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Biliteracy development: A case study
Abstract
Literacy as a process has been the object of study in different languages. Research has also been devoted to literacy development in bilingual settings both in native and second languages. Early bilingualism, has also been studied. However, the research in the area of biliteracy development, is scarce. This is the case study of a bilingual kindergarten child's journey through a year as she tries to accomplish biliteracy although formal literacy instruction was not provided in both languages. The data was gathered through participant observation at home, where Spanish was spoken, and at school, where English was the language of instruction. Informal and formal interviews where also used. Reading Miscue Inventories in English and Spanish were administered twice in the study. Parallels were found between the child's biliteracy development and the studies on literacy with monolingual children implying that literacy as a process is the same across and among languages. Through the process of constructing and reconstructing, through experimentation, creating and confirming hypotheses we observed the child's movement from nonstandard to standard spellings along with the exploration of different genres, styles and uses of writing. The child's strategies developed parallel across both languages, however where the languages differed, the strategies differed too. The child used decoding as an initial Spanish reading strategy because of an early exposure to a phonics approach to English reading, which she transferred to Spanish reading. When the child was exposed to other English reading strategies, she began to use these for Spanish reading. Finally, this study suggested that research findings in the area of bilingual language acquisition are congruent with the study of biliteracy development. Features such as language differentiation, influence of the environment over the language choice, audience sensitivity and the transfer of strategies from one language to another, are present in this study. The use of different theoretical approaches to literacy instruction, along with the need for maintenance programs of bilingual education where holistic theories of literacy instruction are exercised are educational practices recommended by this study.
Subject Area
Early childhood education|Reading instruction|Bilingual education|Language arts
Recommended Citation
Costa, Rocio, "Biliteracy development: A case study" (1992). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9219421.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9219421