Print knowledge in Yucatec Maya–Spanish bilingual children: an initial inquiry

ABSTRACT

This study serves as an initial inquiry regarding the early print knowledge of emergent bilingual preschool-age children living in an Indigenous community in Mexico. In this research, we examine various dimensions of print knowledge with Yucatec Maya–Spanish bilingual children for whom one of their languages (Yucatec Maya) is seldom seen in print forms in mainstream classrooms and curricula. A total of 84 emergent bilingual children were assessed in their Yucatec Maya and Spanish on measures of alphabet knowledge (i.e. letter names and sounds), name writing, and concepts of print. Results were analyzed and compared between languages, showing that the children demonstrated modest levels of print knowledge on all measures. Whereas the emergent bilingual children in this study performed significantly better in Spanish than Yucatec Maya on all indices of print knowledge, this investigation provides insights into how these children may concurrently develop print-related skills in interrelated ways across languages. Implications of these findings are outlined.

KEYWORDS:

• Emergent literacy
• print knowledge
• Indigenous
• emergent bilingual children

Acknowledgements

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Kellogg Foundation, the Institute of Sciences, or the U.S. Department of Education. We would like to acknowledge the valuable assistance provided in this study by Amy Pratt, Alejandra Sasil Sánchez Chan, Verónica Córdoba Mejía, Gabriela Arenas Pérez, and Fátima Tun Tzuc.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Alain Bengochea http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4602-3676

Notes

1. The terms Yucatec Maya and Maya are used interchangeably to describe the Indigenous language widely spoken in the state of Yucatán, Mexico. As such, the term Maya will be used hereafter.

2. Indigenous is capitalized as it refers to a people (e.g. Indians of the Americas) and legitimizes a cultural group and their minoritized languages (Greymorning 2010).

3. The digraphs (ch) and (ll), indicating the consonantal sounds as /tʃ, ʃ/ and /ʎ/, respectively, for many Spanish speakers are considered a part of the alphabet, although larger organizations promoting linguistic unity, such as the Real Academia Española, have ruled them out and instead alphabetized them under C and L.

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this article is supported by the Kellogg Foundation [grant number P3024004], to the second author and, in part, by the U.S. Department of Education-Institute of Education Sciences [grant number R305B12008], to the first author.