ABSTRACT

In the past few decades, literature has consistently suggested that bilingual children are at risk for academic failure due to their limited language skills. However, many of these studies included underprivileged bilingual children, and few of them attempted to disentangle the effects of bilingualism from the effects of socio-economic status. Critically, it is not clear how the language and literacy skills of bilingual children develop when they benefit from home support. This paper presents the case study of a child who emigrated from Romania to the United States at the age of 4.8 and enrolled in preschool with no prior knowledge of English. With support from his family, by the end of the 4th grade, his English vocabulary was 2.5 standard deviations above national norms (11th grade level equivalent), and all other standardized language and reading comprehension measures placed him between the 82nd and the 99th percentile. This study suggests that the socio-economic status (in general) and the home language and literacy environment (in particular) has the potential to play an important role in the language and literacy development of bilingual children.

摘要

在过去的几十年中，文献一直表明双语儿童由于语言技能有限而面临学业失败的风险。然而，其中许多研究包括贫困的双语儿童，很少有人试图将双语的影响与社会经济地位的影响分开。至关重要的是，当双语儿童从家庭支持中受益时，他们的语言和识字能力如何发展尚不清楚。本文介绍了一个儿童的案例研究，该儿童在 4.8 岁时从罗马尼亚移民到美国，并在没有任何英语基础的情况下就读于学前班。在家人的支持下，到四年级结束时，他的英语词汇量比国家标准高出 2.5 个标准差（相当于 11 年级水平），和所有其他标准化语言和阅读理解测量使他处于第 82 和第 99 个百分位之间。这项研究表明，社会经济地位（一般而言）和家庭语言和读写环境（特别是）有可能在双语儿童的语言和读写能力发展中发挥重要作用。