The Promise of Bilingual Shared Reading as a Tool for Promoting Emergent Biliteracy

Dual language learners are a growing and sometimes vulnerable population within the United States, and it is imperative that they enter school with the foundational language and literacy skills needed to succeed in academic environments. It has been widely demonstrated that engaging in shared reading activities can bolster children's language development, and recent research has begun to examine how reading interactions could be structured to specifically support the needs of dual language learning children. Here, we describe how parents, educators, and policy-makers can harness bilingual shared reading activities to build children's emergent biliteracy skills, early literacy abilities in two languages. We consider how the content of books, dialogue with parents, and children's own engagement can all contribute to successful learning outcomes and highlight the unique opportunities found within multilingual and multicultural environments. Based on past research, we then make suggestions for how to provide practical resources that are culturally and linguistically relevant, as well as strategies that could increase dual language learning children's access to bilingual shared reading activities. These solutions will empower families and communities to promote emergent biliteracy.