Constructs Children Use in Developing First and Second Language Literacy

Abstract

The purpose of this review is to outline the current understanding of the process of emergent literacy development for linguistically diverse children. Within the broad spectrum of emergent literacy and/or home literacy, a small body of literature examines how children come into literacy (reading and writing) in languages other than English. Some tentative themes have emerged from the literature and research reviewed. First, the process of literacy development can be viewed as a sequential developmental task. Some researchers characterize the acquisition of literacy as a “psychogenetic” process. Second, while the literacy development process appears to be generally predictable across languages, some tasks or aspects appear to be specific to the language and writing system. Children create principles or hypotheses to develop literacy specific to their understanding of their native language. Third, children bring these developing emergent literacy experiences to the task of learning English literacy.