Emergent Literacy in Dialogue: Comparative Monolingual and Multilingual Perspectives

Emergent literacy research has generated rich evidence about the skills and experiences - oral language, phonological awareness, print knowledge, and early writing - that precede and support conventional reading and writing. Much of this evidence, however, rests on monolingual assumptions that sit uneasily with how most young children actually grow up: learning through, and often between, more than one language. This Research Topic puts monolingual and multilingual perspectives on emergent literacy into direct dialogue, asking which developmental foundations hold across languages and writing systems, and which pathways are context-specific - shaped by orthography, home-language practices, translanguaging, and classroom culture. By bringing developmental evidence into conversation with pedagogy, assessment, family literacy, and teacher learning, the collection aims to build a more inclusive account of emergent literacy, with direct practical value for educators in the linguistically diverse early childhood and early primary settings that are now the norm rather than the exception.Emergent literacy refers to the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that precede and underpin conventional reading and writing: oral language and vocabulary, phonological awareness, narrative competence, print and alphabet knowledge, and early writing. These capacities develop through interaction - with families, educators, peers, texts, and the wider cultural environment - long before formal instruction begins. Most theoretical models and assessment tools describing this development were built with monolingual, alphabetic-orthography learners in mind, yet an increasing share of the world’s young children are acquiring literacy while also navigating more than one language, writing system, or set of cultural literacy practices. Cross-linguistic transfer, orthographic differences, translanguaging, and home-language practices are not marginal complications for this group - they are central to how literacy actually develops for them. A comparative evidence base that treats multilingual development as a starting point rather than an exception is needed to keep literacy theory and practice honest to that reality.We invite empirical, theoretical, review, and practice-oriented contributions on emergent literacy from early childhood through the transition to formal schooling, with particular interest in work that compares or connects monolingual and multilingual development. Priority areas include cross-linguistic and cross-orthographic processes in oral language, phonological awareness, print and alphabet knowledge, narrative skills, and early writing; translanguaging and other multilingual pedagogies; home and family literacy across language contexts; the validity of assessment tools for multilingual learners; and teacher knowledge and professional learning for linguistically diverse classrooms. Cross-national, cross-linguistic, longitudinal, intervention, mixed-methods, and comparative studies are especially welcome. Relevant manuscript types include Original Research, Systematic Review, Review, Methods, Perspective, Conceptual Analysis, and Brief Research Report, subject to the article types available in Frontiers in Education. Topic editors: Isaak Papadopoulos, Sinead Harmey, Andrea Honigsfeld Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85939/emergent-literacy-in-dialogue-comparative-monolingual-and-multilingual-perspectives