Critical Language Awareness (CLA) instruction can and should be a part of K-12 education. This study reports on a CLA unit taught to Spanish-English bilingual 5th graders enrolled in a dual language bilingual classroom in the southwest U.S. Scores from a pretest and three posttests administered throughout the school year were compared to peer…

Purpose: The study tested macro- and microstructure narrative skills in kindergarten Arabic-speaking children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and in age-matched children with typical language development (TLD). Specifically, it compared narrative skills in the two groups of children in two story modes: storytelling in Spoken Arabic…

This qualitative study explores the language ideologies of three elementary Spanish/English Dual Language teacher candidates (DLTCs) within the contexts of an elementary Teacher Education (ELTEP) program and their field placements in Dual Language Bilingual Education (DLBE) classrooms. Using language ideologies and Bourdieu's conceptualization of…

Purpose: This study used structural equation modeling to investigate the dimensionality of language in Spanish-English bilingual kindergartners. Five theoretical models were compared, including (a) a unidimensional model; (b) a two-dimensional model by language (Spanish, English); (c) a three-dimensional model by domain of language (phonology,…

This article draws on qualitative data from a Two-Way Immersion Spanish environment classroom to explore how African American students lived experiences, language, and cultural practices are regulated and/or constrained. Drawing on the theoretical framework of Bahktin's heteroglossia and raciolinguistics, the authors present two distinct…

Little systematic attention has been paid toward belonging for young children, particularly in contexts of diversity that are regularly part of school settings. Two-Way immersion (TWI) programs provide one educational context ideally suited for exploring the constructs of belonging and inclusion in linguistically and culturally diverse settings.…

As classrooms worldwide become diverse, the ways teachers engage children in literacy learning must be inclusive to accommodate the multitude of languages spoken. Multimodal literacy practices using digital tools provide innovative opportunities for emergent bilinguals to express their meaning-making processes. This paper details a year-long…

Many studies have explored how Language-Minority Bilingual Children (LMBC) read and comprehend, while the way they learn to spell and write has received less attention. This study aimed to assess a comprehensive profile of spelling and writing skills in LMBC, comparing performances of 4th and 5th grade bilingual (n = 74) and monolingual (n = 131)…

In this Action & Learning article, we describe the connections between the popular Spanish nursery song "Los pollitos dicen" (The Little Chicks Say) and Aesop's fable's "The Fox and Hen" with the literacy teaching of bilingual Latinx students. In this metaphor, the bilingual teachers represent the Mamá Gallina (Mother Hen)…

Background: Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) are reported to have word spelling difficulties. These findings concern monolingual children with DLD; little is known about bilingual children with DLD. We examined word spelling abilities of bilingual children with DLD to determine if bilingualism is an additional risk factor for…

In a phenomenon known as translanguaging, multilingual learners draw freely from their repertoires without regard for language boundaries. Although multilingual learners live their lives between languages in their communities, science education is just beginning to acknowledge the important role of their hybrid language practices for learning.…

Research on the effects on early bilingualism on reading development is scarce. Here, we tackle this question by investigating whether the exposure to dual-language contexts (use of two languages in the same conversational situation) induces a boost in phonological and reading performance through more balanced spatial auditory attentional skills.…

This qualitative case study explores how rural teachers in the Colombian periphery perceive and appropriate national bilingual policies. I drew theoretically on coloniality/decoloniality, bilingualism, and teacher agency and collected data through questionnaires and in-depth interviews from four self-contained rural elementary school teachers.…

Purpose: Word learning requires the creation of phonological and semantic representations and links in long-term memory. Phonological distance of a given word from the spoken language affects children's lexical-phonological representations and processing. The study investigates the role of the phonological distance of Modern Standard Arabic (StA)…

This article presents an ethnographic case study of how deficit beliefs shape the ways teachers call upon Latinx emergent bilinguals and families to engage in the schooling process. Informed by theories of language socialization, this study examines how one second-grade bilingual teacher called upon students and families of Mexican origin to…