Supporting Emergent Bilinguals with Language Difficulties in Transition from Home to School: The Role of Context and Adult-Child Interactions

For emergent bilinguals, the home language skills gained through responsive interactions with caregivers are foundational to both family communication and school outcomes; however, many experience declining home language use and proficiency once they begin school in early childhood. Emergent bilinguals with language difficulties are at even greater risk of home language loss if they lack access to culturally and linguistically responsive intervention. Designing and scaling effective interventions requires a deeper understanding of the contextual factors and caregiver practices that lead to optimal bilingual development in this large and understudied group. In this presentation, I discuss three studies designed to address this gap. The first study draws on a national parent survey to examine relations between the local multilingual context and attitudes towards bilingualism for parents from different language backgrounds. The second study follows Spanish-speaking parent-child dyads before and after the transition to English-medium preschool to understand how home language practices change during this pivotal time. The third study explores the differential effects of a language-focused parent intervention for parents from different ethnolinguistic groups to shed light on what works for whom in which contexts. I will also discuss my current and future work identifying home-language supportive caregiver behaviors and designing culturally and linguistically sustaining interventions for emergent bilinguals with language difficulties.

Sarah Surrain is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Children’s Learning Institute at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. Her research focuses on emergent bilinguals’ language and literacy development in early childhood with the goal of informing and developing culturally and linguistically sustaining home and school-based programs, particularly for children with or at risk for language difficulties. She holds a Ph.D. in Human Development, Learning, and Teaching from Harvard University, and a master’s degree in Language and Literacy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.