How Bilingual Storybooks can Help Grow Vocabulary for Dual-Language Learning Preschoolers

• In Event: From Text to Context: Storybooks as a Platform for Dual-Language Learning

Abstract

Research demonstrating that shared reading promotes vocabulary growth is plentiful, but most is based on monolingual contexts. For many children, however, that fails to capture their experience: Research on how shared reading can benefit children in dual-language learning situations is needed, especially considering the diverse ways that the text of storybooks can present languages. There are a variety of storybooks for young dual-language learners (DLLs), and two types of popular commercially available books for Spanish/English DLLs present the text in very different ways. Immersive monolingual books are written exclusively in one language, often a DLL child’s less proficient or second language (L2). But there are also code-switching books, which are written primarily in a child’s dominant language (L1), but insert words and phrases from L2, often in the form of inter-sentential code-switching from L1 to L2.
In a recent and unique experimental study from our lab, we tested which of these two book types may best support vocabulary development in preschool-age Spanish/English DLLs who spanned a range of proficiency in both Spanish and English. Children were designated as either Spanish or English learners based on parent reports. Two- to 5-year-old Spanish and English learners (n = 63) listened to researcher-designed stories read by a bilingual experimenter with story type as a within-subjects manipulation. Each story introduced six novel animals named in the child’s L2. Story type, animal names, and book order were counterbalanced. At the end of each book, children were tested on their retention of the newly learned animal names with a 3-alternative multiple-choice picture-pointing task.
We found little differences between children learning Spanish versus children learning English in their ability to identify new L2 animal names from the storybooks. However, for all the children, the more they were exposed to their L2 and the older they were, the more novel animal names in L2 they learned. Also, an interesting interaction between age and story type emerged, such that while 2- to 3-year-olds were equally limited in their retention of animals from each book type (M = 2.5 out of 6 in both book types), 4-year-olds retained marginally more animal names from the monolingual books (M = 3.1) than the code-switching books (M = 2.6). The pattern for the oldest 5-year-old children was reversed -- they remembered significantly more new animal names from the code-switching books (M = 4.1) than the monolingual books (M = 3.2), p = .016. This developmental change in how dual-language learners respond to different book types may be explained by children’s developing skill in both their languages as they get older. As children mature and gain fluency in both their languages, they appear to become more flexible in their use of L1 to bridge learning to L2, and more able to take advantage of the support that code-switching books can provide.

Author

• Kirsten Read, Santa Clara University
  Presenting Author