Reggio Emilia

Children have a hundred ways to make meaning.

The Hundred Languages of Children

Thinking, playing, speaking, creating, dreaming.

Loris Malaguzzi’s “The Hundred Languages of Children” expresses a central Reggio Emilia belief: children communicate, understand, and imagine through far more than spoken or written words.

  • Many ways of knowing.Children explore ideas through hands, movement, drawing, building, music, play, conversation, and imagination.
  • Joy and wonder belong in learning.Reason and dream, science and imagination, work and play need not be separated.
  • Adults protect possibility.Education should make room for children’s many forms of expression rather than narrowing them.

This page is an original summary of “The Hundred Languages of Children” by Loris Malaguzzi, previously published in full on Laurelwood’s site.

Learn more from Reggio Children: “The Hundred Languages”

A child using paint to express an idea
Materials offer children another language for thinking and sharing.