Reference Material
RESEARCH PAPERS
- Title: Emergent Biliteracy in Young Mexican Immigrant Children
Author(s): Iliana Reyes; Patricia Azuara
Source: Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Oct. – Dec., 2008), pp. 374-398
Publisher(s): International Reading Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20068353
Abstract: This article explores the relationship between emergent biliteracy and growing up in a biliterate environment. The study focuses on two questions: (1) What knowledge of biliteracy do young bilingual preschool children develop in the early years? (2) How do context and specific language environments influence the development of biliteracy in young Mexican Spanish-English bilingual children? The authors report data from a multiple-method research project with 12 4- and 5-year-old Mexican immigrant children living in the U.S. Southwest. Results indicated that the children were developing knowledge and metalinguistic awareness about print in both their languages; the families demonstrated a wide variety of communicative practices and ways in which they used written materials in the two languages; and intergenerational learning occurred in both directions among family members. The authors propose a model of emergent biliteracy that integrates the different cultural contexts that foster or hinder biliteracy development in the young bilingual child. The research contributes to the development of an ecological model of emergent biliteracy that recognizes the dynamic and complex interactions among home, school, and neighborhood contexts. This model serves as a heuristic device that allows researchers and teachers to consider how different linguistic and cultural spaces affect children’s biliteracy development in the environments where they are growing up bilingual.
- Title: Exploring connections between emergent biliteracy and bilingualism
Author: Reyes, Iliana
Affiliation: University of Arizona, USA
Source: Journal Of Early Childhood Literacy, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 267-292, December 2006
Abstract: This article explores the ways in which young emergent bilingual children begin to develop literacy in two languages, Spanish and English.Three case studies of four-year-old Mexican-background children and their families living in southern Arizona are presented from a qualitative socio-psycholinguistic perspective. The children’s home and classroom interactions were observed and analyzed for patterns of language and literacy in their two languages. The findings show that these emergent bilinguals learn and develop their own ‘theories’ and ‘concepts’ about language and literacy from an early age. The conversational participants and interlocutors were among the factors that directly influenced children’s development of language and literacy in Spanish and English. In addition, context was another important factor that contributed positively to the development of their emergent bilingualism and biliteracy. Finally, I discuss the language-literacy strategies that these Mexican-background children use as they try to make sense of their metalinguistic and biliteracy knowledge, while developing additional literacy tools and resources in both Spanish and English.
- Title: Strategic codeswitching, interliteracy, and other phenomena of emergent bilingual writing: Lessons from first grade dual language classrooms
Author: Gort, Mileidis
Affiliation: University of Miami, USA
Source: Journal Of Early Childhood Literacy, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 323-354, December 2006
Abstract: This qualitative study investigated the writing processes of eight emergent bilingual children as they composed stories in two languages in a Writing Workshop (WW) context. The research was situated in two grade 1 classrooms in a Spanish/English Two-Way Bilingual Education program in the north-eastern USA. For six months, researchers observed students in Spanish and English WWs, interviewed students about their writing behaviors and understandings, and collected samples from all stages of the writing process. Cross-case analyses of individual bilingual writing profiles revealed similarities and differences in students’ cross-linguistic skills, as well as patterns of transfer. Patterns of bilingual writing related to strategic codeswitching, positive literacy transfer, and interliteracy led to the development of a preliminary model of bilingual writing development for English-dominant and Spanish-dominant bilingual learners.This model presents phenomena unique to bilingual writers, relates these to bilingualism and biliteracy, and proposes anticipated expression of the phenomena for developing Spanish-dominant and English-dominant bilingual writers.
- Title: Language Ideologies Mediating Literacy and Identity in Bilingual Contexts
Author: Martõnez-rold¡n, Carmen M.; Malav…, Guillermo
Affiliation: Arizona State University, USA [Martõnez-rold¡n]; University of Arizona, USA [Malav...]
Source: Journal Of Early Childhood Literacy, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 155-180, August 2004
Abstract: This article presents a qualitative case study of a sevenyear-old Mexican American student and his family. Using Critical Discourse Analysis, we examine both the child’s emergent ideas about language, as expressed in bilingual literature discussions, and his parents’ ideological discourses about the use of a minority language in public schools. Vygotsky’s theory of learning oriented this research on language ideologies, focusing on how parents’ ideological discourses shape both literacy development and identity formation in early childhood. Our findings illustrate the importance of looking beyond the classroom and school contexts to identify diverse factors that may affect children’s development of biliteracy in early childhood, such as the role of language ideologies. This study demonstrates the complex relationships between literacy, language ideologies, and issues of identity within the broader contexts of controversies over bilingual education and official English laws in the USA.
- Title: The Multisemiotic Resources of Biliterate Children
Author: Kenner, Charmian; Kress, Gunther
Affiliation: Institute of Education, University of London, UK [Kenner]; Institute of Education, University of London
Source: Journal Of Early Childhood Literacy, vol. 3, no. 2, pp. 179-202, August 2003
Abstract: This article argues that children gain access to an enhanced range of communicative resources through familiarity with more than one writing system. Different scripts can be seen as different modes, giving rise to a variety of potentials for meaning-making. In case-studies of children’s responses to learning Chinese, Arabic or Spanish as well as English at the age of six, they were found to be exploring these potentials in terms of symbol design, spatial framing and directionality. A multimodal analysis shows how children can build up ‘embodied knowledges’ as they construct different visual and actional dispositions through the bilingual script-learning experience. Such flexibility is likely to be an asset in a world that makes increasing use of multilingual and multimodal communication.
- Title: Revealing Invisible Worlds: Connecting the Mainstream with Bilingual Children’s Home and Community Learning
Author: Parke, Tim; Drury, Rose; Kenner, Charmian; Robertson, Leena Helavaara
Affiliation: University of Hertfordshire; University of Hertfordshire, UK [Drury]; London Institute of Education, UK [Kenner]; University College Northampton, UK [Robertson]
Source: Journal Of Early Childhood Literacy, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 195-220, August 2002
Abstract: This article sets out to make the point that if teachers and others have, as the evidence by which they will place, teach and assess young bilinguals, only those children’s performance in English, they are not likely to appreciate the full range of their capacities, and their linguistic capacity above all others.The theoretical overview is followed by sets of data deriving from four UK researchers. Rose Drury shows the interface of the home and school environments for a young bilingual girl. Charmian Kenner compares the first-and additional-language literacies of a young child in nursery.Tim Parke investigates the performance of three young potential bilinguals, retelling stories in English and then in their mother tongue. Leena Helavaara Robertson investigates the role of community schools and their construction by central agencies. Finally the authors re-state their focus, stressing what is revealed in young bilingual children’s language abilities by the work they have presented and suggesting some implications for pedagogy and practice in early years contexts.
- Du L.. Community-based education and the formation of ethnic identity: Case study in a Chinese American community [Ph.D. dissertation]. United States — New York: State University of New York at Buffalo; 2008 In: Dissertations & Theses: Full Text [database on the Internet] [cited 2009 Nov 4]. Available from: http://www.proquest.com/; Publication Number: AAT 3291583.
- Chung, Y.. An analysis of Chinese parental attitudes toward their children’s heritage language maintenance and development. Ph.D. dissertation, School of Intercultural Studies, Biola University, United States — California. Retrieved November 4, 2009, from Dissertations & Theses: Full Text.(Publication No. AAT 3272668).
- Chakrabarti L.. Educational experiences and academic achievement of Asian Indian American students in a Midwestern university town in the United States: A multiple case study [Ph.D. dissertation]. United States — Kansas: Kansas State University; 2008 In: Dissertations & Theses: Full Text [database on the Internet] [cited 2009 Nov 4]. Available from: http://www.proquest.com/; Publication Number: AAT 3320231.