Learning to Read and Write in the Multilingual Family
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This book is a guide for parents who wish to raise children with more than one language and literacy. Drawing on interdisciplinary research, as well as the experiences of parents of multilingual children, this book walks parents through the multilingual reading and writing process from infancy to adolescence. It identifies essential literacy skills at each developmental stage and proposes effective strategies that facilitate multiliteracy, in particular, heritage-language literacy development in the home environment. This book can also be used as a reference for teachers who teach in community heritage language schools and in school heritage (or foreign) language programmes.
How do I teach my child to read and write in our minority languages? Most parents raising multilingual children find themselves asking this question at one point or another. Here is a book chock full with practical advice to help us on this quest! The book offers a wide palette of strategies, ideas, practical activities, reading lists, and real-life examples of how other families did it. The ultimate aim is to help parents develop and implement a literacy plan that meets the needs of their personal multilingual situation. The author covers all ages, from infancy to early and middle childhood to adolescence. In short: there is something in there for everyone!
Xiao-lei Wang is Professor and Acting Dean of the School of Education at Pace University, USA. She is the author of Growing up with Three Languages: Birth to Eleven (Multilingual Matters, 2008) and Learning to Read and Write in the Multilingual Family (Multilingual Matters, 2011). She is a regular speaker on child development and parenting at local, national and international parents’ associations and academic conferences.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Understanding the Multilingual Reading and Writing Process
Chapter 3: The Importance of Active Planning
Chapter 4: Infancy and Early Childhood (Birth–5 Years)
Chapter 5: Middle Childhood (6 -11 Years)
Chapter 6: Adolescence (12 -18 Years)
Chapter 7: Parents’ Practices, Voices, and Concluding Remarks