1:
The three points found below are significant to me as a teacher because it highlights the importance of acquiring multiple languages. It can be so difficult to remove the blinders that English needs to be priority. As the quote says, cognitive and linguistic skills are transferable. The more languages you learn the easier it is to learn another. Creating a classroom environment that fosters the growth and acquisition of the home language will support and uplift the students’ abilities in English.
“We identify the following principles from this literature: 1) young children’s language and learning in a second language is facilitated if their first language is intact (Snow, Griffin, & Burns, 1998); 2) cognitive and linguistic skills transfer across languages (Cummins, 2013); 3) bilingualism offers cognitive and other benefits across the lifespan (Bialystok et al., 2016); and 4) intergenerational family communication is enhanced when children maintain their first or home language” (Anderson, 2018, pg 79).
2:
The article goes on to highlight the importance of early literacy programs for parents. These programs supported the wider community. One parents states that “[involvement in the program] helped him to develop a level of comfort in the school and to approach the teachers and staff when he had questions or concerns” (Anderson, 2018, pg 83). Whether these distances from their child’s education has to do with socio-economic status, traumas, or fear and confusion. Programs that encouraged parents to take an interest in their child’s education were beneficial for the parent, and consequently the student.
3:
In the section “Implication for Teachers” beginning on page 85 of the text, I noticed that a lot of the advice is to meet the families halfway. If a parents cannot read English, it is unlikely that they will read an English story to their students at night. Similarly I think back to my own experience when I was in speech therapy. I was given practice words, books, phrases, and assignments to practice pronunciation with my parents. My mother has a hard time pronouncing things correctly, so these tasks often fell on my father. While I am lucky he was there to fill in – it would be next to impossible to complete these tasks if they were both unable to help out. It is important to understand that parents are trying as hard as they can with what they have available – remember not every parent has language that is available to them.
Hayley Hodson 