Numerous studies indicate that the language and literacy development of young children is highly contingent upon the construction of an enriching home literacy environment. Using sociocultural theory as a framework, in this article I explore how a bilingual child's language and literacy acquisition is embedded as a social practice within the home…

Background: Language exposure is known to be a key factor influencing bilingual vocabulary development in typically developing (TD) children. There is, however, a lack of knowledge in terms of exposure effects in children with developmental language disorder (DLD) and, especially, in interaction with age of onset (AoO) of second language…

In teacher training curricula, books are presented as an ideal material for building and enriching young children's language. Yet, the routine of reading at home with children is hardly ever mentioned. In this chapter, the author proposes analyses of story-reading activities from a usage-based and first language acquisition perspective. The goal…

This study employs the Specificity Principle to examine the relative impacts of external (input quantity at home and at school, number of books and reading frequency at home, teachers' degree and experience, language usage, socioeconomic status) and internal factors (children's working memory, nonverbal intelligence, learning-related…