Narrating Futures, Remembering Roots: Immigrant Family Literacy Practices and Dual Language Learners’ Narrative Skills

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Curriculum in collaboration: Exploring multilingual family and community literacy practices as resources for curriculum development

Abstract

1. Objectives/Theoretical Framework
One third of children living in the U.S. are dual language learners (DLLs) who are exposed to two or more languages concurrently at home (Chung et al., 2019), and California has the largest numbers of DLLs in the nation (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018-2022). Oral narrative skills, or skills to tell stories, are important predictors of later literacy skills such as reading and academic achievement (Uchikoshi et al., 2018) as children are required to organize story components and present them sequentially and clearly. Home literacy activities such as reading and storytelling as well as parental attitudes towards children’s bilingualism are also significant predictors of DLLs’ language development, especially oral language skills (Mak et al., 2023).

2. Methods/Data Sources
To better understand what home language practices and young DLLs’ narrative skills interact, this mixed-methods study investigated (1) the relationships between 78 Chinese-English and 48 Spanish-English DLL’s English narratives and immigrant parents’ home literacy practices and (2) how parents support DLLs’ language and literacy skills at home. The participating families were recruited from Head Start programs in California. Children were 3-5 years old. All parents self-identified as either Chinese- or Mexican-American. The parents completed surveys and children told narratives using a wordless picture book, Hug (Alborough, 2002). Narrative data were video recorded and audio recorded, transcribed following the CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000), and coded for macrostructure and microstructure (number of different words, number of total words, and mean length utterance per word). Four parents were also interviewed individually to discuss their home language and literacy practices, and the interview data were transcribed and coded.

3. Results
The first multiple regression model revealed that, for the Chinese group, 66% of variance in English macrostructure was explained by MLUw and parental help with learning letters and numbers at home controlling for frequency of reading in Chinese. The second regression model for the Mexican group revealed that 59% of variance in English macrostructure was explained by MLUw and frequency of storytelling in English controlling for frequency of reading in Spanish.

A common theme across parents’ interviews was the importance of maintaining and promoting the heritage language and culture at home and in their children's education. The practice of reading books and telling stories in Chinese/Spanish was emphasized, as well as the value of bilingual education in preserving the heritage language. Participation in cultural activities such as singing songs in Chinese/Spanish and following family traditions such as cooking together were also highlighted. Overall, these parental comments reflect their desire to pass on cultural and linguistic heritage to younger generations and to keep traditions alive.

4. Significance
These results suggest that both parental support and children's language use at home play a significant role in shaping English narrative skills with different factors contributing across cultural groups. At the same time, parents’ strong commitment to heritage language maintenance highlights the need for educational approaches that support bilingual development while honoring families’ cultural values and practices.

Authors

• Mayu Lindblad, University of California - Davis

• Maria Belen Buttiler, University of California - Davis