General and specific benefits of bi-literate bilingualism: a Russian–Hebrew study of beginning literacy

Leikin, Mark; Schwartz, Mila; Share, David L.

doi:10.1007/s11145-009-9210-x

Cited by 37 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Comeau et al (1999) demonstrated this type of cross-language transfer between French reading and English phonological awareness in immersion children, as did Kovelman et al (2008) in children attending Spanish-English bilingual schools, and Leikin, Schwartz and Share (2010) in biliterate (Russian-Hebrew) children in Grade 1. Children in immersion in this study were learning to read in both French and English.…”

Section: Immersion and Phonological Awarenessmentioning

confidence: 69%

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French immersion experience and reading skill development in at-risk readers

Kruk

Reynolds

2011

J. Child Lang.

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We tracked the developmental influences of exposure to French on developing English phonological awareness, decoding and reading comprehension of English-speaking at-risk readers from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Teacher-nominated at-risk readers were matched with not-at-risk readers in French immersion and English language programs. Exposure to spoken French phonetic and syllabic forms and to written French orthographic and morphological forms by children attending French immersion programs was expected to promote phonological, decoding and reading comprehension achievement. Growth in all outcomes was found, with children in immersion experiencing higher final status in phonological awareness and more rapid growth and higher final status in decoding, using multilevel modeling. At-risk readers in French immersion experienced faster growth and higher final status in reading comprehension. Benefits to reading of exposure to an additional language are discussed in relation to cross-language transfer, phonological grain size and enhanced executive control processes.

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Section: Immersion and Phonological Awarenessmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…Comeau et al, 1999;Deacon et al, 2007 ;2009 ;Leikin et al, 2010). Cross-language transfer of orthographic and morphological knowledge to emerging English decoding and reading comprehension in immersion can be established definitively if these skills were assessed in French (e.g.…”

Section: Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

French immersion experience and reading skill development in at-risk readers

Kruk

Reynolds

2011

J. Child Lang.

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“…Additionally, formal reading and writing instruction had just begun for the children, all of whom were in kindergarten. It has been suggested that, once formal schooling in English has been underway for a year or more (i.e., by the end of first grade), bilingual children often rapidly lose proficiency in their heritage language (Leikin, Schwartz, & Share, 2010). Thus, the impact of their heritage language on syntactic awareness may be lessened with additional years of formal schooling.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examination of monolingual (English) and bilingual (English/Spanish; English/Urdu) children's syntactic awareness

et al. 2019

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In this study, monolingual (English) and bilingual (English/Spanish, English/Urdu) five- and six-year-old children completed a grammaticality judgment test in order to assess their awareness of the grammaticality of two types of syntactic constructions in English: word order and gender representation. All children were better at detecting grammatically correct and incorrect word order constructions than gender constructions, regardless of language group. In fact, bilingualism per se did not impact the results as much as receptive vocabulary range. For example, children with the highest receptive vocabulary scores were more accurate in detecting incorrect word order constructions (i.e., word order violations, semantic anomalies) and incorrect gender agreement than children in the lower receptive vocabulary ranges. However, no differences were found between the ranges for ambiguous gender constructions. These results highlight the importance of receptive vocabulary ability on syntactic awareness performance, regardless of language group.

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“…For example, one practice that was highly valued in rural Ethiopian culture (as it has been in other similar oral cultures) was story telling that involved word play (Schleifer 2007). However, a related study based on in-depth parent interviews with Ethiopian parents (Segal 2006) reported that with the immigration to Israel, the community faced changes in cultural institutions, family dynamics and living arrangements, and these rich cultural resources and institutions have been gradually depleted. The Ethiopian immigrant parents have stopped transmitting this cultural knowledge using traditional modes of communication.…”

Section: A Communal Perspective: Poverty Cultural Resources and Emementioning

confidence: 99%

Emergent literacy in children of immigrants coming from a primarily oral literacy culture

Shany

Geva

Melech-Feder³

2010

WL&L

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This study examined emergent literacy skills of 61 kindergarten children whose families had immigrated to Israel from a primarily oral society (Ethiopia). Three complementary perspectives were examined: developmental patterns, individual differences, and the contribution of parent literacy. The emergent literacy skills of children whose families were from Ethiopia were compared to those of 52 children coming from a primarily literate culture. The groups had acquired less complex Hebrew literacy skills in the same order, including phonological awareness, letter naming and consonant writing. However, the Ethiopian Israeli children were less proficient on various aspects of Hebrew language proficiency, and less familiar with aspects of cultural and environmental literacy. Most were also unable to speak or comprehend Amharic. In both groups, phonological awareness explained individual differences in letter naming, but vocabulary and syntactic knowledge added to the explained variance only in the Ethiopian Israeli group. Letter naming was associated with consonant writing in both groups. Hebrew oral and written language proficiency of Ethiopian Israeli mothers was positively correlated with literacy skills in their children. The results underscore the importance of distinguishing between less complex, modularized, aspects of emergent literacy and more complex literacy skills. Here the cumulative effects of poverty, oral home culture, parental inability to mediate language and literacy, and non-optimal conditions for becoming bilingual place young immigrant children at risk for academic failure early on.

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General and specific benefits of bi-literate bilingualism: a Russian–Hebrew study of beginning literacy

Cited by 37 publications

References 42 publications

French immersion experience and reading skill development in at-risk readers

French immersion experience and reading skill development in at-risk readers

Examination of monolingual (English) and bilingual (English/Spanish; English/Urdu) children's syntactic awareness

Emergent literacy in children of immigrants coming from a primarily oral literacy culture

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