Children’s bilingual identity and early biliteracy development in a dual language bilingual education program

This mixed-methods study investigates how second-grade Spanish-English bilingual children develop both linguistic and sociocultural competence in a dual language bilingual education (DLBE) program. It focuses specifically on their early biliteracy and bilingual identity development across school and home contexts. Participants included 37 students and four teachers. Data sources included student and teacher surveys and interviews, standardized language assessments, and school records. The fsindings revealed strong cross-linguistic associations between Spanish and English, particularly between reading and writing. Children’s bilingual identities and aspirations were also positively linked to language proficiency in both languages. Notably, aspirations toward biliteracy showed stronger and more consistent associations with proficiency than oral-language goals. These findings underscore the critical role of literacy in supporting bidirectional cross-linguistic transfer. Despite this, both children and families appeared to inadvertently prioritize oral fluency over literacy, reflecting gaps in both perception and access to resources. This highlights a need for DLBE programs to broaden family engagement and reframe understandings of biliteracy. Given that identity-affirming experiences at home and school appear to support biliteracy development, sociocultural competence might be more intentionally integrated into instructional goals alongside linguistic and academic goals to better promote the holistic development of bilingual learners.