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Mother Language Day: How to promote language in parenting using a hybrid modality?

February 17, 2023 por Florencia Lopez Boo - Marta Rubio-Codina - Marian Licheri Leave a Comment


We know that mother tongue is the first language we acquire in our early childhood through our caregivers (parents, grandparents, siblings, and others). While it may seem like a natural process, providing services that empower caregivers to stimulate their children’s language development from an early age can make a big difference for a lifetime. Today, on International Mother Language Day, we share how the hybrid delivery of these services emerges with enormous potential to promote language development from birth.

When in-person services were temporarily halted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, programs used state-of-the-art technology, social media, and traditional communication channels such as radio and television to reach millions of children and families in Latin America and the Caribbean in fully virtual or hybrid formats. 

Such services—both parenting programs that use home visits or group sessions and childcare centers and preschools—adapted their content to include play activities that parents with low levels of education could easily understand and developed new content aimed at language development and socioemotional support for children and caregivers.

How was this achieved on a large scale?

Here we share six implementation strategies of hybrid modalities in the region, on which you can learn more in our publication What Have We Learned from the Hybrid Delivery of ECD Services During the Pandemic?:

1- Virtual and Semi-Presential Care Protocol (PAVS) in Ecuador

Based on the care provided by Creciendo con Nuestros Hijos family care service and Reach Up Parenting Manual, a protocol was developed including a booklet with 180 cards with play and language or prenatal stimulation activities, a step-by-step guide on how to carry out care remotely, and messages promoting health, nutrition and protective environments.

2- Mis Manos Te Enseñan and Aprender En Casa in Colombia

The Ministry of Education and the Colombian Family Welfare Institute (ICBF) promoted these two programs. Some of the key elements for the success of this remote learning strategy are the provision of pedagogical kits, on-demand socio-emotional services, a guide to operate offline, a semi-structured curriculum, and specific strategies to address cases of children with disabilities, pregnant women, indigenous communities and male caregivers.

3- Early Stimulation Program in Jamaica

Just before the pandemic, the Jamaican Ministry of Health and Wellness had begun the nationwide implementation of Reach Up family support intervention, with home visits by community health workers from government health centers. To restart the intervention in the context of the pandemic, they rolled out the Parent Manual, as well as text messaging support 1-2 times a week and phone calls twice a month.

4- Tu CAIPI en Casa and Mochila CUIDARTE in Panama

In order to develop a comprehensive offer for early childhood, the Ministry of Social Development (MIDES), in collaboration with the IDB and UNICEF, developed these two programs that adapt the Reach Up experience through innovative elements: A virtual library, activities, and materials delivered at CAIPI care centers twice a month, a backpack with an activity guide and materials delivered at home, and periodic phone follow-up.

5- Survive & Thrive in Brazil

In an effort to expand early childhood interventions in the municipality of Boa Vista, Brazil, Survive & Thrive adapts the Reach Up experience by offering comprehensive parenting support and early childhood stimulation from pregnancy to 36 months through a weekly text message and two phone or video calls per month.

6- Positive Parenting and Engaged Parenting at Home in Uruguay

The Child and Teenager Institute of Uruguay and Uruguay Crece Contigo promoted these two programs, focused on accompanying, empowering and promoting parenting practices that meet the needs of children, their integral development and the role of fathers and mothers in parenting within a framework of gender equity. Among the elements they developed, we can find the Positive Parenting Curriculum, WhatsApp messages 3 times a week, and the Engaged Parenting Curriculum at home.

All these efforts have given us enormous lessons about the potential of these modalities to promote language hand-in-hand with families with innovation throughout the region.

Today, February 21, we remember that learning a mother tongue is a millenary human process. At the IDB and the Early Childhood Development Innovation Fund we are committed to protect and stimulate it with innovation and opportunities for all.

Do you know of any initiative of hybrid modalities to promote language in early childhood? We invite you to leave us a comment below and continue the conversation through the hashtag #ECDHubLAC.


Filed Under: Maternity Tagged With: early childhood, Early Childhood Development, ECD, IDB, Inter American Development Bank, language development, mother language day

Florencia Lopez Boo

Florencia Lopez Boo is a Director, Global TIES; Economics and Applied Psychology at NYU. Prior to joining NYU, she was a Lead Economist at the Social Protection and Health Unit of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), where she led the Early Childhood Development (ECD) agenda, the IDB ECD Innovation Fund, the knowledge agenda of her unit, and an initiative on behavioral economics and social policies. She was a professor at the University of Louvain and worked at the World Bank and UNIDO. She has a PhD in Economics from Oxford University (Clarendon-Oxford University Press award). She is also a Young Lives Research Associate at the University of Oxford and the Institute for Labor Studies (IZA) in Bonn. Twitter: @florlopezboo

Marta Rubio-Codina

Marta Rubio-Codina is a Senior Economist in the Inter-American Development Bank’s Social Protection and Labor Markets Division, where she works on early child development projects. Previously she was a researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies in London. She has a Doctorate in Economics from the Université de Toulouse in France.

Marian Licheri

Marian is a communications specialist with expertise in social policies such as early childhood and education. She currently leads the communications for the Early Childhood Development Innovation Fund, as well as coordinating outreach products and activities for the Education Division of the IDB, Brookings Institution, and other agencies operating in Latin America and the Caribbean. Marian holds a B.A. in Journalism from Universidad Católica Andrés Bello and is currently pursuing a Certificate in Early Education Leadership at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

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The first years of life are essential to establish the future foundation of a person´s productivity and wellbeing. In this blog, experts from the IDB and thought leaders in the topic, share information and international experiences related to early childhood development. Join us to talk about initiatives implemented in your country in this area

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