Linguistic Diversity and Early Literacy: Serving Culturally Diverse Families in Early Head Start

摘要

This paper focusus on early language development in children from culturally and linguistically diverse families and the implications for later literacy development. The first section of the paper is an overview of how very young children learn language and the different contexts in which language acquisition occurs. We share some of the current research on language development in bilingual children and some of the particular risks faced by low-income, bilingual children in the area of literacy development. The second section of the paper focuses on family literacy and the process to create literacy-rich environments in culturally and linguistically diverse settings. The third section provides strategies for using program management systems to support family literacy as well as cultural and linguistic diversity. The paper concludes with profiles of two Early Head Start (EHS) programs that serve culturally diverse families and these programs approaches to literacy development.