BE023752: Literacy Development in Two Languages: Cognitive and Sociocultural Dimensions of Cross Language Transfer.

Notes:

21 p. In: "A Research Symposium on High Standards in Reading for Students from Diverse Language Groups: Research, Practice & Policy. Proceedings." pp. 78-99. (Washington, D.C., April 19 20, 2000). For other papers from the symposium, see BE

Abstract:

This paper provides an overview of literacy development in different linguistic and multilingual contexts. One of the basic but implicit assumptions of bilingual education is that developing literacy proficiency in the first language will transfer to facilitate literacy development in the second language. The paper discusses the evidence in support of this assumption from two different lines of research. The first line of research is on literacy development in other (monolingual) contexts. This research helps identify the universal versus language specific factors of literacy development around the world. The second line of research is on bilingual students and how their proficiencies in the two languages are related to each other. The paper goes on to relate these cognitive underpinnings of transfer to sociocultural contexts of development. Research supports the view that universal factors of literacy development transfer across languages and facilitate biliteracy. The language independence of these processes is encouraging because literacy development in one language can help development in another. Considering these cognitive developments in the contexts of home, school, and culture shows that seeing second language as an asset, rather than a liability to be remediated, is essential. (Contains 87 references.) (SLD)