Emerging Literacy in a Two-Way Bilingual First Grade Classroom

A study investigated the emerging journal-writing skills of 16 monolingual Spanish-speaking Mexican Americans and 10 monolingual English-speaking first-graders in San Diego County, California, in a whole-language, two-way bilingual classroom. The research looked for developmental stages in writing in the primary language, similarities or differences for the second language, the beginning of spontaneous second-language writing, and occurrence and results of social interaction during journal writing. It was found that the children approached the writing task from unique and individual perspectives, combining drawing and writing in early journals, experimenting with alphabetic forms and shapes, writing lists, and repeating patterns of letters, words, and sentences. They used early journals for egocentric writing activities, actively constructing writing schema through manipulation and experimentation