School and Immigration : welcoming Literature

This article outlines the advantages of using literature to aid the transition into the host country for newly arrived children and to help establish a bridge between their identities and their reading skills, communicative capacities and the demands of school. Criteria are offered on the best books to be shared with classmates that will help them join in with the school work while shared intercultural education. The article discusses activities that are especially suitable in the classroom, such as ones based on orality and interpretation of narratives, supported by strong visual components. It highlights teacher-guided group discussions as a means of scaffolding linguistic and interpretative skills for beginners as well as for the literacy education of all the students in the classroom.