More to Know: Translanguaging and Building on Language Strengths All students, even those with learning challenges, bring to school a deep knowledge of and facility with their first language. The goal is always to build on linguistic strengths of emerging bilinguals’ first language while supporting them as they learn their target language, English. Learning to read in a second language requires a complex interweaving of students’ cultural, linguistic, and cognitive development, understanding that all three together are imperative for strong second-language growth (Freeman, et al., 2016). Language expert Ofelia Garcia explains “translanguaging” as a practice that enables “bilinguals to draw on their entire linguistic repertoire to make sense of their multilingual worlds.” Here’s a powerful example of translanguaging in action: Moll and his colleagues initiated a series of teaching-learning experiments in which they asked children to read texts in English and then discuss what they had read in Spanish. The results were compelling. Children who appeared to have minimal comprehension of English texts when they were required to discuss these texts in English, revealed rich comprehension when they were allowed to talk about the texts using their native Spanish. Moll and his colleagues worked toward creating a “bilingual zone” in which children were invited to draw on their Spanish- language resources to comprehend and discuss texts they had read in English (Compton-Lilly, 2014). As Robert Jiménez of Vanderbilt writes, “The best teachers of English language learners use what they know about literacy and what they know about their students to build reading and writing skills. They learn about the role of reading and writing in different cultures and communities; they use students’ backgrounds and linguistic skills as a foundation for learning; and they give their students the tools they need to excel” (2014). Claude Goldenberg of Stanford agrees that teaching students to read in their first language (L1) promotes higher levels of reading in English; indeed, the research is indisputable. Nearly three dozen experiments and five meta-analyses of the data have been reported since the 1960s, and all reached the same conclusion: Teaching students to read in their first language promotes reading achievement in their target language (L2) in comparison to teaching students to read in the L2 exclusively. The meta-analyses also concluded, not surprisingly, that primary language instruction promotes higher levels of literacy in the primary language (2011).
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CHAPTER 1: READERS
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