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Inquiry Proposal--Bilingual Literacy Programs in Early Education
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I want to look at bilingual literacy programs in early education (preschool and kindergarten). I’ve seen a number of approaches to literacy in early classrooms, from majority play to majority structured work on letter sounds and reading, so I’m interested in looking at the differences in programs, and especially how the programs in bilingual schools relate to the students’ and their families home practices and experiences with language. I’m interested in looking at how and which languages are privileged (or not) in these classrooms, and how this may vary depending on the teacher, the students, and the larger community. I think I would like to interview my placement teacher, who teaches at a preschool literacy program for mostly Spanish speaking kids, as well as some of the preschool and kindergarten teachers at the bilingual school I was working at last semester in Costa Rica. While I will mostly want to look at educational research from classrooms, there is also a fair amount of psychological research about the process of bilingual language development, and I’m thinking about incorporating some of that as well.
Comments
I saw this article today and
I saw this article today and thought it might be relevant to your research:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/
bilingual literacy in early ed
kdiamant,
You're off to a good start, and I like the blend of interview-based and library-based research you're planning here. Since you're working with very young children, you might want to keep in mind/inquire into how the educational thinking on bilingualism may shift as these children get older... Are you familiar with Rebecca Freeman's work on Oyster Bay bilingual school/program? Don't remember the ages she's really looking at, but might be worth checking out.