The aim of the study was to examine which predictor variables are related to literacy skills among monolingual Swedish (n = 269) and bilingual Finnish-Swedish (n = 229) children at the first grade in the Swedish-speaking schools in Finland. The participants were assessed in phonological awareness, letter knowledge, rapid automatized naming (RAN),…

In this longitudinal study, we examined what kind of profiles of reading fluency and spelling skills could be identified among pupils (N = 467) and how stable these profiles were during the first three years of school. We also investigated how monolingual (Swedish) and simultaneously bilingual (Finnish-Swedish) pupils and gender were distributed…

This article concerns how teachers can use physical artefacts as mediating means to support emergent bilingual students' learning in science class. The data consist of non-participant observations in a Swedish 3rd grade (9-10 years old) class working with electricity. All students were bilingual, but in different minority languages and the teacher…

This article investigates the language orientations in education policy documents for early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Finland and Norway. Finland, an officially bilingual country, and Norway, a predominantly monolingual country, share similar views on ECEC. However, the ECEC field in both countries has undergone major changes in…

This paper explores language practice in early childhood education for children new to the majority language, discussing how language practice can be transformed through actions such as reflexive dialogues with educators. In a Swedish action-research project, educators and researchers collaborated in reflexive dialogues to develop language…

This paper examines the strategies monolingual teachers use to scaffold meaning and encourage and enhance verbal communication with emergent bilingual children in a Swedish mainstream preschool. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a preschool group in which seven of twelve children spoke Swedish as their second, additional language.…

Educational partnerships occur at the intersection of early childhood education and care (ECEC), families, and the surrounding community, and have been shown to play a significant role in student success rates in education. There is, however, a gap in research on the role and potential of "partnership" in the case of bilingual families…