LING 2P99 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Signify, Explicit Knowledge, Regression Analysis
30 Jun 2018
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● Three prerequisite skills for the acquisition of literacy are competence with the oral
language, understanding of symbolic concepts of print, and establishment of
metalinguistic awareness
○ A review of the literature explores the extent to which these skills that influence
literacy acquisition in monolinguals develop differently for bilingual children. The
conclusion is that the relation between bilingualism and the development of each
of the three skills is different, sometimes indicating an advantage (concepts of
print), sometimes a disadvantage (oral language competence), and sometimes
little difference (metalinguistic concepts) for bilingual children
● Some aspects of reading ability, notably phonological awareness, are rooted in general
cognitive mechanisms and transfer easily across languages, whereas others, such as
decoding, are more language dependent and language-specific and need to be
relearned with each new writing system
● Writing systems and the differences between them have a great impact on children’s
acquisition of literacy
○ This relation has been found for emerging ability with phonological awareness
and it has been shown to have a subtle influence on children’s emerging
concepts of print
● adult bilinguals display disadvantages on tasks measuring lexical retrieval and fluency,
but advantages on tasks assessing cognitive control of attention
● The research can be grouped into three categories, each addressing a different issue:
○ each research paradigm identifies a skill that is part of the background for the
acquisition of literacy by bilingual children and corresponds to a skill known to
support the acquisition of literacy by monolingual children
○ the acquisition of literacy by bilingual children in a weak language
■ Much of this research has been conducted from the perspective of
educational policy by studying children for whom the language of
schooling is not the same as the language of the home
● These children typically achieve lower levels of reading
competence than do their peers and require between 4 and 7
years to reach grade-level standards in academic and literacy
achievement
● Although better than their literacy skills, the oral language skills of
these children also lag behind those of their monolingual peers
and require between 2 and 5 years to achieve age norms.
● More important, however, is that the social and educational
background of these children may compromise their ability to
acquire literacy, irrespective of language proficiency
● Sometimes acquisition of literacy in a weak language takes place
in a context that is socially and educationally supportive, such as
Immersion programs
○ These children are learning literacy skills in a weak
language at the same time as they are learning to read in
their strong language, and the transfer of skills from the
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dominant language facilitates literacy in the weaker
language, obscuring any effect that bilingualism per se
might have imparted. Instead, individual differences in
reading ability monopolize the variance.
■ Both proficiency and opportunities for use contribute to children’s
acquisition of literacy in a second language
■ The studies investigating children learning to read in a weak language
highlight the importance of oral language proficiency
○ the acquisition of literacy by monolingual children in different languages
■ The analyses include descriptions of the language structure, type of
writing system, and nature of the orthography to explain how reading is
acquired. The assumption is that details of these structures and their
interactions in orthography determine the prerequisite skills children
require and the ease with which reading can be acquired for that specific
language
■ Bilingualism, therefore, will play a role in learning to read if these
languagespecific skills transfer across languages. Thus, bilingual children
may benefit through transfer or delay through interference when learning
to read in one of their languages. Some of these language-specific effects
that follow from learning to read two orthographically dissimilar languages
■ the studies comparing reading acquisition in different languages point to
the specific concepts of spoken and written forms needed to read in a
given system
○ the cognitive and linguistic components of fluent reading in a second language.
■ These include the contribution of linguistic knowledge of the second
language, literacy knowledge from the first language, and conceptual
knowledge of the material
■ Durguno˘glu (1997) reported more reliable correlations between second-
language reading proficiency and literacy knowledge in the first language
than between second-language reading proficiency and oral knowledge of
the second language, suggesting that these factors are even more
important than oral proficiency in the language of reading
■ two competing proposals
● the acquisition of literacy is propelled by general cognitive and
linguistic development, making literacy levels equivalent in all of
the child’s languages
● literacy emerges out of specific knowledge of the linguistic forms
and orthographic principles of individual languages and is unique
to each of the child’s languages
○ Factors such as orthographic depth, for example,
determine what strategies children will need to use when
learning to read the language and the success they will
achieve as they acquire these skills
■ the studies exploring cognitive components of reading identify the
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specialized cognitive and metalinguistic processes essential for fluent
reading
● When children learn to read, there is an epiphanic moment in which they realize that text
represents meanings. This insight sets the stage for children to learn about the formal
structures that are the key to uncovering those meanings.
● If the oral proficiency needed for reading requires specialized experiences rather than
simple conversational fluency, then some of those experiences may be lacking in one of
the languages of the bilingual child. The distinction between concepts of sound and print
that are unique to each language may facilitate or impede bilingual children in their
attempt to master the literate forms of one or both languages. The specialization of the
cognitive and linguistic processes necessary for reading may be affected by the
children’s experience in learning two languages
○ it is through the development of these foundational concepts that literacy is
supported
■ acquiring and structuring two language systems can affect the child’s
development of these underlying concepts.
● Research with monolinguals has demonstrated that literacy builds out of (a) oral
competence with the literary (discourse) forms of language, (b) conceptual development
that includes understanding the symbolic notational systems of print, and (c)
metalinguistic insights that allow children to achieve awareness of the phonological
forms of language
○ Each influenced by bilingualism
■ Bilingual children will undoubtedly have different levels of oral proficiency
in their different languages
■ Monolingual children must establish concepts of sound, word, and the
function of print before they can read; because these units are different
across languages, bilingual children must acquire the appropriate
representations for each language they are learning to read
■ For monolingual children, the primary challenge for metalinguistic
understanding is in phonological awareness; for second-language
reading, it includes as well the strategies and insights (including
phonological) that are specific to reading different languages. Bilingualism
has previously been shown to enhance the development of such
metalinguistic insights
○ As each of these skills develops, bilingualism may facilitate its acquisition,
interfere with its establishment, or have no effect on its normal progress in
preparing the child for literacy. The purpose of this review is to examine each of
the three skills required by monolingual children in learning to read and consider
their development by bilinguals
Language Proficiency
● Children with higher levels of oral proficiency and more elaborated vocabulary read more
easily than their less proficient peers
○ learning to read also facilitates the development of oral language proficiency
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Document Summary
Three prerequisite skills for the acquisition of literacy are competence with the oral language, understanding of symbolic concepts of print, and establishment of metalinguistic awareness. A review of the literature explores the extent to which these skills that influence literacy acquisition in monolinguals develop differently for bilingual children. Writing systems and the differences between them have a great impact on children"s acquisition of literacy. This relation has been found for emerging ability with phonological awareness and it has been shown to have a subtle influence on children"s emerging concepts of print. Adult bilinguals display disadvantages on tasks measuring lexical retrieval and fluency, but advantages on tasks assessing cognitive control of attention. The research can be grouped into three categories, each addressing a different issue: Each research paradigm identifies a skill that is part of the background for the acquisition of literacy by bilingual children and corresponds to a skill known to support the acquisition of literacy by monolingual children.
