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How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the home literacy environment, parental engagement, and home-school communications for children and families from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds? Data on the experiences of 231 Chinese-Canadian immigrant families with K-2 children revealed that emergency remote learning affected the home literacy environment in complex ways. While some experienced a decrease in mainstream language exposure, others also witnessed a decline in home language use and literacy engagement due to the closure of heritage language schools and absence of grandparents. Parents also differed in their ability, resources, and confidence level in supporting multiliteracies development at home during the pandemic. Moreover, there existed persistent barriers to effective home-school communications despite the affordances of remote learning. The findings have important implications for both immigrant families and mainstream teachers in working collaboratively to support the children's needs in multiliteracies development.

The rapid increase of Asian immigrant students in Canadian classrooms demands more systematic and increased language support to ensure all English language learners (ELLs) achieve success in school. However, research has found mixed results on the usefulness of current English as a Second Language (ESL) support programs and a growing dissatisfaction among students and parents about ESL, suggesting further investigation is needed to improve the provision of ESL in the schools. This paper details how one school and one ESL teacher responded to the needs of newly arrived Asian (i.e., Chinese) ELL students by documenting the school's and teacher's journey in revamping the pull-out ESL program into a culturally responsive English for Academic Purposes (EAP) program with a focus on immersion, community engagement, and a pedagogy of cultural reciprocity. The case has important implications for redesigning current ESL programs in the context of changing immigration.

This article reports on a sample of 26 middle-class Chinese immigrant parents' perspectives on their children's reading, writing, mathematics learning, and homework, and on the parents' involvement in and communication with mainstream American schools. Findings suggested both consistencies and discrepancies between their beliefs and practices. Areas of discrepancies include their reported involvement in their children's reading and their attitudes toward homework. However, the parents were more consistent in their beliefs and practices in writing and mathematics involvement. These consistencies and discrepancies may be influenced by the parents' familiarity with school instructions in the particular skill areas. These findings argue for more effort to enhance Chinese parents' knowledge base on how American school functions and to build stronger school-home communication and collaboration. (Contains 10 tables and 2 endnotes.)

Immigrant youths' frequent and skillful use of new media technologies outside of school has generated discussion on the need to integrate their expertise in formal literacy instruction in school. This commentary argues that braiding old and new literacies for English learners in empowering ways needs to be guided by a connection to the future (new literacies for social and academic purposes) and a link to the old (traditional print literacy skills). Such a dual focus is necessary to develop an integrated pedagogical design that engages learners in using the new tools for acquiring both new and old literacy skills. Active facilitation of transmediation between social and academic purposes of new literacies and between old and new literacies relies on both explicit instruction of higher level thinking skills and literacy strategies for online and offline engagement and teacher expert scaffolding of applications of these skills in meaningful learning tasks.

This study investigates 1.5 generation Asian immigrant children's (n = 264) early literacy achievement patterns, treating them as a heterogeneous group. Specifically, the within-group variances in reading achievement from kindergarten to third grade are examined, drawing on four waves of data from the ECLS-K class of 1998-1999. Our analysis shows that ethnicity plays a role in shaping the children's initial reading readiness and later growth, but the effects of languages spoken at home are not significant. Our analysis also demonstrates a persistent achievement gap between low-and high-socioeconomic status (SES) Asian groups. However, gender difference in terms of children's reading development is not found to be significant. There is also no interaction between SES and the other factors such as gender, ethnicity and language backgrounds.

Drawing on a larger ethnographic study, this article documents (a) how and for what purposes literacy is used in 3 culturally diverse families of low socioeconomic status and (b) what various cultural, socioeconomic, and environmental factors shape the families' literacy practices in their home milieus in an urban context. Data analysis revealed that the families use literacy in both 1st and 2nd languages for a variety of purposes--helping with schoolwork, self-improvement, leisure and everyday living, and advocating for improved school practices. These literacy practices, however, are seriously constrained by various out-of-school factors, such as school-home literacy fracturing, declining neighborhood and school culture, different forms of racism, and family and neighborhood social class statuses. Findings suggest that there is a need to broaden existing efforts to improve minority literacy education within classrooms and schools to address the "limit situations" outside of school that affect students' lives and impede their school achievement. Experts must make a concerted endeavor to improve the urban social and physical environment as well as to implement pedagogical practices that connect students' learning inside school with their lived realities outside school.

Framed within Coleman's theory of family capital, this article examines how different home variables such as family physical, human and social capital affect immigrant children's second-language acquisition in the homes of four Chinese immigrant families in Canada. Specifically, the study analyzes the relationships between family physical capital and family investment in second language learning, between parental human capital and levels of parental involvement, and between family social capital and access to familial and community resources. The analysis demonstrates that parental educational backgrounds, their occupational choices and chances, and their adaptation and integration into Canadian society had a significant impact on the families' accumulation and activation of family capital to support their children's second-language learning. (Contains 1 note.)

Although Chinese has become the third largest mother tongue in both Canada and the USA, Chinese/English biliteracy development has received little attention in educational research. This article explores three Chinese-Canadian first and second graders' biliteracy (Chinese/English reading and writing) and trilingual (Mandarin, Cantonese, and English) practices in the home milieu. Findings suggest that the home context is a crucial environment for success or failure in achieving biliteracy. All families expected their children to become biliterate and multilingual, but the three children vary in their preferences and use of different languages and literacies at home. Factors such as parents' perceptions of their minority status in the host society, their attitudes toward the role of heritage language and their own proficiencies in the dominant language, as well as several school and societal factors, such as quality of instruction in heritage language schools, language policies in the mainstream schools, and the media, played an important role in shaping the children's language choices and patterns of use at home. These multiple factors suggest that helping immigrant children become biliterate and multilingual is a challenging task that requires concerted efforts between parents, public schools, and community organizations. (Contains 2 figures and 2 notes.)

Describes a Chinese Canadian immigrant family that is encountering difficulties with schooling, demonstrating the complex interrelationship between home literacy, culture, and politics of schooling. Findings suggest that cultural mismatch theory alone cannot explain minority school failure. Rather, multilevel interactions, including cultural differences, modes of incorporation, and differential power relationships between school and home result in minority students' school difficulties. (Contains references.) (SM)

Examines the relationship between literacy practices and the construction of cultural identity in a Filipino immigrant family in Canada through ethnographic methods. Reports that literacy depends on family relationships imbedded in cultural identity. Explains that the research enables educators to understand immigrant families and their literacy. Includes references. (CMK)

Examined, through naturalistic observation, the multiple pathways taken by immigrant learners in joining a cross-cultural classroom community. Found that social acceptance by peer culture influenced children's creation of their identities; that images and ideals of the mainstream culture fueled children's dreams and desires; and that sharing culturally conscious literature fostered awareness and appreciation of others. (DLH)

Immigrant adolescents' masculinity negotiation is underexamined in language education research. Drawing on intersectionality and critical race theory, this article examines three immigrant boys' negotiation of racialized masculinities and its impact on their language learning in one U.S. English as a Second Language (ESL) classroom. Through analyzing data from an ethnographic case study, we illustrate that their masculinity was connected to negotiation of hyphenated selves in transnational and transcultural spaces where gender identities were intersectionally shaped by racism, linguicism, and heteronormativity. While racism and racialization were the central forces impacting their masculinity negotiation, they each experienced different configurations of systems of oppression. Their masculinity negotiation was based on an indivisible combination of intersecting identity inscriptions which constituted a new marginal social location. This study contributes to language education research by shedding light on the complexity and intersectionality of immigrant youth's masculinity negotiation. It underscores the importance of addressing racism, homophobia and linguicism in their precarious lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses resource disparity in language arts instruction among Asian immigrant and refugee students in the U.S. Topics include impact of disparities in the availability of material and cultural resources affecting language and literacy learning of Asian subgroups, language policies in countries like the U.S. and Canada stressing newcomers to learn destination language, and tips for language arts teachers to ensure school curriculum affirms students’ diverse literary practices.

Immigrant youths' frequent and skillful use of new media technologies outside of school has generated discussion on the need to integrate their expertise in formal literacy instruction in school. This commentary argues that braiding old and new literacies for English learners in empowering ways needs to be guided by a connection to the future (new literacies for social and academic purposes) and a link to the old (traditional print literacy skills). Such a dual focus is necessary to develop an integrated pedagogical design that engages learners in using the new tools for acquiring both new and old literacy skills. Active facilitation of transmediation between social and academic purposes of new literacies and between old and new literacies relies on both explicit instruction of higher level thinking skills and literacy strategies for online and offline engagement and teacher expert scaffolding of applications of these skills in meaningful learning tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]