Understanding Growth in Bilingual and Biliteracy Skills in Singapore’s Children

"We could actually see where students differ in language domains, such as phonological awareness or vocabulary skills.  The findings spotlighted areas where students were lagging behind and helped us prioritize addressing them. With this evidence in hand, it becomes easier to motivate teachers to adopt evidence-informed approaches that more precisely address the specific learning gaps that students face. How we layer support at each level matters, and with thoughtful implementation, it can go a long way in helping our students become more confident and competent learners."

Project Team

Bilingualism is dynamic, with children’s language use and proficiency changing over time. Within a single classroom, children may be at different points in their bilingual developmental paths. Therefore, a longitudinal perspective will shed light on how individuals’ environmental influences, interacting with dispositional and experiential factors, yield bilingual outcomes. This study tracked children’s dual-language competency growth longitudinally, utilising a comprehensive set of language tasks (English, plus Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil) developed for Singapore.

Three projects each examined bilingual growth for one Mother Tongue group, highlighting issues unique to the language pairs in spoken and written forms. Each project follows three age groups (from kindergarten, Primary 1 and Primary 3) over two school years. Parent-report questionnaires and teacher surveys capture environmental factors from home and school. These factors are evaluated for their impact on children’s bilingual development.

A fourth project investigates individual differences, including further cognitive assessments with low-progress and average learners, to better understand how different constellations of language and script interact in the early stages of language and literacy development and the emergence of learning deficits (e.g., developmental language disorder or dyslexia)

The research teams across projects worked with 37 preschools and 12 primary schools from 2022 to 2024 to collect the longitudinal data. Findings will guide early screening for learning difficulties and inform targeted instructional support for bilingual children, providing critical insights into how diverse language experiences shape biliteracy in Singapore.

Findings show that despite a common pattern of English dominance across all participating Singaporean children, different profiles of bilingual development emerge within each bilingual group at different grade levels.

 Dual language learning differs across Mother Tongue groups, due to different script and literacy demands.

• Environmental influences (e.g., SES, book access) are especially important for the weaker language.
• Motivation for language learning becomes a stronger factor from      Primary 3 onwards.
• By primary school, educators - not families - play a central role in biliteracy development.
• Differentiated instruction is needed based on learner profiles:
  • For Chinese: early oral vocabulary support, wider book access, intensive character instruction
  • For Malay: early code-focused literacy routines, sustained print practice across grades
  • For Tamil: intensive oral language input and guided reading for weaker Tamil students
• Educators can build metalinguistic and cross-linguistic skills, and engage families in activities such as shared book reading to strengthen bilingual growth.
  

Resources