages alive
📌 And guess what?
Reading stories to children still does all of that today!
Especially for bilingual kids and heritage language speakers.
Stories are about culture, history and identity in all their languages.
They connect them to their roots.
It also helps them become better thinkers and communicators:
✅ They develop stronger storytelling skills—which helps them explain, persuade, and express emotions.
✅ They improve problem-solving skills—predicting what happens next in a story builds critical thinking.
✅ They learn to play with language—jokes, puns and idioms come alive in stories in a way that direct translations can’t capture.
📌 The more kids hear and engage with stories, the better they become at sharing their own—whether in one language or across many.
🌟 Final Thoughts: Stories Are Powerful for Bilingual Kids
📌 By raising confident multilingual children, I’ve learned that stories are far more than bedtime routines.
They shape how children learn, feel and express themselves in their languages. They build vocabulary naturally, spark curiosity and create emotional connections that last a lifetime.
📢 If you take one thing from this blog, let it be this:
✨ Stories have the power to transform.
We’ve seen first-hand that sharing a love and passion for stories is one of the most powerful ways of helping bilingual kids read and grow their confidence in their heritage language., which has opened up a world our kids would never have been exposed to in their day-to-day lives.
And the best part? It doesn’t take a GARGANTUAN plan or the “right” book.
It starts with following your child’s interests and letting them help guide the way.
💬 Your Turn:
Whether your child is already a bookworm, just starting to explore stories or somewhere in between, I’d love to hear from you!
If your child loves reading: What book or series sparked their passion?
If you’re in the thick of it: What’s one challenge you’re facing right now?
If you’re just starting out: What’s one question you have about raising a multilingual reader?
Drop a comment below—your experiences and questions might help another parent on the same journey!
🚀 Ready to take the next step?
✨ Sign up for my monthly newsletter to get hands-on strategies for raising confident multilingual readers.
👇 Check out more blogs below for practical strategies and inspiration!
My son has been able to see and understand how different languages work in different countries, and it's really motivated him to learn more and read about other cultures.
> It's like a mental workout switching between languages! So empowering!
> It's incredible what books can do for a child's imagination.
> I love how reading a book together lets us talk about things, feel different emotions, build empathy, and just enjoy reading as a family.