Training Guides for the Head Start Learning Community:
Emerging Literacy: Linking Social Competence to Learning
Appendix A
| Contents
| Preface
| Introduction
| Module 1
| Module 2
| Module 3
| Module 4 | |
Responding to Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Children and Families*
Background
The term linguistically and culturally diverse is used by the U.S. Department of Education and other educators to identify children from homes and communities where the primary language used for communication is other than English. Head Start programs throughout the United States enroll children and families who are linguistically and culturally diverse. When Head Start staff acknowledge and support this diversity, children are encouraged to retain skills in their home language, while learning to understand and use a second language at Head Start.
The Home Language
Most children begin their Head Start experiences with some skills in their home language--the language their family uses to communicate with each other. Whether the home language is English or another, it is the language children have learned since birth. Children use their home language to establish relationships with family and friends, to express their ideas and feelings, and to think and make sense of their world. Families pass on cultural values, beliefs, and traditions using their home language. Clearly, each child's home language is an important part of his or her identity and abilities. It is most likely the language the family uses to communicate complex ideas and feelings.
Some parents are afraid that using their home language with their child will get in the way of their child's mastery of a second language. Actually, it is one of the best ways to support a child who is learning a second language. When children have strong skills in one language, they can use these skills to become proficient in a second language. Knowing how to communicate in more than one language is an asset children will use throughout their lives.
Suggested Strategies
When parents and Head Start staff collaborate, they can ensure that children continue to develop skills in the home language while acquiring skills in English. The following are some suggested tips and strategies for accomplishing this goal:
- Recognize that all children's thinking, language, and emotional
skills are connected to their home language and culture.
- Celebrate children's strengths and provide numerous ways for them
to express their ideas, feelings, and knowledge through art, music,
sensory experiences, dramatic play, block building, and outdoor
play.
- Understand that it takes a long time to learn a second language.
Encourage children to become experts in using their first language so they can use these skills to make sense of the complexities of a
second language.
- Involve parents in planning and implementing the Head Start
curriculum. Ask parents to share linguistic and cultural
experiences, songs, rhymes, stories, art, music, and books with the
staff and children.
- Invite parents to become volunteers. Make sure they know that they
are welcome and that their contributions are appreciated.
- Develop partnerships with parents and share information about
children's activities and interests at home and in Head Start
settings. These partnerships help maintain linguistic and cultural
continuity between home and Head Start settings.
- Encourage parents to speak to children in their home language.
Explain that they are building loving relationships, modeling how
to speak their language, and passing on their culture's values and
traditions, books, rhymes, songs, and stories.
- Include examples of children's home languages in the Head Start
environment. Use appropriate languages and reading levels for
parent information boards and notices. Write signs and make labels
in home languages and English. Include books, tapes, and other
materials that reflect linguistic and cultural diversity.
- Speak to children in their home languages as much as you can. If
you do not speak a child's home language, ask the parents to help
you learn a few important words and phrases in the language.
Observe a child's reactions to hearing you use comforting words in
her home language.
- Encourage children who speak the same home language to play
together.
- Help children understand spoken English by:
— Holding frequent one-on-one conversations
— Speaking slowly and clearly
— Using simple sentences and vocabulary
— Repeating important words with emphasis
— Talking about what is happening in the present
— Using gestures to clarify words and provide more information
* Based on "National Association for the Education of Young Children Position Statement: Responding to Linguistic and Cultural Diversity--Recommendations for Effective Early Education," Young Children 51 (January 1996), 4-22.
Copyright © 1999 Head Start Publications Management Center. All rights reserved.
Last Modified: