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How Bilingual Children Learn to Read

May 6, 2024/in Bilingualism, Curriculum, Language Learning, Parenting /by Tessa School

It is a common misconception that bilingual students might lag behind their monolingual peers in reading proficiency. In fact, decades of research have proved that bilingual students may become advanced readers and show advantages over their peers in a single-language learning environment. With encouragement and practice, bilingual children are able to achieve full biliteracy!

How Bilingualism Puts Readers at An Advantage

Bilingual education enables students to develop key components of successful reading.

Metalinguistic Awareness Development

Research has shown that bilingual children possess more elaborate reading strategies than monolingual children, presumably due to higher metalinguistic skills.

Metalinguistic awareness refers to the ability to reflect upon and manipulate the structure of language. It is a set of skills that are related to multiple linguistic elements, including phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical awareness. To some extent, bilingual children can transfer these skills involved in learning one language to another, consequently accelerating their language learning.

Literacy Acquisition

As bilingual children develop their metalinguistic skills and language proficiency, they can gain further advantages in literacy acquisition. Exposure to multiple languages from a young age enables them to better understand the word structure and build a broader vocabulary range. These foundational capabilities could explain the finding that bilinguals tend to spell more complex vocabulary words in later grades.

“Students in dual-language immersion programs perform as well as, or better than, their peers in core academic content areas by late elementary school. […] By the end of middle school, students in dual-language programs were performing one grade level higher on reading assessments than their peers who were not enrolled in these programs.”
– Researchers from American University, 2016

Cognitive Development

Bilingualism fosters cognitive development, providing students with a robust cognitive reserve. Bilingual individuals typically exhibit stronger working memories and attention spans, contributing to academic and behavioral enhancements. Moreover, their ability to switch between languages cultivates flexible thinking and problem-solving skills. By navigating between different linguistic systems, bilingual students become adept at critically evaluating and resolving complex tasks.

Bridging the Gap: How Bilingual Children Excel in Reading Over Time

Bilingual children’s journey to reading proficiency is shaped by unique factors, including their exposure to two languages. Research shows that bilingualism does not confuse or delay reading development—in fact, it can lead to advantages over monolingual peers. For instance, children exposed to two languages from birth (simultaneous bilinguals) often outperform monolinguals in phonological awareness tasks, such as identifying or manipulating sounds in words. Meanwhile, children who acquire a second language later, such as sequential bilinguals learning English in school, may initially rely more heavily on vocabulary skills. However, by the fourth grade, these sequential bilinguals typically catch up to their peers, demonstrating no lasting disadvantages in reading development. This highlights the resilience and adaptability of bilingual learners as they navigate two linguistic systems, ultimately fostering stronger cognitive and language skills.

How to Help Bilingual Students Gain Reading Fluency

Our teacher helps students in literacy acquisition.

With sufficient support, students can boost their reading abilities in both languages.

Even though bilingual education can provide students with many unique strengths, without proper instruction, their literacy in one language may become stunted. Here is a list of possible methods that adults can use to promote their students’ reading skills:

Recognize differences between the languages that may confuse emergent bilingual students. For example, extra support may be necessary for English-speaking students learning the Chinese writing system.
Select strategically between the simultaneous and sequential dual-language programs for students. For instance, the Immersion Progression Model at Tessa International School facilitates a smooth transition from full immersion to balanced bilingual education, ensuring optimal language development.
Assign reading tasks in both languages to reinforce literacy skills across all languages in a student’s repertoire.
Encourage students to read aloud to each other, providing opportunities for collaboration and confidence-building.
Engage families in students’ bilingual language development by providing take-home library books and other resources to strengthen language skills outside the classroom.

Fostering positive attitudes toward bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism is essential for creating optimal learning environments. While the journey may differ from traditional monolingual learning, bilingual education offers unique advantages that empower bilingual children to excel in reading and language skills for a lifetime.

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The Bilingual Student Advantage in STEM Learning

July 15, 2019/in Bilingualism, Language Learning, Teaching and Learning, Technology /by Jamie Kreps

It’s no secret that language and literacy are the cornerstones to education. The more communicatively proficient your child becomes, the greater their overall educational experience becomes. This is because knowing how to communicate effectively is the basis for all learning subjects.

It goes without saying then, that by increasing your child’s language and literacy skills – say by adding a second language – you’re increasing their cognitive ability overall. In fact, more and more studies have discovered that bilingual children show signs of significantly higher comprehension across all academic subjects than their monolingual counterparts.

The Bilingual Advantage

According to NPR.org, “People who speak two languages often outperform monolinguals on general measures of executive function.” In layman’s terms, bilingual children are adept at deciding when to use each language, giving them a higher level of focus and cognitive abilities than children who speak one language.

Executive function control allows children to decipher speech – the basis for all learning – at a much greater level of authority. Since they are forced to consider each individual speaking circumstance to determine which language to use in each situation, bilingual children gain greater insight. This insight transpires into skills such as problem-solving, decoding, focus, and the ability to read social and environmental cues – all of which are prime skills for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) learning.

STEM Learning

STEM learning has long been a focus of educators and professionals across the globe. Studying the areas which are responsible for things such as medical advancements, scientific discoveries, pharmaceutical breakthroughs and global structural components are clearly an important set of studies.

There is a reason these areas are so important – they are complex and critical to the advancement of civilization as a whole. With such a complex set of subjects, many parents ask if there is any way to give their child an advantage as they introduce STEM subjects to their little ones.

Bilingual Bonus

You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that bilingualism is a fantastic way to prepare your child for future STEM studies. Going back to communication and language as the core for all learning, it’s easy to understand how a child who is highly proficient in literacy and language studies would have a smoother time picking up complex STEM studies.

“Bilingual children are able to focus more intently on the topics at hand and avoid distractions from academic pursuits. They are also able to demonstrate higher levels of cognitive flexibility, or the ability to change responses based on environment and circumstances,” reports TheAdvocate.org.

This ability to change responses and remain focused easily translates to better understanding things like scientific hypotheses and mathematical equations. The cognitive flexibility gives way to a deeper academic experience across all STEM studies in general.

Overall, the bilingual child is equipped with brain functions more powerful than others. This allows them to continue grasping more complex subjects and concepts throughout their lives. Their puzzle-solving, highly focused minds will pick up STEM subjects on a level high enough to sustain years of continued study and understanding.

Improving Your Child’s Language and Literacy Skills

July 1, 2019/in Language Learning, Parenting, Teaching and Learning /by Jamie Kreps

Few things are as critical to a child’s educational success as a firm grasp on language and literacy skills. The ability to communicate effectively crosses over into every area of study your child will embark upon in their lifetime. This fact alone makes these skills crucial to their future ability to grasp complex subjects.

The Importance of Language and Literacy Skills

Being proficient in one or more languages has unparalleled benefits that will be seen across the board in your child’s education. Since language is the basis for all teaching efforts (and also the key to communicating effectively overall), it’s understandable why it’s such an important skill to hone.

The importance of language and literacy skills go well beyond the communication aspect, however. Students who focus on deepening their language base will find themselves gaining proficiencies in their other studies as well.

According to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), students who excel in language and literacy show:

Greater test scores on standard tests
Higher levels of focus and understanding
Increased ability to grasp scientific hypotheses
Higher ACT and SAT scores
Greater problem-solving capabilities

These are just a few of the ways in which language and linguistics will lend to the greater overall educational success of your child. Since language development requires children to hone their focusing skills, they will then be able to apply the same level of focus to their other studies.

Literacy Learning Techniques

Whether your child is focusing on one language or multilingual studies, they will have set coursework within their classroom. It’s certainly no surprise that teachers have lesson plans for their students, but you may be surprised to learn how much things have changed since your days in the classroom.

Evidence has shown students respond well to teaching methods that incorporate several different learning aids. Some of these include items that can be used as visual props while others could use online programs and themed learning (animal week, gardening week, etc.).

The key to language learning in the classroom, however, is a focus on interactive conversational opportunities. It’s less about learning grammar rules and more about learning to actually communicate.

“The primary purpose of language is communication – grammar is important, but there’s a bigger picture. Language is no longer seen as being learned through mechanical exercises, it’s developed through students interacting and engaging,” explains Huw Jarvis, a professor at the University of Salford’s School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science.

According to Jarvis, motivation is the most critical component to driving a student’s interest in language learning. Since students tend to learn faster through immersion in situations which require them to find ways to communicate, allowing them to choose their own medium gives way to a greater desire to learn.

Developing a Desire to Learn at Home

In order to truly give your child the full-on immersion experience, it’s critical to continue the language and literacy learning experience outside of the classroom as well. Most parents understand that a child’s educational success is a multi-faceted experience that involves both home life and school life.

So how do we go about providing our children with enriching language learning experiences at home? Engage them and motivate them – it’s as simple (or as complex) as that.

“The best method is the method you like… Languages cannot be taught, they can only be learned,” explains Language Consultant, Luca Lampariello.

Finding out what motivates your child to learn at home involves a basic trial and error process. Unless you’ve already figured out how to motivate your child (and if so, kudos!), you may need to engage in some simple activities with them to see what they like. Find out what drives them to want to learn more.

Finding Out What Motivates Your Child

One of the simplest ways you can help your child nurture a desire to learn and excel with language and literacy is by different communicative experiences at home. Talk to them. Sing to them. Create stories with them involved. Allow your child to “read” you a story by telling you what’s going on in the sequential pictures. There are endless ways to involve them in language learning at home.

The National Center on Improving Literacy explains that by simple daily communication efforts at home, parents can help their child improve their language learning immensely. Daily communications can be as simple as a pointed discussion about their day (asking specific questions to get them to think and give detailed answers), or as thorough as labeling items at home for a language visual.

“Engage in joint reading, drawing, singing, storytelling, reciting, game playing, and rhyming. When joint reading, you and your child take turns reading parts of a book. When reading, ask her to connect the story… Give positive feedback and ask open-ended questions during joint reading to boost her interest and critical thinking skills.” – ImprovingLiteracy.org

By including daily language activities such as reading and storytelling, you’ll gain insight into what interests your child the most. Find stories that inspire them and pique their curiosity – this will help give them a stronger drive to learn more. Asking pointed questions on the topic will encourage them to focus on the task and go deeper for a greater understanding. No matter the topic, that will give way to an overall improved language and literacy experience.

A More Complete Learning Experience

If you want to apply a more direct learning approach at home, speak with your child’s teacher to discuss what methods are utilized in the classroom. Educators are usually more than willing to speak with parents about their teaching methods and how they can be enhanced at home.

You can also take a closer look in their bookbags to gain some insight into what they’re focusing on in the classroom. If you see they have a themed week at school, try continuing the theme at home. As examples, if they have a color theme for a week, use corresponding color foods in dinner plans, colored bath water, or planned outfits for school to bring up topics later.

They key to continuing language and literacy learning at home is to simply communicate. Communicate with your children about their days or share a good story with them. Communicate with their teachers to learn any tips or subject ideas to coordinate home learning themes and techniques with classroom learning. Above all, the most important thing you can do to help your child develop their language skills is to continue to engage them in communication. Talk with your kids and talk often – it’s that simple!