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Languages, scripts, and the environment: factors in developing concepts of print
E Bialystok1, T Shenfield, J Codd
1Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. ellenb@yorku.ca
Developmental Psychology
|January 25, 2000
Summary
Bilingual preschoolers in English and Hebrew demonstrated advanced understanding of print concepts compared to monolinguals. This bilingual advantage was observed in tasks assessing word meaning stability and word length judgments.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Bilingualism Research
- Early Literacy Studies
Background:
- Previous studies indicated bilingual children's varied advantages in print concept understanding based on language pairs (e.g., French-English, Chinese-English).
- The influence of writing systems and community language environments on these cognitive advantages remained less explored.
- Early literacy skills are crucial for academic success and are influenced by linguistic experiences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the print concept understanding of bilingual preschoolers (English-Hebrew).
- To examine the impact of writing system differences and community language on bilingual children's cognitive skills.
- To compare the performance of bilingual and monolingual preschoolers on specific print awareness tasks.
Main Methods:
- Two tasks were administered to assess understanding of print concepts: word meaning invariance across locations and word length judgments independent of object size.
- A comparative study design was employed, including bilingual (English-Hebrew) and monolingual children.
- Parallel studies were conducted in environments where English or Hebrew was the primary community language.
Main Results:
- Bilingual preschoolers exhibited superior performance on both print concept tasks compared to their monolingual peers.
- This bilingual advantage was consistent across both tasks and in both community language settings (English and Hebrew).
- The findings suggest a general cognitive benefit associated with bilingualism in early literacy development.
Conclusions:
- Bilingualism, specifically in English-Hebrew speakers, confers significant advantages in understanding fundamental print concepts.
- The study highlights the positive influence of bilingualism on cognitive skills relevant to early reading acquisition.
- Environmental language context did not negate the observed benefits of bilingualism in preschoolers' print awareness.
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