Children’s Acquisition of Literacy in Syllabic Scripts: Annotated Bibliography

Abstract

The Children’s Acquisition of Literacy in Syllabic Scripts project synthesizes existing knowledge about children’s acquisition of literacy in syllabic scripts, biliteracy in syllabic and alphabetic scripts, and the impact of learning exceptionalities on the acquisition of literacy in syllabic scripts. Although English-language sources on the topic are few, what research there is available suggests that whether children first learn an alphabetic or syllabic script before starting to learn the other type of script is not the most important factor in terms of their ultimate literacy and/or biliteracy. Instead, what is more significant is that children are exposed to a rich linguistic input in both of their languages, together with being provided with a supportive teaching environment, alongside clear and explicit teaching instruction. Search parameters comprised combinations of the following words/terms: acquisition, acquisition of literacy, alphabetic languages, alphabetic scripts, Arctic Quebec, Baffin, biliteracy, Cherokee, Cree, dysgraphia, dyslexia, education, Indigenous, Inuit, Inuktitut, Inuttitut, Inuttut, Keewatin, kivalliq, learning, learning exceptionalities, literacy, Nunavik, Nunavut, orthography, reading, reading deficits, reading development, reading difficulties, reading problems, school, script, syllabic, syllabic languages, syllabic scripts, writing, writing system. The resources in the annotated bibilography represent the a range of approaches to understanding children's literacy acquisition in a syllabic scripts.