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…

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…

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…

In an era of globalization and global migration multilingualism represents a central educational goal for international political institutions and educational systems. However, except for bilingual schooling programs, institutionalized learning usually takes place monolingually, especially in Europe. Peer-Learning seems to be a promising method…

Reading comprehension in bilingual children depends on the extent to which each language is used in daily life. To date, most bilingual studies have focused on children who learn the majority language as their second language (L2 bilingual children). In contrast, bilingual children learning the majority language as their first language (L1…

Background: Upper elementary grade students encounter increasingly complex texts with abundant morphologically complex words. Despite the positive effects of morphology-based vocabulary instruction, emergent bilinguals with limited word reading skills may need additional support. Methods: This study investigated the effects of morphological…

Over the last decade, unprecedented numbers of students of Mexican origin have been transitioning from the U.S. to Mexico. The presence of these students in Mexican schools has raised concerns regarding the challenges they face and the possible squandering of their linguistic and cultural asset. In this article, we contribute to an understanding…

This paper reports on the process of developing an original framework for conceptualising and measuring language learner well-being within the context of heritage language (HL) learning. Drawing on a quantitative validation study with 545 young Chinese heritage language (CHL) learners, aged 7-18, in the UK, this paper presents an empirically…

In all, 15 Latina mothers participated in a 10-week bilingual family reading project implemented at a public elementary school in rural Texas. Convivencia and pláticas were critical components for the implementation of the family reading project. Thus, the research question guiding the present article is as follows: How can pláticas with Latina…

Arabic is a diglossic language, where two language varieties are used: spoken Arabic (SpA) and standard Arabic (StA). The words may be "identical" (maintaining the same phonological expression in the SpA and StA) or "unique" to StA). This study examined the effect of diglossia on reading according to the lexical distance…

Purpose: Typically developing (TD) bilingual children usually produce narratives with preserved macrostructure (i.e., narrative scheme) but with impaired microstructure (i.e., language complexity). As for monolingual and bilingual children with developmental language disorder (DLD), they usually produce narratives with both impaired macro- and…

Translanguaging theory re-conceptualizes the linguistic systems and practices of multilinguals as well as multilingual classroom pedagogies. While many studies have documented translanguaging in bilingual classrooms, there is little discussion about how translanguaging can advance the field of heritage language education. This paper shares…