This study was designed to examine the role of early bilingual home literacy experiences (HLE) (including parent–child shared reading, parents’ direct teaching in Chinese and English, the availability of books in both languages, and children’s access to digital devices for bilingual learning) in the biliteracy development of 66 Chinese–Canadian first graders during the COVID-19 pandemic. Descriptive analyses reveal that overall, parents report higher engagement in English than in Chinese across the four HLE measures. Parent’s engagement in bilingual HLE differs by gender, SES, and immigration status. Pearson correlational analyses of English reading, decoding, and bilingual oral receptive vocabulary reveal that the four dimensions of HLE are not strongly related to English early literacy skills but are positively related to Chinese receptive vocabulary. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses indicate that the availability of books in Chinese and parent–child shared reading in Chinese are key factors associated with Chinese receptive vocabulary score variance; the amount of time using digital devices is found to be significantly related to English reading comprehension, but not Chinese vocabulary; and parents’ direct teaching is not significant with either English early literacy skills or Chinese receptive vocabulary. These findings have important implications for parental engagement in early bilingual home literacy activities and early literacy instruction in school.

Bilingual children in the North American context significantly improve in English language proficiency, but their heritage language learning varies between different linguistic groups. This mixed methods study was designed to explore the developmental patterns in bilingual vocabulary among Chinese-Canadian first-graders’ (N = 75) and to identify home factors that may have contributed to divergent bilingual developmental trajectories. Cluster analyses were conducted to identify underlying discrepancy profiles in bilingual oral lexicon. Four children with contrasting bilingual profiles were selected for qualitative analysis to explore home factors that may have contributed to the discrepancies. Thematic analyses of parental interviews revealed several family factors such as beliefs and attitudes toward bilingualism, quality literacy engagement, and sibling dynamics, that all appearing to contribute to the discrepancies.

The evolution of a pervasive negative view of immigrants and its role in classroom achievement in the United States is described in this paper; beginning in the crowded urban secondary classrooms of the 1800s, to IQ testing in the 1920s that identified many as morons, imbeciles, or idiots, and to an English‐only view that permeates public and political views of teaching and learning. It is argued that categories such as ELL are ill‐advised because they obscure diversity and inform neither instruction nor research because they are unidimensional and misrepresent important underlying diversity. It is argued that evidence‐based strategies should inform teaching and learning, but that evaluating research is the purview of teachers themselves, including conducting classroom‐based action research to test recommended strategies. Concludes with general guidelines to evaluate research.

This study examined the unique contributions of home biliteracy environment in English and Chinese to Chinese-Canadian children’s ( n = 148) bilingual receptive vocabulary development. The children (42 kindergarteners and 106 first graders) were tested on oral receptive vocabulary in Chinese and English. Their parents ( n = 148) filled out a questionnaire on home literacy environment (HLE) which included four dimensions in each language: parent-child shared reading, parent direct teaching, print resources, and digital devices usage in Chinese and English. Correlational and hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated that HLE factors were less associated with English receptive vocabulary in grade-1 than in kindergarten but remained a strong contributor to Chinese vocabulary across both grades. English HLE was significantly associated with children’s English vocabulary in kindergarten but not in grade 1. However, Chinese HLE had a significant effect on Chinese vocabulary in both kindergarten and grade 1. The four dimensions of HLE in each language also had differential relationships with bilingual vocabulary development in kindergarten and grade 1 with parents’ direct teaching and the number of books in English and Chinese being consistent positive factors in facilitating bilingual vocabulary development in both grades. These findings highlight the importance of home biliteracy environment, particularly direct parental involvement, in early bilingual vocabulary development.