Emergent Literacy

The article, Many Languages, One Teacher: Supporting Language and Literacy Development for Preschool Dual Language Learners, explains to educators how to support the language development in young children who are learning English, how to incorporate Personalized Oral Language Learning (POLL) into the classroom, and how to be intentional about supporting the needs of the English language learners. The four individuals who wrote this article consult programs on dual language learners and have their masters or doctorates in education (Magruder, et al., 2013).

Respecting and recognising children’s bilingual abilities can be socially and cognitively beneficial for young children. Vygotsky (as cited in Garton, 1992) main theory is that speech is derived from social influences then advocates cognitive and linguistic development although, Gee (1996) argues that the assimilation of language is contextual to social, cultural and historical backgrounds this is called ‘sociocultural’; which influences a deeper and meaningful understanding of language. Gee’s argument conceives a more contemporary and deeper understanding for bilingual children’s learning of literacy to be at a social and cognitive integration. Barratt-Pugh (2000) argues the benefits supporting home language in early childhood setting can strengthen children’s self-concept, confidence, and a positive sense of identity. Children are

Language is one of the most fascinating basic structure and function of a person. Did you know that language is one of the most mysterious events as it’s a combination of culture and biology (Schiamberg, 2015)? By the age of two, a child has already gained the basic foundation and two important developmental tasks they will need for their lifetime; the acquisition of language comprehension and expression (Mashburn et. al, 2009). Much of the research for children’s language accomplishments have focused on studying the relationship and exposure between the child and their parent or teacher. For example, research has been done to study the qualities of the preschool classroom, the associations, features, and sensitivity of the teacher’s language

This situation also supports the statement of Lyon(1996) that children become bilingual across the world in many communities and this can play a major part in the families into which they are born, and in their later lives at school. Bilingualism occurs within complex, multi-layered context, but from the child’s point of view the family is where it all begins.

This study was designed in order to analyse how long it takes for a child to start communicating verbally in a second language, and what happens in the process of learning English as an additional language (EAL). Also, it speculates whether the educational system is well prepared to include bilingual children into the class and appropriately care for their special educational needs. There is a lot of existing literature in bilingual development in early year settings, however, it is somehow innovative the fact that the author decided to further look into the educational system and the way it welcomes the bilingual children into education institutions. The need to explore this topic, according to the author, comes from a lack of studies that

This site contains information on 8,000 children across different ages and different levels of cognitive abilities. Three groups of kids with varying parental backgrounds were tested on their cognitive abilities. The three groups were children with two UK parents, two foreign born parents, and one foreign/one UK parent. According to Clifton-Sprigg, it has been established that early education in language influences the child’s ability to learn new skills. This poses the question whether being bilingual will be an advantage or disadvantage to the child. In this case linguists have shared opposing views on whether the child benefits from being bilingualism. Some linguists argue that bilingualism can give a distinct advantage because it improves the understanding of some concepts and improves creative ability. Other linguists offer a different perspective saying that children who are monolingual spend less time learning the language which allows them to pick up other skills easier. An observation done was that a child's linguistic ability is dependent on the parents and how suited they are to teach the child language. Problems become apparent

The title of the professional journal article I chose is, Language and Literacy Development in the Early Years: Foundation skills that support emergent readers. The author of this journal is Brown, Carmen Sherry. This article was published in 2014.

According to Crago, Genesee, and Paradis (2011), amount of second language exposure at home, school, and the community is critical for language development (p.84). This means that it is important for bilingual children to be exposed to an environment where it supports their language development and makes an impact to their development trajectories. As children become familiar to more than one language, they also start having communicated proficiency errors in the way they talk with others (Crago et al., 2011, p.115). For example, grammatical morphemes and language mixing are some errors children make. Children also become familiar with another language depending on the help they get from their psychological and social factors. Another thing

After researching through observation five bilingual children Spanish- English with aged 2; 10, 3; 6, 4; 11, 5; 9 and 6; 2 (year; month) in 5177 utterances in both Spanish and English, and the result had 110 utterances of these children contained language mixing; so, Lindholm and Padilla concluded that “with age, children increasingly differentiate their two language systems” (p.327). As their argument draw out after investigation, Arias and Lakshmanan (2005) had same point,

Development, learning, and motivation are major components that play an important role in how a child acquires language skills. One can see, that many of the principles, theories and research related to a child’s literacy development, revolve around these three major components. To clarify, literacy is communication in any form of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. From my understanding, literacy begins at birth and it progresses as the child grows; in addition, it progresses through the relations of others and the surroundings in which a child lives. In other words, literacy needs to be taught to a child; however, one must consider if the skills are age appropriate. In all honesty, literacy needs to be taught accordingly to how the child is developing

However, pre-service teacher training programs do not prepare teachers to meet the needs of these learners (Samson & Collins). For those few states that do mandate teacher coursework in English language learner pedagogy, teacher preparation courses are underdeveloped, focusing on oral language development (Samson & Collins). In his seminal work in second language acquisition, Cummins (2000) identified two domains of language proficiency, basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). CALP is the indicator of true biliteracy. Biliteracy models that support a child’s first language lead to faster academic proficiency in a second language (Escamilla et al. 2014). Teachers who do not understand second language acquisition will be unable to provide content knowledge to support biliteracy (National Research Council, 2010). Professional development that increases teacher academic and content knowledge of second language acquisition is the first component of literacy reform.

In this essay, I will explain how the language spoken in the family plays a significant role in shaping the language of a child. I agree with this claim because if a child can learn their main language and English at an early age, it can help the child academically. This is because a child can get help in both the school and home settings without a huge struggle. This influence could be either have a positive or negative impact, depending on the child.

Language can play many different roles in our day-to-day life. It’s a means of communication and a way of expressing our needs, wants, feelings and emotions. The purpose of this essay is to firstly highlight the important role language plays in every stage of a child’s life, while also examining the learning processes and cues that are used by children to understand written, oral and visual language. Secondly, discuss what it means for a child to be multiliterate in today’s society as technology continues to increase. And lastly how language ‘arises from cultural and social contexts, and is understood by people in terms of their own social and cultural backgrounds’ (Green, 2006).

There are various factors that affect how proficient the child becomes in the second language, two primary factors are the amount of exposure as well as the quality of the second language (Genesse, Paradis, & Crago, 2011, p.131). Additionally, success in dual language development is determined by linguistic factors, psychological factors, as well as social factors that will be further discussed in terms of Abel’s second language acquisition process.

During the years of language acquisition, the brain stores linguistic information but it also adapts to the grammatical predictabilities of language. (Sakai, 2005) It is classified under Cognitive Psychology and this development builds and enhances a child’s communication skills in their schooling careers. However, if children attend parallel medium schooling, they are likely never to learn and use one language. They will be able to speak and write in both languages which is a positive aspect but they may never have the full vocabulary or grammar rules as they are too busy learning both languages instead of concentrating fully on one. The positive aspects of multilingualism outweighs the negatives as being bilingual broadens one’s opportunities in schooling, especially in tertiary education, as well as one day when they are in search of jobs. A person is that much more employable and more likely to be successful if they are able to participate and communicate effectively in a growing and changing work environment.