The Development of English and Arabic Language and Literacy Skills of Syrian Refugee Children and Youth in Canada

Download or read book The Development of English and Arabic Language and Literacy Skills of Syrian Refugee Children and Youth in Canada written by Jermeen Baddour and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language and literacy skills are crucial for the integration and academic achievement of refugee students. In particular, heritage language (L1) maintenance and majority language (L2) acquisition are key to achieving optimal acculturation outcomes. This study examined the performance of Syrian refugee children and youth in word reading, vocabulary and reading comprehension in Arabic and English over a one-year time period. In addition, the extent to which proximal and distal factors pertaining to the child/youth predict performance on the three measures was investigated. Findings suggest that one school year of English instruction enhanced students' English performance and reduced the gap between them and their monolingual peers. Evidence of Arabic language progress was also demonstrated. Moreover, age and parental education were among the factors predicting English and Arabic language proficiency. Implications are discussed as well as recommendations to promote Arabic and English language and literacy skills in school-aged Syrian refugees.