Making bilingual education even better through self-selected pleasure reading

Abstract

Studies have repeatedly confirmed that properly organized bilingual programs work very well; children
in these programs score higher on measures of academic English than do similar children in all-day
English programs (see meta-analysis by McField & McField, 2014). Strong bilingual programming will do
even better if we take advantage of the power of self-selected pleasure reading. A strong bilingual program means three things: (a) providing optimal input in English through ESL and
sheltered classes (Krashen & Mason, 2020); (b) focusing attention on developing reading skills in the first
language, which fosters the ability for transferring to reading in English; and (c) teaching subject matter in
the first language, thus imparting knowledge that makes English input more comprehensible.