Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners

August, Diane; Snow, Catherine E.; Carlo, María S.; Proctor, C. Patrick; Francisco, Andrea Rolla de San; Duursma, Elisabeth; Szuber, Anna

doi:10.1097/00011363-200610000-00007

Cited by 27 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…For example, previous research has documented continued growth of the L1, although at a slower pace than in monolingual children (e.g., Jia, Strange, Wu, Collado, & Guan, 2006), levelling off in L1 proficiency (e.g., Kan & Kohnert, 2005), and even regression of L1 ability (e.g., Francis, 2005). With respect to L2 development, consistent growth of L2 vocabulary patterns has been found across studies (August et al, 2006;Bialystok et al, 2010;Kan & Kohnert, 2005;Kohnert, Windsor, & Ebert, 2009;Uchikoshi, 2006). However, at the beginning of primary school, the L2 vocabulary size of children from cultural minorities in the Netherlands who learn L2 Dutch, the focus group of the current study, is smaller than the estimated L1 vocabulary size of age-matched Dutch monolingual children.…”

Section: Lexical Specificitymentioning

confidence: 67%

Lexical Specificity Training Effects in Second Language Learners

Janssen¹,

Segers²,

McQueen

et al. 2015

Language Learning

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Children who start formal education in a second language may experience slower vocabulary growth in that language and subsequently experience disadvantages in literacy acquisition. The current study asked whether lexical specificity training can stimulate bilingual children's phonological awareness, which is considered to be a precursor to literacy. Therefore, Dutch monolingual and Turkish-Dutch bilingual children were taught new Dutch words with only minimal acoustic-phonetic differences. As a result of this training, the monolingual and the bilingual children improved on phoneme blending, which can be seen as an early aspect of phonological awareness. During training, the bilingual children caught up with the monolingual children on words with phonological overlap between their first language Turkish and their second language Dutch. It is concluded that learning minimal pair words fosters phoneme awareness, in both first and second language preliterate children, and that for second language learners phonological overlap between the two languages positively affects training outcomes, likely due to linguistic transfer.

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Section: Lexical Specificitymentioning

confidence: 67%

Lexical Specificity Training Effects in Second Language Learners

Janssen¹,

Segers²,

McQueen

et al. 2015

Language Learning

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“…Clearly, ELL children enter preschool programs with varying degrees of proficiency both in their Spanish‐language skills and in their level of English oral proficiency. Some researchers have contended that for cross‐linguistic transfer to occur, children need a strong foundation in their L1 (e.g., August et al., 2006). Many of the children in the current study can be categorized as circumstantial bilinguals (Kester & Peña, 2002; p. 4).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effective Early Literacy Skill Development for Young Spanish‐Speaking English Language Learners: An Experimental Study of Two Methods

Farver

Lonigan

Eppe³

2009

Child Development

155

119

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Ninety-four Spanish-speaking preschoolers (M age = 54.51 months, SD = 4.72; 43 girls) were randomly assigned to receive the High/Scope Curriculum (control n = 32) or the Literacy Express Preschool Curriculum in English-only (n = 31) or initially in Spanish transitioning to English (n = 31). Children's emergent literacy skills were assessed before and after the intervention in Spanish and English. Children in the English-only and transitional groups made significant gains in their emergent literacy skills in both Spanish and English compared to the control group, The English-only and transitional models were equally effective for English language outcomes, but for Spanish-language outcomes, only the transitional model was effective. The results suggest that a targeted early literacy intervention can improve Spanish-speaking preschoolers' preliteracy skills.

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“…In addition to length of exposure to the target language, ELLs' exposure to other languages and cultures at home has been shown to influence their language and literacy development (August et al., ). These findings highlight the need to consider the relationship amongst students' existing language repertoires and English academic literacy development, and thus this variable was also a focus in the present study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Elementary School ELLs' Reading Skill Profiles Using Cognitive Diagnosis Modeling: Roles of Length of Residence and Home Language Environment

et al. 2013

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The study examined differences in reading achievement and mastery skill development among Grade‐6 students with different language background profiles, using cognitive diagnosis modeling applied to large‐scale provincial reading test performance data. Our analyses revealed that students residing in various home language environments show different reading achievement growth patterns. Earlier gaps in their reading achievement disappear the longer they reside in the target language community. Additionally, students who come from home environments where they use English and another language equally demonstrate higher skill mastery achievement levels, indicating that immigrant students' diverse home language environments do not adversely affect their reading achievement in the longer term. The study results support the evidence that multilingual home language environments are not a cause of low achievement; however, the achievement patterns of Canadian‐born English language learners (ELLs) do differ from their immigrant counterparts, revealing that time alone is not a sufficient condition of reading skill achievement. ELLs' outperformance of monolinguals after 5 years of residence is a result of ongoing instructional support and a rich linguistic environment. The study results hold important policy implications: The evaluation of ELLs' academic achievement and school effectiveness for accountability purposes should be based on longitudinal data that track their developmental growths.

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Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners

Cited by 27 publications

References 18 publications

Lexical Specificity Training Effects in Second Language Learners

Lexical Specificity Training Effects in Second Language Learners

Effective Early Literacy Skill Development for Young Spanish‐Speaking English Language Learners: An Experimental Study of Two Methods

Elementary School ELLs' Reading Skill Profiles Using Cognitive Diagnosis Modeling: Roles of Length of Residence and Home Language Environment

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