Table 1.
Parental report regarding MB's health and language and literacy development
| Health background | |
|---|---|
| Hearing | Minor binaural hearing loss |
| Vision | Near‐sighted; nystagmus; corrected with glasses |
| Engagement with support services (English provision) | |
| Portage | Weekly from 14 months to 3 years; fortnightly thereafter until 5 years |
| Speech and language | Bimonthly from 3 to 5 years |
| therapy | |
| Literacy | At (mainstream) school entry until time of testing: comprehensive one‐to‐one English literacy support from a teaching assistant, including a 40‐week language and literacy intervention (Burgoyne et al., 2012) |
| Parental background | |
| Father | Trilingual (Russian, Belarusian, English); holds a PhD |
| Mother | Bilingual (Russian, English); holds a PhD |
| Home environment | |
| Language | Almost exclusively Russian; English language exposure limited until school entry |
| Literacy | Almost exclusively Russian; parents have been reading to MB daily and extensively in Russian since before school; approximately 75 Russian and 50 English story books at home |
| Developmental milestones | |
| Language | In Russian: first spoken words at 24 months; approximately 50 words by 3.5 years; spoken vocabulary size judged to be “beyond estimation” by parents at time of testing |
| In English: approximately 10 spoken words at 4 years and 50 at 5 years; spoken vocabulary judged to be “beyond estimation” at time of testing, but smaller than in Russian | |
| Literacy | In Russian: began learning to read sight words at 30 months; judged to be “at ceiling” at school entry |
| In English: approximately 20 sight words at school entry |