Early childhood language experiences influence how a child's mind and brain process language and acquire literacy. For children growing up bilingual, their two languages interact in their minds, and these cross-linguistic influences can lead to unique neurocognitive mechanisms for language and reading compared to monolinguals. In this…

This study aimed to clarify the relations between morphological awareness and literacy skills in Spanish and English in young simultaneous bilingual learners. Guided by theoretical perspectives on the associations between morphological awareness and word- versus sentence-level literacy skills, and their transfer between bilinguals' two languages,…

Home language (HL) effects on academic language literacy have been extensively discussed. However, previous research has mostly focused on Indo--European languages. This study extends the literature by using data (n = 17,600) collected in a diversified language area: Guangxi, China. We examined the effects of four HLs and four socioeconomic…

American schools today display unprecedented levels of diversity in regard to the linguistic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds of their student population. Increasingly, more American students are also emergent bilingual learners. Despite this fact, most of the standardized assessments used by schools have been designed and normed for…

Due to the dominance of the English language in scholarship, multilingual academics often encounter challenges in achieving academic biliteracy and identifying successful language negotiation practices in academia. Through personal interviews with self-identified multilingual academics across academic disciplines, this paper explores how they…

Through a Communities of Practice Network Analysis, this research illustrates the ways in which dual language graduates participate in multiple, varied, and overlapping communities of practice across time. Findings highlight that the dual language school as a shared community of practice represents a critical and formative part of participants'…

As early education grows in the United States, in-service professional development in key instructional and interaction skills is a core component of capacity building in early childhood education. In this article, we describe results from an evaluation of the effects of MyTeachingPartner, a web-based system of professional development, on…

Drawing mainly on Pierre Bourdieu's notions of symbolic capital, Bakhtin's concept of voice and heteroglossia in the novel, and Gee's theory of Discourses and the term third space as applied in education, I construct a theoretical framework for heritage language (HL) literacy and identity processes. I propose that HL literacy acquisition be viewed…

Students' lack of school success often lies in the differences between the language used at home and the "school language" they are required to use at school. A framework was drawn up in which five domains are distinguished where specific problems might be located: language-internal aspects (mastery of vocabulary, grammar, etc.),…

This study explored the relationship among pre-reading skills, language proficiency, and visual perceptual abilities in 150 children who had been exposed to both English and Arabic (mean age 70 months). Information regarding language proficiency was gathered indirectly through reports from teachers and parents and directly through children's test…

Social psychologists have suggested that language-based ideologies related to "stereotype threat" (i.e. variations in performance-based on ability perceptions of language groups) may affect students' academic achievement regardless of school language support. However, it is unclear whether efforts to support students' first language…

This article reports key findings from a project that focused on the academic literacy development of children who are born and/or begin their formal schooling in Canada but are raised in homes where the societally dominant language is not the primary idiom. Analyses involved characterizing students' home ecological environments; assessing the…

For heritage speakers, the Spanish classroom is not the first point of contact with their native language. Though such learners would benefit from an educational philosophy that affirms the heritage language as a springboard for learning and increased self-awareness, there has been little support for non-dominant language research in the USA. This…

This study builds on previous work to examine parent reasons for enrolling their children in a two-way immersion (TWI) charter school. This work goes beyond ethno linguistic background variables (language, ethnicity), to include other key variables such as education level, income, religion, household distance from school, and family structure.…

This article contains a description of the Dual Proficiency (DP) program in an urban elementary school located in the heart of a large south-western city, as well as the teachers who designed and now implement DP, and the immigrant community participating by choice in DP. We write from a context where, ironically, the number of English language…