Learning to read in environments with high risk of illiteracy: The role of bilingualism and bilingual education in supporting reading.

Abstract

In multilingual sub-Saharan African countries, many children attend school and learn to read in a language that they do not speak at home. This mismatch between home and school language may contribute to poor learning outcomes, including low literacy rates. Bilingual education that includes a local language of instruction has become more prevalent in an effort to improve primary school children's learning. Indeed, high-quality bilingual programs are associated with favorable language, literacy, and learning outcomes (Berens et al., 2013;Bühmann & Trudell, 2007;Takam & Fassé, 2020). Yet, little is known about how home and school language environments support skilled reading in multilingual communities with low literacy rates. In this study, we assessed primary school children's (N = 830) French and local language (Abidji, Attié, Baoulé, Bété) phonological awareness, vocabulary, and oral language comprehension skills and French reading skills. Further, we explored differences in quality between monolingual French and bilingual local language-French schools that may contribute to differences in children's language and literacy performance. We found that bilingual local language-French homes were associated with better language outcomes than local language-only homes, reflecting advantages associated with early bilingual exposure. On the other hand, monolingual French schools were associated with better language and literacy outcomes than bilingual local language-French schools. We found that monolingual French schools were of higher quality than bilingual schools, likely contributing to the discrepancies in language and literacy results. Our results emphasize the importance of monitoring program quality to allow children to reap the benefits associated with bilingual education. Educational Impact and Implications StatementThe present study suggests that bilingual home environments (French-Ivorian language) are advantageous for children's spoken Ivorian language skills and for their French literacy skills. However, children from monolingual French schools had better spoken language and literacy skills overall than children from bilingual schools. Monolingual schools had access to better resources and greater support, indicating that high quality education is important for children's literacy outcomes.

Home learning environment and physical development impact children’s executive function development and literacy in rural Côte d’Ivoire

“…Overall, 73% of CE1 (Grade 3) students master less than half of the target language, literacy, and mathematics skills for their grade level (UNESCO, 2016). This academic achievement gap is the widest for children in rural areas (UNESCO, 2016), where a high percentage of children cannot read (Ball et al, 2022;Jasińska et al, 2022;Sobers et al, under review). Importantly, rural areas are among the poorest regions in Côte d'Ivoire, and children in these regions may be particularly vulnerable to the negative impact of low-resource environments on educational outcomes.…”

“…Six hundred and thirty children (n=630; 321 boys) between the ages of 6 and 14 years (M=9.56; SD=2.07) in the equivalent of first, third, and fifth grades (1st: n= 124; 3rd: n=255; 5th: n=251) enrolled in 14 public primary schools in Côte d'Ivoire participated in this study. The primary language of instruction in all schools was French, however, six schools incorporated a regional language as a language of instruction (see Ball et al, 2022) Children were part of a larger study examining literacy development in rural communities in Côte d'Ivoire. The data were collected during 2016-2018 in 10 villages in central and southern Côte d'Ivoire.…”

“…Children's literacy skills were measured using timed letter, word, and nonword reading subtests in the French language version of the EGRA (Ball et al, 2022;Jasińska et al, 2022), previously used in Senegal (Gove & Wetterberg, 2011;RTI International, 2015). Before beginning each subtest, children were given a practice trial where the experimenter provided feedback and scaffolding.…”

“…Experimenters marked incorrect items and terminated the task if the child failed to read the first ten items correctly or after 60 seconds had elapsed. These tasks have previously been used in Côte d'Ivoire (Ball et al, 2022;Jasińska et al, 2022;Sobers et al, under review) Letter reading. Children were asked to read 100 letters or combinations of letters (grapheme clusters, e.g., "ch") Word reading.…”

Effective bilingual education in Francophone West Africa: Constraints and possibilities

“…Evidence suggests that bilingual instruction is largely associated with positive learning and literacy outcomes globally (Bühmann & Trudell, 2007;Takam & Fassé, 2020). However, the adoption of bilingual education does not guarantee positive learning outcomes (Ball et al, 2022). The quality of bilingual education programs may be constrained by various factors, including implementation challenges, such as inadequate teacher training and classroom resources, and socio-cultural challenges, such as negative perceptions of local languages in education.…”