Beginning in English: The growth of linguistic and literate abilities in Spanish‐speaking first graders

Abstract This article traces the experience of two Spanish‐speaking children of Puerto Rican origin learning to read and write English as they learned to speak it in mainstream first‐grade classrooms in an urban school where instruction followed a basal series. One child read and wrote words with ease, though his ability to pronounce English and speak in grammatical sentences remained highly marked by Spanish. The other did not consolidate her reading and writing skills outside the structured activities, despite native‐like pronunciation and advancing English speech. Both showed through their engagement that they understood the spoken English of classroom but hardly the written English of texts. Their accomplishments in language and literacy are discussed in terms of issues in second language acquisition among school‐age children, differences between Spanish and English, metalinguistic features of instruction, and the content of early literacy learning.