Facilitating Reading Acquisition in Multilingual Environments (FRAME) – India

Many students around the world grow up and go to school in multilingual environments, yet there isn’t enough evidence about how to effectively promote reading acquisition in linguistically diverse contexts. The Facilitating Reading Acquisition in Multilingual Environments (FRAME) study addresses this gap by examining the predictors of biliteracy acquisition in South India.
 

Findings

Two main findings emerged from the study:

1. The skills required to read alphasyllabic languages (used across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Africa) are different from alphabetic languages.
2. There is a threshold point at which a child can most successfully “transfer” their skills from their first literacy to effectively learn to read both the local language and English.

FRAME is one of the first studies to provide empirical evidence for a threshold point between alphasyllabic and alphabetic languages with both pedagogical and policy implications for ensuring students achieve the literacy outcomes in multilingual environments.