'first language literacy skills enhance second language learning'

We know how important, how useful and how helpful reading is:

Jay Doubleyou: reading really is the best way to improve (your own and a second) language

And if it's fun, then all the better:

Jay Doubleyou: "children who read for pleasure are better at english"

There is theoretical support for this:

Jay Doubleyou: krashen and second language learning

As well as a lot of practice:

Jay Doubleyou: to acquire a language you need lots of comprehensible input

Here's a piece in the latest E L Gazette by Gill Ragsdale looking at why it's so important:

Teach your children well

First language literacy skills enhance second language learning.

Early enhancement of reading skills in Spanish translates to improved English literacy, according to a study by Raul Gutiérrez Fresneda and colleagues at the Universities of Alicante and Málaga in Spain...

It appears that increasing reading skills in the first language (Spanish) improved literacy skills in the second language (English). Although these languages may seem relatively similar, Spanish is a much more transparent language—meaning words can be more easily decoded letter by letter—than English, with its infamous inconsistencies and exceptions.

This makes the transfer of literacy skills especially interesting and not something that could be assumed. The authors suggest that, in general, exposure to more than one language may expand literacy skills more generally.

Another implication from this study is that second language proficiency can be strongly influenced by the quality of education in the learners’ first language, independent of individual differences in otherwise innate abilities.

Setting up young children with strong foundations in their first language can have a long lasting impact on their success in other languages. Where such foundations have been lacking, perhaps further interventions for second language learners could close the gap.

Teach your children well - E L Gazette

One point then is that we need to be teaching immigrants their own language:

Jay Doubleyou: bilingualism and school

Jay Doubleyou: global britain: seeing the languages of immigrants as an asset to be nurtured

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