Early Literacy

Early literacy
Denis A. Alvarado
July, 2011.
Early childhood study of language and literacy development of Spanish-speaking children.
During the last years we have seen how the dramatic amountof immigrant population in the US has created a large and rapid growth in the number of children who come from homes where English is not the primary language; most of them are Spanish speakers. As aresult, they face many problems when they arrive to a country where people speak a language they do not. There are some conditions that influence language and literacy development of Spanish- speakingchildren; for instance, parental years of education, language use at home, and family income.
I think when Spanish- speaking children pretend to learn a second language that is spoken in their newcountry, not all of them succeed in it. One reason could be that this process will depend directly on the conditions that children have at that moment. Parents’ education would be one of the factorsthat hold influence in the children academic performance; therefore, we should know that most parents of those children did not complete high school, neither did they speak English; which means thatwhen children are at home, they are forced to speak Spanish. In my opinion, it makes children get confuse about the two languages, mainly English which is the idiom they are learning. However, Hispanicchildren who are English language learners generally show a better academic performance when they receive equal instruction in English as well as in Spanish. Thus, it makes sense that parents also canbecome teachers of their own children.
I believe that the Family income is another condition that influence on the children’s learning; since if parents do not get enough money they would not beable to afford their children education, nor all the materials they are asked at school. As a consequence, children possibilities to go to school would be reduced. As we already know, living in another...