In this secondary research study, we investigate the text/identity/curriculum work enacted in a primary university-school project with third-grade children in Québec who were engaged in inquiry into children's rights through bilingual text production. Drawing on sociocultural perspectives of language and identity as well as translanguaging, we…

Purpose: This study investigated the extent to which comprehension monitoring in children's first and second language predicts reading comprehension. Method: Children's ability to detect inconsistencies in orally presented stories was measured by response to a judgment question about whether the story made sense and by the identification of the…

This mixed-methods study was designed to examine how different home literacy environments shape gender differences in Chinese-Canadian first graders' (N = 76) bilingual lexical attainment and literacy engagement. Quantitative analyses indicated that girls outperform boys in both Chinese (L1) and English (L2) vocabulary. Gender differences were not…

Fostering target language use in second language classrooms is a persistent challenge for teachers. A lack of specific guidelines in curriculum documents, inexperience with a wide variety of pedagogical approaches, and the tendency to default to English have been documented as reasons behind this challenge. Strategies from the neurolinguistic…

This study examined the performance of Mandarin-speaking students in a K-Grade 4 50/50 Chinese/English bilingual program. The program was intended to facilitate students' learning of English and their adjustment to English-medium instruction within the school context. The bilingual-program students were compared to students from Mandarin-speaking…

This Information Capsule summarizes the research on Structured English Immersion (SEI) programs. Most school districts use either the SEI or Bilingual Education (BE) model to instruct elementary level English Language Learners (ELLs). In SEI programs, ELLs receive all or most of their instruction in English. BE programs provide instruction in two…

This study investigates the relationships between the observed quality of classroom teaching assessing Atmosphere, Instruction, Management and Student Engagement, ("AIMS," Roehrig, A. D., and E. Christesen. 2010. 'Development and Use of a Tool for Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness in Grades K-12.' In "Innovative Assessment for the…

This study compares the English and French proficiencies of three groups of early French immersion participants at the Grade 6 level: Canadian-born English-speaking, Canadian-born multilingual, and immigrant multilingual students. In addition to English and French multi-skills tests, the participants completed a questionnaire designed to gather…

Chinese children of immigrant families are often perceived as good at memorization and rote learning or as polite, obedient, and passive students lacking creativity and criticality. Guided by Multiple Literacies Theory and translanguaging, this study explores how Chinese children in a Mandarin-English bilingual program skillfully navigate…

Guided by post-structural perspectives of identities as processes of becoming and transculturation and transnationalism, this study explores how multilingual students in a Mandarin-English bilingual programme form their sense of identities in a dynamic process. Multiple forms of data are collected, including observations, interviews and documents.…

Informed by current notions of dynamic bilingualism and the community of practice (C of P) framework, this study was designed as an ethnographic case study to explore peer collaboration in an English/Chinese bilingual program in a city in Western Canada. The main participants in the study were three Grade 5 English/Chinese bilingual students. The…

Research has demonstrated that second language immersion is an effective means of facilitating primary school students' second language acquisition without undermining their competence in their first language. Despite the rapid growth of Chinese-English bilingual programmes in China, limited empirical research has been conducted thus far by which…

The study reported on in this paper investigated the concurrent development of spelling in children learning two languages. The study compared over time and between languages the types of spelling errors made in English as a first language and French as a second. Fortyseven grade one English-speaking children completed an English and French…

Argues, on the basis of research carried out in Canada and Belgium, that not only does the formal learning of the ancestral language in school enhance the overall cognitive abilities of immigrant children but also constitutes the optimal means by which such children can gain literacy in the dominant language. (37 references) (MDM)

Responds to Grace Feuerverger's article on literacy intervention. The authors argue that uncritical use of multilingual resources is unlikely to result in significant improvement in students' literacy. They outline problems inherent in the use of multilingual materials and reasons for international cooperation in this area. (14 references)…