Download or read book Transfer of Cognitive Skills in Learning to Read Chinese L1 and English L2 Among Hk Elementary Students written by 姜源貞 and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Transfer of Cognitive Skills in Learning to Read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) Among HK Elementary Students" by 姜源貞, Yuen-ching, Keung, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Cognitive-Skills Transfer in Biliteracy Development 3 Abstract This study investigated cognitive skills transfer between learning to read Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among Hong Kong elementary students. Fifty-three Primary 2 students were tested on their word-reading abilities, and their phonological, orthographic and rapid automatized naming skills in Chinese (L1) and English (L2). Results demonstrated significant correlations between Chinese (L1) and English (L2) phonological and rapid automatized naming skills but not orthographic skills. Also, Chinese (L1) phonological awareness was found to account for a significant unique amount of variance for English (L2) phonemic awareness. Surprisingly, Chinese (L1) orthographic skills apart from English (L2) phonological skills were shown to predict English (L2) word-reading ability. It might be explained that Hong Kong beginning ESL learners while developing their English phonological skills still use some Chinese tactics to assist their ESL learning. English (L2) rapid automatized naming was not found predictive of English (L2) word-reading ability. It was suspected that the English word list used was too difficult for early learners, indicating a minimum threshold of L2 word-reading proficiency necessary for the prediction possible. Key words: Cognitive skills transfer, phonological skills, orthographic skills, rapid automatized naming skills, biliteracy development DOI: 10.5353/th_b3709072 Subjects: Cognitive learning Language acquisition - China - Hong Kong

Download or read book Cognitive Skills in Learning to Read in Chinese and English written by Hui Li and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis sought to critique two recent empirical studies on transfer of cognitive skills between reading Chinese (L1) and English (L2). By a careful review of the major concepts and ideas on theories of transfer of learning, the author called for readers' attention to the conditions of learning events that encourage transfer to happen. Transfer is how we human being learn based on our past knowledge and experiences. Transfer is aspired to occur, but it usually does not. Without examining the conditions that promote transfer, one would be too bold to assume the occurrence of transfer. The two empirical studies showed a lack of interest to examining the conditions of transfer, thus presumed the occurrence of transfer and drew the wrong conclusions. This thesis posed questions regarding the transfer of cognitive reading skills between languages from two orthographical systems, in order to challenge the status quo of research. Questions that the field of reading education must address include how will we define transfer within the field of English language learning, what counts as evidence of transfer, and most importantly, how do we implement transfer into reading classroom contexts.

Download or read book LEARNING TO READ IN 2 LANGUAGE written by Kar-Man Kathy Shum and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Learning to Read in Two Languages: Chinese and English" by Kar-man, Kathy, Shum, 沈嘉敏, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Can children's early reading abilities in their first language (L1) predict later literacy development in a second language (L2)? The cross-language relationships between Chinese (L1) and English (L2) among87 elementary school children in Hong Kong were explored in a longitudinal study. Chinese word reading fluency, Chinese rapid digit naming, and Chinese rhyme awareness at age 7 (Grade 1), with age and nonverbal IQ taken into account, were significant concurrent and longitudinal predictors of English word reading, and text-level reading and writing skills across ages 7 to 10. These three measures in Chinese together accounted for 16-28% of unique variance in the English literacy tasks across the three-year period. Moreover, children who showed word reading difficulties in Chinese at Grade 1 also performed significantly worse than average Chinese readers in English reading and related cognitive tasks later on, especially on phonological tasks. Results in this study provided evidence for cross-language transfer of cognitive-linguistic abilities between two distinctly different orthographies. L1 markers underlying reading difficulties in both L1 and L2 can help identify L2 learners at risk for later reading problems, even when their L2 proficiency is too limited to render proper identification. This may in turn facilitate better allocation of educational resources and targeting of early intervention programs. Based on the finding that Chinese word reading fluency was one of the strongest longitudinal predictors of English literacy development, an intervention study was conducted to explore whether repeatedly reading aloud a variety of written symbols can improve word reading fluency performance in Chinese and English. Fifty-nine Grade 2 Hong Kong Chinese children were randomly assigned to either computer-based training on repeated oral reading of digits, alphabetical letters, Chinese characters, and English words, without corrective feedback (experimental group), or online arithmetic games (control group). Reading-aloud training conducted twice a week for 7 weeks significantly improved word reading fluency in both Chinese and English, in contrast to the control group. By contrast, the experimental and control groups did not differ significantly for improvement in word reading accuracy and in the rapid naming of digits and letters. Implications for possible mechanisms underlying the observed intervention effects of repeated oral reading are discussed. Subjects: Reading, Psychology of

Download or read book Cross linguistic Transfer in Reading in Multilingual Contexts written by Elena Zaretsky and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2016-10-03 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book represents concurrent attempts of multiple researchers to address the issue of cross-linguistic transfer in literacy. It includes broad spectrum of languages and reflects a new generation of conceptualizations of cross-linguistic transfer, offering a different level of complexity by studying children who are trilingual and even learning a fourth language. The collection of papers in this volume tried to capture the dynamic developmental changes in cross-linguistic transfer that include such factors as age of acquisition, typological proximity of L1 and L2 (and L3, L4), intensity of exposure to language and reading in ambient and newly acquired language(s), quality of input and home literacy. More stringent methodological considerations allowed to isolate specific constructs that suggest either primary levels of children’s metalinguistic abilities (phonological awareness that can be applied cross-linguistically) or a more language-specific constructs (morphological awareness) that relies on various factors, including typological proximity, language proficiency and task demands. Originally published in Written Language & Literacy, Vol. 17:1 2014.

Download or read book Children s Literacy Development written by Catherine McBride and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-12-14 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the thoroughly updated second edition of this unique book, Catherine McBride examines how the languages we know help structure the process of becoming literate. Taking an ecological and distinctively cross-cultural perspective, the book looks at reading and writing development and impairment across a range of languages, scripts, and contexts. The book covers issues including: The importance of phonological sensitivity for learning to read and to write The first units, or building blocks, of literacy learning in different scripts such as Chinese, English, Korean Hangul, Hebrew, Hindi and Arabic The role of visual processing in reading and writing skills How the latest research can inform the teaching of reading An overview of our understanding of dyslexia, including recent neuroscientific research The developmental challenges in becoming biliterate What is special about writing for beginners and later for comprehensive writing Basics of reading comprehension Children’s Literacy Development, Second Edition is a timely and important contribution to our understanding of literacy around the world. Written by an eminent scholar in the field, it is the only book available that provides an overview of how children learn to read and write in different languages, and will be essential reading for all students of Developmental Psychology, Educational Psychology, Psycholinguistics and Speech Therapy.

Download or read book Lexical Tone Perception in Infants and Young Children Empirical studies and theoretical perspectives written by Leher Singh and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2019-11-20 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In psycholinguistic research there has traditionally been a strong emphasis on understanding how particular language types of are processed and learned . In particular, Romance and Germanic languages (e.g. English, French, German) have, until recently, received more attention than other types, such as Chinese languages. This has led to selective emphasis on the phonological building blocks of European languages, consonants and vowels, to the exclusion of lexical tones which, like consonants and vowels, determine lexical meaning, but unlike consonants and vowels are based on pitch variations. Lexical tone is pervasive; it is used in at least half of the world’ languages (Maddieson, 2013), e.g., most Asian and some African, Central American, and European languages. This Research Topic brings together a collection of recent empirical research on the processing and representation of lexical tones across the lifespan with an emphasis on advancing knowledge on how tone systems are acquired. The articles focus on various aspects of tone: early perception of tones, influences of tone on word learning, the acquisition of new tone systems, and production of tones. One set of articles report on tone perception at the earliest stage of development, in infants learning either tone or non-tone languages. Tsao and Chen et al. demonstrate that infants’ sensitivity to Mandarin lexical tones, as well as pitch, improves over the first year of life in native and non-native learners in contrast to traditional accounts of perceptual narrowing for consonants and vowels. Götz et al. report a different pattern of perception for Cantonese tones and further demonstrate influences of methodological approaches on infants’ tone sensitivity. Fan et al. demonstrate that sensitivity to less well-studied properties of tone languages, such as neutral tone, may develop after the first year of life. Cheng and Lee ask a similar question in an electrophysiological study and report effects of stimulus salience on infants’ neural response to native tones. In a complementary set of studies focused on tone sensitivity in word learning, Burnham et al. demonstrate that infants bind tones to newly-learned words if they are learning a tone language, either monolingually or bilingually; although it was also found that object-word binding was influenced by the properties of individual tones. Liu and Kager chart a developmental trajectory over the second year of life in which infants narrow in their interpretation of non-native tones. Choi et al. investigate how learning a tone language can influence uptake of other suprasegmental properties of language, such as stress, and demonstrate that native tone sensitivity in children can facilitate stress sensitivity when learning a stress-based language. Finally, two studies focus on sensitivity to pitch in a sub-class tone languages: pitch accent languages. In a study on Japanese children’s abilities to recognise words they know, Ota et al. demonstrate a limited sensitivity to native pitch contrasts in toddlers. In contrast, Ramachers et al. demonstrate comparatively strong sensitivity to pitch in native and non-native speakers of a different pitch accent system (Limburghian) when learning new words. Several studies focus on learning new tone systems. In a training study with school-aged children, Kasisopa et al. demonstrate that tone language experience increases children’s abilities to learn new tone contrasts. Poltrock et al. demonstrate similar advantages of tone experience in learning new tone systems in adults. And in an elecrophysiological study, Liu et al. demonstrate order effects in adults’ neural responses to new tones, discussing implications for learning tone languages as an adult. Finally, Hannah et al. demonstrate that extralinguistic cues, such as facial expression, can support adults’ learning of new tone systems. In three studies investigating tone production, Rattansone et al. report the results of a study demonstrating kindergartners’ asynchronous mastery of tones – delayed acquisition of tone sandhi forms relative to base forms. In a study interrogating a corpus of adult tone production, Han et al. demonstrate that mothers produce tones in a distinct manner when speaking to infants; tone differences are emphasised more when speaking to infants than to adults. Combining perception and production of tones, Wong et al. report asynchronous development of tone perception and tone production in children. The Research Topic also includes a series of Opinion pieces and Commentaries addressing the broader relevance of tone and pitch to the study of language acquisition. Curtin and Werker discuss ways in which tone can be integrated into their model of infant language development (PRIMIR). Best discusses the phonological status of lexical tones and considers how recent empirical research on tone perception bears on this question. Kager focuses on how language learners distinguish lexical tones from other sources of pitch variation (e.g., affective and pragmatic) that also inform language comprehension. Finally, Antoniou and Chin unite evidence of tone sensitivity from children and adults and discuss how these areas of research can be mutually informative. Psycholinguistic studies of lexical tone acquisition have burgeoned over the past 13 years. This collection of empirical studies and opinion pieces provides a state-of-the-art panoply of the psycholinguistic study of lexical tones, and demonstrate its coming of age. The articles in this Research Topic will help address the hitherto Eurocentric non-tone language research emphasis, and will contribute to an expanding narrative of speech perception, speech production, and language acquisition that includes all of the world’s languages. Importantly, these studies underline the scientific promise of drawing from tone languages in psycholinguistic research; the research questions raised by lexical tone are unique and distinct from those typically applied to more widely studied languages and populations. The comprehensive study of language acquisition can only benefit from this expanded focus.

Download or read book Reading Acquisition of Chinese as a Second Foreign Language Volume II written by Linjun Zhang and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-10-26 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Localising Chinese written by Michael Singh and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents innovative strategies for teaching the Chinese language to English-speaking students around the world, using in-depth research arising from a long-running and successful Chinese language teaching programme in Sydney. Throughout the book its authors emphasise the importance of teaching methods which explore the relevance of Chinese to all aspects of students’ everyday lives; ‘Localising Chinese’ by folding it into students’ everyday sociolinguistic activities performed in English. The research presented here demonstrates how, through school-driven, research-oriented service-learning, university graduates from China learnt to use student-centred learning-focused language education as a basis for professional learning. In the context of China’s growing influence in the global academic community, this book addresses the urgent need to promote effective communication and partnerships. It provides a valuable resource for language teachers and teacher educators, as well as education researchers in the areas of international education, linguistics, the sociology of education and knowledge exchange.

Download or read book Developmental Dyslexia From Cross Linguistic and Bilingual Perspectives written by Fan Cao and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact.

Download or read book Cognitive Neuroscience Studies of the Chinese Language written by Henry S.R. Kao 高尚仁 and published by Hong Kong University Press. This book was released on 2002-07-01 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the linguistic constituents and structural components of Chinese characters and words? Does the spoken language provide a basis for reading different writing systems, including Chinese? How do the results of current neuroimaging and electrophysio

Download or read book Modulators of Cross Language Influences in Learning and Processing written by Anat Prior and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-06-01 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Development of Syntactic Skills in Relation to Reading Acquisition Among Chinese English Bilingual Students written by Tik-Sze Carrey Siu and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Development of Syntactic Skills in Relation to Reading Acquisition Among Chinese-English Bilingual Students" by Tik-sze, Carrey, Siu, 蕭狄詩, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: The ever-growing bilingual population worldwide has fuelled research on how a first (L1) and a second (L2) language interact to affect bilinguals' language and reading acquisition. The present thesis centred on bilinguals' syntactic skills in L1 Chinese and in typologically distant L2 English, and their cross-language interactions with reading development. Study 1 was a two-year longitudinal study in which 198 grade 1 and 203 grade 3 Hong Kong Chinese-English bilinguals participated. The children were assessed on syntactic skills and reading comprehension in Chinese and in English, nonverbal intelligence, working memory, language-related skills, and were re-tested after one year. Study 1A primarily examined the contrasting roles of morphosyntactic and word order skills in Chinese and English reading across grades. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that reading comprehension was differentially dependent on the two syntactic skills across ages and languages. Word order, relative to morphosyntactic skill, was critical to text comprehension at an earlier time. Word order was also more important to reading in Chinese, whereas reading in English gradually relied more on morphosyntactic skill. Study 1B used structural equation modelling to study the cross-language relationships. Mediation analyses showed that L1 Chinese syntactic skills cross-linguistically predicted L2 English reading comprehension over time; this prospective association was largely mediated by L2 English syntactic skills among the fourth graders. Further analyses suggested that word order skill was more transfer-ready than morphosyntactic skill, indicating an effect of linguistic distance upon language transfer. Beyond a mere cross-language syntactic transfer, Study 2 was designed to examine if bilinguals' dual-language experience fostered further syntactic advancement via enhancing sensitivity to underlying syntactic structures. Participants in Study 2 comprised three age cohorts, including 69 primary school children, 56 secondary school adolescents, and 73 undergraduate adults. They were tested on morphosyntactic skill, word order skill, artificial syntax learning, and general cognitive abilities. Across the three cohorts, the Chinese-English bilinguals performed better than their English monolingual peers in acquiring a novel syntax and processing morphosyntax specific to English. The bilingual adults also performed better than their monolingual peers in manipulating language-specific word order. Moreover, the adolescent and adult bilinguals were also assessed on analogical reasoning; the bilinguals who were more skilled at abstracting similarities and differences between structures were generally superior in learning the new syntactic patterns and processing language-specific word order. Study 2 thus supports the structural sensitivity hypothesis that bilinguals' advantage is not confined to knowledge and strategies specific to the additional language, but constitutes a more abstract representation of underlying linguistic structures in general. The findings collectively suggest how syntactic and reading skills can be developed in a bilingual learning context. Teachers may evoke L1 syntactic knowledge and map it onto L2 corresponding features to facilitate L2 reading. Drawing analogy between parallel L1 and L2 constructions works through making biling

Download or read book Reading acquisition of chinese as a second foreign language written by Linjun Zhang and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-07-12 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Reading Development in Chinese Children written by Catherine McBride-Chang and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2003-12-30 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text reviews both similarities and unique cultural, linguistic, and script differences of Chinese relative to alphabetic reading, and even across Chinese regions. Chinese reading acquisition relies upon children's strongly developing analytic skills, as highlighted here. These 16 chapters present state-of-the-art research on diverse aspects of Chinese children's reading development. This edited volume presents research on Chinese children's reading development across Chinese societies. Authors from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, among others, present the latest findings on how Chinese children learn to read. Reading acquisition in Chinese involves some parameters typically not encountered in some other orthographies, such as English. For example, Chinese readers in different regions might speak different, mutually unintelligible languages, be taught to read with or without the aid of a phonetic coding system, and learn different scripts. This book both implicitly and explicitly considers these and other contextual issues in relation to developmental and cognitive factors involved in Chinese literacy acquisition. One of the clearest themes to emerge from this volume is that, across regions, Chinese children, despite lack of explicit teaching of phonetic or semantic character components, learn to read largely by integrating visible print-sound and print-meaning connections. Rather than learning to read Chinese characters by rote, as is sometimes mistakenly believed, these children are analytic learners. Chapters in this book also cover such topics as Chinese children's reading comprehension, cognitive characteristics of good and poor readers, and reading strategies of bilingual and biscriptal readers. This book is a useful reference for anyone interested in understanding either developing or skilled reading of Chinese or for those interested in literacy learning across cultures.

Download or read book Training Readers and Writers for a Multimodal and Multimedia Society Cognitive Aspects written by Ester Trigo-Ibanez and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2024-02-07 with total page 101 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contemporary societies have been advancing gradually towards the construction of a model of a literate population. Significant efforts have been made so that most citizens can access various sources today, using their reading and writing abilities, but are we really prepared to face the information age? Is information literacy being promoted from schools? Are individual capabilities being considered? Do we have a true critical literacy? This article collection aims to show an overview of the most recent research; ranging from the individual to the collective, from the subject's competencies and their beliefs, to the way to develop them from school. There is room in this Research Topic for investigations belonging to the linguistic, psychological, and didactic field. This Research Topic aims to address a pressing problem in contemporary world societies. It is proposed to offer various contributions related to critical literacy, in general, and reading and writing. In this sense, research that addresses analog and digital reading, writing processes, academic literacy, and the use of resources such as non-fiction illustrated books to develop critical thinking, will be welcome. But also, and in a very important way, the cognitive processes of the subject will be considered, not only to deal with access to information, but also in the construction of their mental lexicon, an issue that offers the vision of the world of those who are immersed in literacy and in the post-truth era.

Download or read book INVESTIGATING COGNITIVE ABILIT written by Yujie Qi and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Investigating Cognitive Abilities in Chinese Reading and Dictation: a Training and Correlation Study" by Yujie, Qi, 亓玉杰, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: This thesis examines the unique role of writing in reading and dictation as well as the common and unique cognitive abilities related to reading and dictation development among Chinese children. While it is generally accepted that phonological awareness is of critical importance for both reading and spelling in alphabetic languages (Goswami, 2000), writing seems to play an essential role in reading logographic Chinese. Recent correlation studies among young Chinese children (e.g., Tan et al., 2005) and training studies among adult second language learners of Chinese (e.g., Guan et al., 2011) showed that writing is closely related to the learning of Chinese characters. To further examine the underlying mechanism of the contribution of writing in learning Chinese characters, this thesis compared writing training with reading-only training (Study 1a) and with orthographic training (Study 1b) among Grade One primary school children in Mainland China. Study 1 provides evidence of strong but differential writing facilitation effects on the learning of Chinese characters in various aspects including reading and dictation ability. As the findings of Study 1 showed that writing facilitation effect was stronger on dictation performance than on reading performance, it is hypothesized that reading and dictation in Chinese are not like reading and spelling in alphabetic languages since Chinese has its own language-specific features. In order to verify this hypothesis and provide more evidence of how certain cognitive abilities contribute to reading and dictation separately, Study 2 examined the contributions of various aspects of cognitive abilities including non-verbal intelligence, orthographic awareness, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, visual-motor skills, and working memory, to reading and dictation ability among 126 primary school children of two groups (beginning readers and intermediate readers) in Mainland China. Commonalities as well as differences between reading and dictation were identified at different stages of learning. It is found that reading in Chinese depends heavily on phonological awareness, as the universal phonological principle (Perfetti et al., 1992) predicts, but dictation does not, quite unlike the situation in alphabetic languages. However, dictation in Chinese is found to rely more on cognitive abilities that involve some visual orthographic aspects of processing like orthographic awareness and writing skill. These findings have important theoretical as well as pedagogical implications for Chinese literacy development. The training study provides evidence in support of the important role of writing in learning Chinese, as well as the motor programming hypothesis of the writing facilitation effect (Tan et al., 2005). The findings of the correlation study further extend the lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007) by showing that differential demands of the quality of lexical representations exist in reading and dictation in Chinese. Specifically, reading depends more on phonological lexical quality and dictation more on orthographic lexical quality. It is therefore proposed that writing practice should be encouraged among young native Chinese children. To better learn to read, phonological awareness should be enhanced, and to better learn to write to dictation, orthographic awareness should be emphasized, together with other

Download or read book Literacy Development in A Multilingual Context written by Aydin Y. Durgunoglu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the past decades, literacy has gradually become a major concern all over the world. Though there is a great diversity in both the distribution and degree of literacy in different countries, there has been an increasing awareness of the number of illiterates and the consequences of being illiterate. However, literacy is no longer seen as a universal trait. When one focuses on culturally-sensitive accounts of reading and writing practices, the concept of literacy as a single trait does not seem very feasible. A multiplicity of literacy practices can be distinguished which are related to specific cultural contexts and associated with relations of power and ideology. As such, literacy can be seen as a lifelong context-bound set of practices in which an individual's needs vary with time and place. This volume explores the use of literacy outside the mainstream in different contexts throughout the world. It is divided into four sections. Section 1 presents an anthropological perspective--analyzing the society and the individual in a society. Section 2 presents a psychological perspective--focusing on the individuals themselves and analyzing the cognitive and affective development of young children as they acquire literacy in their first and second languages. Section 3 presents an educational perspective--highlighting the variations in educational approaches in different societies as well as the outcomes of these approaches. Section 4 summarizes the studies presented in this volume. Both theoretical issues and educational implications related to the development of literacy in two languages are discussed. An attempt is also made to open up new directions in the study of literacy development in multilingual contexts by bringing these various disciplinary perspectives together.