Aims: We investigate the relationship between narrative macrostructure, current language exposure, and microstructure in second-grade Spanish-English bilingual children in the United States. Macrostructure knowledge has been claimed to be shared across languages in multilingual individuals. We examine the role of current language exposure and…

This article argues for the need to center Latine students' experiences and language practices in Spanish programs at Hispanic Serving Institutions. We describe the work and possibilities of designing programs informed by Latine Studies perspectives as well by culturally and linguistically sustaining approaches to teaching Heritage Language…

Despite a rapid growth in the number of dual language learning children (DLLs) in the United States, there is a limited understanding of what parents of DLLs believe and know about dual language learning and education, and how parental beliefs and knowledge relate to children's dual language experiences at home. In the current study, 225 parents…

This study examined the home literacy practices of bilingual families. We were specifically interested in the literacy practices families developed to answer the challenge of biliteracy. Through the home visits and supplying high quality bilingual books, we listened, observed, and gained a deeper understanding of the children and their families…

Because of authentic exposure, study-abroad sojourners are expected to become more proficient in terms of holistic formulaicity (defined as targetlike language use of intensifiers, fillers, multiword sequences, lexical features, verb-argument constructions, pragmatic and discourse features, and so on), use of formulaic sequences, and lexical…

Phonological awareness is the stepping-stone to learning to read as it helps children map language sounds onto letters. Theories of bilingualism posit that phonological awareness is a language-common literacy skill. However, bilingual learners are also thought to build language-specific representations. To illuminate common and specific…

The existing literature on reading motivation primarily focuses on monolingual children and adolescents using quantitative approaches. To date, there is an absence of qualitative studies exploring bilingual college students' reading motivation that can provide details of participants' views, beliefs, and experiences related to reading motivation.…

Dual-language books' (DLBs) two-language format could support biliteracy development, but little is known about how children read them. Fifty-four third and fifth graders read aloud DLBs with English or Spanish first on each page to determine DLBs' potential affordances. Although there were no significant differences in oral reading fluency or…

In a phenomenon known as translanguaging, multilingual learners draw freely from their repertoires without regard for language boundaries. Although multilingual learners live their lives between languages in their communities, science education is just beginning to acknowledge the important role of their hybrid language practices for learning.…

Research on the effects on early bilingualism on reading development is scarce. Here, we tackle this question by investigating whether the exposure to dual-language contexts (use of two languages in the same conversational situation) induces a boost in phonological and reading performance through more balanced spatial auditory attentional skills.…

This article examines young children's perceptions and ideas about their emergent bilingualism drawing on data from an ethnographic case study of the language development of a Head Start classroom. The purpose of this study was to examine the language practices of 4-year-olds in a bilingual (Spanish/English) classroom. The findings discussed in…

In this article I examine the perceptions of third grade minoritized emergent bilinguals (Spanish/English) in a US classroom as they articulate how family members serve as a source of jocularity. By taking a sociocultural perspective on humor as a resource, I seek to render visible the relational and linguistic connections between these students…

This study follows the literacy experiences of four Latina middle schoolers as they read Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and compose home language narratives in their heritage voices. Both their vibrant ethnic cultures and other intersecting rays of identities are analyzed in the vein of their literate identities. Through analysis of their…

The objective of the present study is to analyze word-initial voice onset time (VOT) in the context of code-switching (CS). More specifically, this study combines research methods from sociolinguistics and phonetics to investigate how 32 heritage Spanish speakers (HSSs) of Mexican descent, living in Indiana, produce VOT for /p t k/ in word-initial…

Purpose: Converging evidence demonstrates that robust academic vocabulary and morphology instruction improves literacy outcomes of multilingual adolescents. However, few interventions have focused on teaching word analysis using bound Latin roots, the major meaning-carrying constituents of academic words (e.g. voc meaning "speak" in…