Teaching literacy to newly arrived pupils

Abstract Although considerable research has examined multilingual literacy development, less is known about teachers’ knowledge and use of specific strategies for newly arrived migrant pupils. This study investigates strategies for teaching literacy to migrant pupils in linguistically diverse classrooms. A questionnaire was administered to 45 teachers in Spain, the Netherlands, and Belgium who work with newly arrived pupils to assess their knowledge, attitudes, and needs regarding teaching strategies. The results reveal that although most teachers are aware of general literacy strategies, they rarely adapt them to their pupils’ language background and literacy needs. The main hindrance to teachers’ use of pupils’ home languages in literacy instruction is their limited knowledge of the languages represented in their pupils’ repertoires, together with insufficient access to materials, strategies, and resources. To improve the teaching of migrant pupils, we propose four recommendations: (1) videos explaining home language characteristics, (2) training on specific strategies, (3) new materials tailored to learners’ linguistic backgrounds and literacy levels and (4) a virtual platform for teacher collaboration.