On Austria’s National Reading Aloud Day, Unipark Nonntal became the stage for a very special kind of lecture. For once, it was the very youngest who took the microphone and their favourite books in hand: 23 pupils from the International Bilingual Class of the Praxisvolksschule Salzburg visited the Department of English and American Studies and read aloud in both English and German from works by the celebrated children’s author Julia Donaldson.

The visit brought together classroom literacy and university research in a remarkable way: Following the public reading, Dr Thomas Kaltenbacher guided the class through the department’s eye-tracking laboratory, where the children experienced first-hand how researchers measure and compare eye movements during oral and silent reading – a rare glimpse into cognitive reading research, tailored for curious young minds.

After a well-deserved snack of seasonal fruit, the pupils had the chance to showcase their skills a second time: in Dr Elisabeth Schober’s course “Literature and Social-Emotional Learning”, they read aloud for students and faculty alike, leaving a lasting impression – the children of this mixed-age class (Years 1 to 4) handled their German and English texts with remarkable confidence and fluency.

For reading research at the Department of English and American Studies, the day was as warmly memorable as it was “eye-opening”. The breadth of literacy acquisition stages represented in this multilingual class offers a uniquely rich window into early childhood multilingual development. As early as June, the department is set to continue working with some of the children and to document their bilingual literacy progress using eye-tracking technology.