The goal of the present study was to investigate the performance of four Filipino--English bilingual kindergarteners with language difficulties on a dynamic assessment of English narratives. Using a multiple case-study design, we examined the children's modifiability by detailing their responsiveness, level of skill transfer, and the amount and…

To date, little attention has been paid to the impact of immersion programs on learning interests in a second language (L2). The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of two types of Hakka-Chinese bilingual programs (immersion vs. non-immersion) on L2 learning interests. Four kindergarten teachers (two in each program)…

Both language input and output are important to child language learners' heritage language development. Nevertheless, existing studies mainly focus on language input, leaving the significance of language output underexplored. The current study assessed 201 kindergarteners' Mandarin skills (i.e., receptive vocabulary, receptive grammar, and verbal…

School literacy in North America continues to focus on society's dominant languages. Literacy curriculum -- particularly during early grades -- has an urgency for children to quickly master emergent literacy skills in the official languages, vindicating the exclusion of literacy in other minoritized languages that multilingual children bring to…

During their kindergarten placements, teacher candidates are learning to teach with young children who may be experiencing linguistic and racial hierarchies in a formal institutional setting for the first time. The purpose of this research is to understand how teacher candidates make sense of the socially constructed boundaries of language and…

Cross-language transfer happens in bilingual reading development. However, little is known about whether L1 affects L2 spelling development. In addition, longitudinal studies are needed to examine the L1-L2 relations developmentally from the beginning of literacy learning. We tested whether and which Chinese (L1) literacy-related skill(s) in…

Teacher talk has been found to significantly affect children's early language development during shared book reading; however, the mechanism of such influence remains unclear. The current study has zoomed in on vocabulary development in Mandarin as a heritage language (HL) in Singapore kindergartens, 1) exploring the linguistic features (i.e.…

The relationships between phonological awareness, rapid naming, short term verbal memory, letter knowledge, visual skills and word reading in kindergarten, and the predictive patterns from kindergarten to first grade were examined in 41 Chinese-Dutch bilingual children living in the Netherlands in both their first language (Chinese) and second…

The study examined the role of phonological awareness and morphological awareness in concurrent and subsequent oral vocabulary among Chinese-English bilingual children who learned Chinese as their heritage language and English as their societal language. Ninety-one Chinese-English bilingual children in kindergarten and Grade 1 who were recruited…

The current study examines the relationship between bilingual children's dual language experience (i.e. language input, language output and vocabulary proficiency), and their social-emotional and behavioral skills. Data were analysed from 805 Singaporean bilingual preschoolers (ages 4; 1-5; 8 years), who are learning English and either Mandarin (n…

This study examined the role of the "animated eBook advantage" in child bilingual's Mandarin learning, which has tended to be examined in the acquisition of Germanic languages. With this aim, 102 4- to 5-year-old preschoolers in Singapore were assigned to one of four conditions: (a) animated eBooks (+sound+motion), (b) static eBooks with…

Language and Mathematics are both skills and knowledge that need to master well so that it can be the provision for students' future life when mingling with the community or society. Because of that the integration of teaching both language and Mathematics in bilingual Math learning will give many benefits to the students. They will learn not only…

Rapid automatized naming has been demonstrated as an important correlate of various reading outcomes. However, the cognitive mechanism underlying the RAN-reading relationship is not well understood. The primary goal of this study is to evaluate three major theoretical accounts for the RAN--reading relationship: phonological processing account,…

Smooth transitions through the early years of education are recognised as pivotal to later personal and academic success. However, for children considered outside the mainstream, these transitions can provide extra challenge for them, their families and educators. This paper reveals the findings of two qualitative studies investigating early…

For bilingual children, the results of language and literacy screening tools are often hard to interpret. This leads to late referral for specialized assessment or inappropriate interventions. To facilitate the early identification of reading difficulties in English, we developed a method of screening that is theory-driven yet suitable for…