Exploring Dual-Language Books as a Resource for Children's Bilingualism and Biliteracy Development

Given the multilingual population of the United States, dual-language books (DLBs), or books with the complete text written in two languages, are often recommended for teachers to use in their classrooms to validate students' language and culture, facilitate language learning, and support (bi)literacy development. These recommendations are based on theory with few empirical studies investigating how children make meaning from DLBs. Research related to reading DLBs has largely focused on adults reading to or with students, and none of it has been conducted in the United States. Therefore, this study sought to answer two questions related to (1) DLBs' learning opportunities for students to make connections across languages to develop biliteracy (i.e., literacy skills in more than one language) and (2) how bilingual students from Spanish-speaking homes with English literacy skills but not formal Spanish literacy instruction read DLBs to develop biliteracy. To answer these questions, I completed two studies. First, I engaged in verbal protocols/think-alouds with 68 Spanish-English bilingual third and fifth graders from two schools with Spanish immersion programs. Students explained their strategies when translating English and Spanish words and retelling texts. I analyzed their verbal protocols using discourse analysis techniques to determine codes that described students' strategies to translate words (i.e., make metalinguistic connections) and retell passages (i.e., make conceptual connections). I analyzed these codes quantitatively to determine trends in students' strategy use. The second study was a qualitative study of students' reading strategies. I focused on five students who came from Spanish-speaking homes and had received formal English literacy instruction but not Spanish. I analyzed their verbal protocols, interviews with them and their teachers, and video recordings and observational notes of their readings. I engaged in initial and second-cycle coding to determine patterns in the ways in which these students read DLBs to develop biliteracy. I compared students' readings, responses, and strategies not only to each other, but also to the other students in the large mixed methods study. The similarities and unique characteristics led to themes that organized the findings. Across both studies, students who were younger and had lower oral reading accuracy scores tended to use strategies that were more text-based (focused on text features) to translate and retell texts whereas students who were older and had higher accuracy scores tended to use more language-based strategies (informed by their knowledge of languages). For the second study, students also used English to help them read the Spanish text. They used English phonology to decode the Spanish, relied on their memory of the English text to activate their Spanish oral language knowledge, and looked at the English to help them decode the Spanish. These studies' findings contribute to linguistics research by describing how children translanguage and make connections across languages. The findings can also inform teachers' instruction with recommendations to increase students' metalinguistic awareness by asking students to compare and analyze the ways in which DLBs are translated. Finally, the findings have significance for book publishers in that publishing texts with fewer words on the page has the potential to support students in using one of the text's languages to decode the other. Understanding how students make connections across languages while reading helps researchers and practitioners consider additional ways to support students' biliteracy development. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]