Home literacy practices that support language and literacy development in bilingual children: a longitudinal case study

Abstract

In the past few decades, literature has consistently suggested that bilingual children are at risk for academic failure due to their limited language skills. However, many of these studies included underprivileged bilingual children, and few of them attempted to disentangle the effects of bilingualism from the effects of socioeconomic status. Critically, it is not clear how the language and literacy skills of bilingual children develop when they benefit from home support. This paper presents the case study of a child who emigrated from Romania to the United States at the age of 4.8 and enrolled in preschool with no prior knowledge of English. With support from his family, by the end of the 4th grade, his English vocabulary was 2.5 standard deviations above national norms (11th grade level equivalent), and all other standardized language and reading comprehension measures placed him between the 82nd and the 99th percentile. This study suggests that the socio-economic status (in general) and the home language and literacy environment (in particular) has the potential to play an important role in the language and literacy development of bilingual children.

Methodology lecturers’ pedagogical strategies used to prepare pre-service Intermediate Phase isiZulu teachers for teaching inclusive reading

“…Proficiency in reading one's home language can be transferred to other languages (Dolean, 2022), and the extent to which vocabulary growth in one's home language positively affects vocabulary growth in a second language is emphasised by Pretorius and Stoffelsma (2021:28). This is an extension of Cummins' linguistic interdependence hypothesis, which posits that some firstlanguage skills can be advantageously transferred to the process of learning a second language.…”

COVID-19 and bilingual children’s home language environment: Digital media, socioeconomic status, and language status

“…Hypothesis 2: Based on the literature review (e.g., Sun et al, 2018a,b;Luo et al, 2021;Dolean, 2022), children from higher-SES families are expected to have better language environment in terms of resources and activities. Children's English language and literacy environment is better than that of Mandarin.…”

Home Literacy and Numeracy Interact and Mediate the Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Early Linguistic and Numeracy Skills in Preschoolers

“…Previous research found that home literacy, that is, exposure to books and reading in the familiar context, is positively related to early language skills such as expressive and receptive language (Payne et al, 1994;Roberts et al, 2005) and early literacy skills, such as letter knowledge, phonological awareness (Evans et al, 2000;Foy and Mann, 2003;Hood et al, 2008;Stephenson et al, 2008). Some studies also suggested that parents may also foster the development of writing competence (Wollman-Bonilla, 2001;Reutzel et al, 2005;Saint-Laurent and Giasson, 2005;Puranik et al, 2018;Hofslundsengen et al, 2019;Guo et al, 2020). In addition, the Home Literacy Model (Sénéchal and LeFevre, 2002;Sénéchal, 2006;Sénéchal et al, 2017) suggests that parent-child interactions on code-related activities, such as the teaching of reading and spelling (formal activities), are related to reading development.…”