Tres formas: Shared reading practices with three types of Spanish and English dual-language learning preschoolers

Abstract

Shared book reading has positive impacts on language development, yet how it is navigated with young dual-language learning (DLL) children and are read to by adults with varying degrees of bilingual proficiency is less well understood. This study explored differences in shared reading practices among families raising Spanish/English emergent bilingual children. Primary caregivers (n=96) of DLLs between 2-5 years old participated in a survey accessible in either language. Respondents self-reported the primary language used in their homes and were categorized into three groups: Spanish primary language (SPL), English primary language (EPL), or both languages primary (BPL). Respondents answered questions about their own language proficiency, their children’s amount of exposure to English and Spanish, frequency of shared reading in each language, as well as questions about reading quality, parent and child language preferences during reading, and typical patterns of code-switching or translating between the two languages. Survey results indicated firstly that the reported household primary language corresponded to the language dominance experienced by the child, and that including a “both languages primary” category revealed meaningful differences between groups. Secondly, the results demonstrated that shared reading frequency in each language is impacted by household primary language, but that across language dominance groups there were not significant differences in the frequencies of use of dialogic reading strategies or language mixing. These findings illustrate the importance of contextualizing children’s home language environment in order to better understand their pre-literacy experiences. A clearer understanding of children’s home language dominance will aid early educators in building on DLL children’s strengths and meeting their needs in each language as they prepare for school entry.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Families’ Home Literacy Practices with Young Children

“…Many studies have documented the wide range in how often caregivers read with their children in the home. Across samples of varied socio-economic status, age of the target child, and even language(s) used in the household, researchers have found ranges in the frequency of American parents reading aloud at home with their 2-to 5-year-old children as infrequently as a few times per week to as often as several times per day (e.g., Deckner et al, 2006;Malin et al, 2014;Read et al, 2021). Additionally, Deckner et al, (2006) found mothers self-reported the duration of reading sessions ranging from 5 to 60 min at a time.…”