Historically, bilingualism in early childhood was thought to be detrimental to children’s language and cognitive development. This was due to the idea that two languages were learned independently, and the knowledge of learning a language did not transfer into the other. Thus educational practices, specifically within the United States school system, have not encouraged early bilingualism/biliteracy. The negative associations of early bilingualism have also perpetuated when educational studies documented low academic performances and challenges of immigrant students in attaining language/literacy proficiency in the English language (August et al., 2009; May, 2013; Ortega, 2010). Consequently, European, Asian, and Hispanic children in the U.S. classrooms have been labeled as “deficient”, “limited”, “disadvantaged” and even “impaired” students in research in terms of language/literacy development. However, recent studies have shown that bilingualism in early childhood bestows a set of linguistic and cognitive benefits for school achievement (Bauer & Gort, 2012). In order to address these issues, the present exploratory study investigated development of early bilingualism in two immigrant preschool students from Turkey in a U.S. public school from the beginning of their introduction to the English language in preschool to their transition into kindergarten. The research question that guided the study was “how do young immigrant children from a diverse language background develop bilingualism and biliteracy in an early childhood classroom in the U.S.?” Both of the children were four years old, fluent in their native language, Turkish, and had no prior instructional exposure to the English language. They were the only two linguistically diverse immigrant children among other 16 monolingual English-speaking classmates who were all born in the U.S. The study was grounded in the MOM framework (Kohnert, 2008). MOM is the abbreviation for the triad of Means, Opportunities, and Motive that explains how language development occurs in young children. Means refers to child-internal resources that affect language learning, such as receptive/expressive language skills, cognitive/sensory functions, and social-emotional attitudes toward languages. Opportunities refers to social factors, including availability of rich language environment and diverse instructional opportunities to develop and use a particular language for meaningful communicative interactions. Lastly, Motive refers to motivations and needs that trigger particular language use in social contexts. MOM framework suggests that Means, Opportunity, and Motive interact in complex ways to account for successful bilingual development in children. When MOM is sufficient, immigrant children develop and maintain both their native language and the second language. When one or more aspects of MOM are weak, bilingualism may be negatively affected. Thus, the study investigated the focal children’s bilingual development from these three perspectives in school. Based on the findings, the study offers specific educational perspectives on the advantages of early bilingualism and highlights the areas that it supports school achievement. At the broader level, implications of the study address how early bilingualism is perceived in the education system of multilingual countries in Europe and the U.S., and to what extent schools as well as families from different language and cultural backgrounds value and encourage bilingualism in early childhood education.

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