Finding the Keys to Biliteracy: How Young Children Interpret Different Writing Systems

Review of research on language teaching, learning and policy published in 2004 and 2005

“…in the home and the local community, especially perhaps in the case of bilingual children from ethnic and linguistic minorities. The study by Kenner, Kress, Al-Khatib, Kam & Tsai (2004) focuses on a small number of 10-year-old children who were becoming biliterate in English and in Chinese, Arabic or Spanish. It was found that the children did not become confused between the two systems and managed to cope well with them and to gain some cognitive benefit by being able to look for and understand differences between the two systems.…”

Mandarin maintenance among immigrant children from the People's Republic of China: an examination of individual networks of linguistic contact

“…Linda and her sisters' positive experiences as outstanding learners and competition winners confirm this. However, others might have negative experiences with such 'learning at margins' (Kenner, Kress, Al-Khatib, Kam, & Tsai, 2004). Community-language schools present 'cultures of learning' -'the taken for granted framework of expectations, attitudes, values, beliefs about what constitutes good learning' (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996, p. 196) -that contradict the norms and values at children's public school.…”

“…Parents and teachers could seek to amplify and formalize such communication and exchange. For instance, Kenner et al (2004) encourage children to teach each other HL literacy in classrooms. Not only do children reinforce their HL literacy through learning to teach it, but also grow in pride and respect for each other's HLs.…”

Language and literacy in the context of brain, cognition, and culture

“…Although many studies have examined both mono-scriptal (e.g., English and German) and multiscriptal (e.g., English and Japanese) bilinguals, the differences between them have not been compared systematically. The majority of studies that focus on this type of variability have focused on reading and writing acquisition among immigrant children (e.g., Kenner et al 2004). It is important to extend this type of research to the manner in which literacy as a linguistic faculty, manifests itself in multilingual individuals with varying levels of proficiency in their multiple languages.…”