The English proficiency and academic language skills of Australian bilingual children during the primary school years

Abstract

Purpose: Evidence suggests that early proficiency in the language of school instruction is an important predictor of academic success for bilingual children. This study investigated whether English-proficiency at 4–5 years of age predicts academic language and literacy skills among Australian bilingual children at 10–11 years of age, as part of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC, 2012).

Method: The LSAC comprises a nationally representative clustered cross-sequential sample of Australian children. Data were analysed from a sub-sample of 129 bilingual children from the LSAC Kindergarten cohort (n = 4983), for whom teachers completed the Australian Early Development Index (AEDI) checklist (a population measure of early childhood development) and the Academic Rating Scale (ARS) language and literacy subscale.

Result: Linear regression analyses revealed that bilingual children who commenced school with stronger English proficiency had higher academic language and literacy scores at the end of primary school (β = 0.45). English proficiency remained a significant predictor, even when accounting for gender and socio-economic disadvantage (β = 0.38).

Conclusion: The findings indicate that bilingual children who begin school without English proficiency are at risk of difficulties with academic language and literacy, even after 6 years of schooling. Risk factors need to be identified so early support can be targeted towards the most vulnerable children.

Keywords::

• Bilingualism
• language
• literacy

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge the Australian Government who funded both the AEDI and LSAC and all of the families and schools who participated in the studies. The AEDI was conducted by the Centre for Community Child Health, Melbourne in partnership with the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Perth. The LSAC was conducted by the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

Declaration of Interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.