January 24 is World Education Day. For children, this begins at an early age, and reading aloud is a good building block for early childhood education: children who are regularly read to have a significantly larger vocabulary than their peers without this experience, and later have more fun reading for themselves and dealing with texts (study “Vorlesemonitor” by the Institute for Reading and Media Research).
Bonn’s city administration is well aware that reading aloud has a positive influence on children's development. The Inclusion Office of the City of Bonn is therefore committed to promoting reading across institutions and departments. One successful example is the Polylino app - the digital multilingual library for children. The City of Bonn has now acquired a comprehensive license for Polylino. This means that all children in Bonn will be able to use the Polylino app free of charge from 2025. In addition, all educational institutions in the city of Bonn can have free institutional access to the Polylino app set up.
“With free access to the Polylino children's book app for all children in Bonn, the city of Bonn is one of the pioneers of versatile reading promotion in many languages. In our international city with the strong presence of the United Nations, multinational corporations and newcomers from all over the world, multilingualism is important and a reality,” says Mayor Katja Dörner. “Polylino is a great digital offering that is inclusive and makes an important contribution to a child-friendly community and the right to education and participation,” she continued.
Polylino is supported by the Digital Transformation Programme Office and is a fine example of how digitalization can support sustainable urban development and implement the Learning City Bonn’s motto “With books, bytes and citizen participation”.
Access data are available via the city libraries
From now on, interested Bonn families can easily apply for permanent free access to Polylino at the central library in the House of Education (Haus der Bildung) on Mülheimer Platz and at all eight city library branches in the city districts and receive the access data. The city administration hopes that the link to the city library will create a “win-win situation”: once on site, interested families may also become enthusiastic about the city library's services and become regular customers. The library card is free for children and young people.
Polylino is easy to use and offers access to over 1,700 children's books for reading, reading aloud or listening to. It is suitable for private use by families and in educational institutions, for which it provides additional functions. In addition to the German picture book texts, the app also offers an audio read-aloud function for most books, not only in German, but for many books in more than 70 languages. 18 books are also available in sign language. Polylino currently contains books from more than 60 publishers.
So far, the Polylino project has been running as a pilot project at around 30 educational institutions in Bonn, followed in 2023 by the first Children's Rights Weeks of the City of Bonn with the special “Read to All” campaign, which gave all children and families in Bonn free access. Because the feedback from the daycare centers and schools was so positive and a continuation was desired, the City of Bonn decided to establish the Polylino project on a permanent basis. In 2024, the Polylino app was used more than 60,000 times in Bonn.
- 10,000 books were read in 21 Bonn daycare centers and the respective families
- 40,000 books in 19 elementary school in Bonn
- 12,000 books as part of the Read All campaign
Polylino is now to be firmly integrated into Bonn's educational landscape. In addition to the city library, Bonn’s Museium of Art will be another partner. A reading station with Polylino is currently being set up in the children's area in the foyer of the museum and can thus also be a “door opener” for cultural education in the museum.
Family matinee on Polylino on February 16, 2025
In order to make the app even better known to as many families as possible, the City of Bonn is inviting families to a “Kick-off Polylino” matinee in the auditorium of the Museum of Art (Kunstmuseum Bonn) on Sunday, February 16, 2025, from 11 am to 2 pm. Mayor Katja Dörner will give a welcoming address. Afterwards, the author Arzu Gürz Abay will read live from her picture book “Pablos Piñata” using the Polylino app. Families will also have the opportunity to visit the museum free of charge.
In addition, the City of Bonn is inviting educational professionals from daycare centers, schools, youth facilities and child and youth work to information events at the Kunstmuseum on February 11 and 18.