1. Raymonde Sneddon University of East London / Birkbeck r.m.sneddon@uel.ac.uk Reading and Writing with Dual Language Books

5. Bilingual Books – Biliterate Children Albanian - Magda and Albana aged 6: negotiating meaning with mother, checking with English text, using illustrations. Turkish - Lek and Durkan aged 7: collaborative reading, Using the whole context, both languages and all environmental clues, comparing language structure Urdu – Myadda aged 7: cracking the code with grandmothers primer, learning to love reading French – Sarah aged 9:Balanced bilingual – taught herself to read in French – similes, metaphors and the deeper meaning of stories Gujarati – Mohamed aged 7: developing high level oral skills before tackling the Gujarati script

8. Children working at the cutting edge of their ability, highly motivated and proud of their skills Children using the home language more, developing their vocabulary and book language All children transferred skills from reading in English to reading in the family language in varying degree depending on the script Children have developed a stronger interest in reading and improved their reading in English Children learning to read - 1

9. Children learning to read - 2 The children are exploring and beginning to understand the differences between the morphology and syntax of their languages and getting an insight into the translation process. Interest and pride in their two languages and cultures and developing confident identities. Role of teachers and the school in creating a language friendly environment with resources that value childrens cultural heritage and encourage exploring and sharing of personal identities.

10. Children as bilingual authors at home and at school Starting points: telling / reading / retelling stories In two languages Making personal bilingual books at home and in school making a personal version of a favourite family story Children exploring who they are and what matters in their lives: books about personal experience with drawings or photographs writing about a significant personal or family event, writing about holidays. Writing a text in the strongest language and translating

11. Magda and Albanas Albanian diaries

12. Maddas book: My Holiday in Albania

13. Young Authors www.uel.ac.uk/education/research/duallanguagebooks/young_authors.htm www.uel.ac.uk/education/research/duallanguagebooks/young_authors.htm

14. Two voices Albana: I feel happy now, because nearly everyone in my school knows that Im Albanian and all my … especially Ms P. and also Ms J., they used to help, they used to always be proud and used to tell all the other teachers how good we were in Albanian and English. I always feel proud to think that I have been good in my language and Ive made a book and everything. Magda: Well I think Im confident about my future seeing as Im really confident and been in loads of shows and made two books and I think when I grow up and I can be able to be even more things and, since Ive been able to do this and Ive made a book when I was probably six or seven…… I think my future will still carry on good.

15. r.m.sneddon@uel.ac.uk www.uel.ac.uk/education/rese arch/duallanguagebooks