Children's Multilingual Development and Education: Fostering Linguistic Resources in Home and School Contexts

Description

The study of families and educators who successfully sustain children's linguistic resources is a novelty in current educational research, where focus has largely been on the development of students' English language skills. In this book, Alison L. Bailey and Anna V. Osipova provide a systematic examination of the beliefs and practices of parents and educators who share the common goal of improving educational and social outcomes for multilingual children. Giving voice to parents and educators, they explore the strategies being devised to foster multilingualism and support its development both at home and in the classroom. This book presents new research findings and combines these with compelling firsthand accounts of the successes and concerns of both families and educators, making its content pertinent to a wide audience of researchers and a range of higher education courses.

Alison L. Bailey is Professor of Human Development and Psychology in the Department of Education at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a faculty partner with the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing (CRESST). She is a co-author of the Language Development chapter in the new APA Handbook of Educational Psychology with Anna V. Osipova and her previous books include The Language Demands of School (2007), Formative Assessment for Literacy K-6 (2008), and Spanish-Language Narration and Literacy (Cambridge, 2008). She serves on the English language proficiency assessment technical advisory board of the California Department of Education, the WIDA multi-state consortium for language proficiency instruction and assessments, and various commercial test publishers. Anna V. Osipova is a faculty member within the Division of Special Education and Counseling at California State University, Los Angeles. Her professional experience includes working with students with disabilities within the context of public schools and individualized educational therapy sessions. She also works as an editorial assistant for Learning Disabilities Research and Practice and has served as a reviewer for Language Assessment Quarterly and Teaching Exceptional Children. She is the author of many presentations and a recipient of several graduate education awards, including a year-long Graduate Mentorship Award from the University of California, Los Angeles, to conduct the research for the present volume with Alison L. Bailey.

'The time for this book is now! It shares multilayered data from a robust research study and will contribute much to the literature and to an improved understanding of the education of multilingual students. Since reading the book I have found myself quoting sections in my conversations with practicing teachers, graduate students, and parents who are raising their children multilingually.' Lori Helman, University of Minnesota