A Hill I’ll Die On: Bilingual Literacy Belongs in Public Education

By Melissa Lammers | Lammers Scholars

I’m going to say something that shouldn’t be controversial, but somehow still is.

Every child who enters an American public school deserves the opportunity to become literate in both English and their home language.

Not just conversationally bilingual.  Not just proficient enough in English to pass a standardized test.  Not just capable of translating for their parents at the doctor’s office.

I mean genuinely literate.  Able to read, write, think critically, and participate academically in both languages.

And if that child has dyslexia, a language disorder, or another disability?  They deserve appropriate special education services that recognize and address their needs across languages.

Not eventually.  Not only if their district happens to have the resources.  Not only if someone writes a grant.

As part of public education.

That’s my hill.

When Did Learning English Become More Important Than Learning?

I’ve spent more than fifteen years in education.  I’ve taught elementary students, middle school students, English learners, and children who struggle profoundly with reading.

And something continues to bother me.

We have built systems that often measure multilingual children’s educational progress primarily through their acquisition of English.

Don’t misunderstand me.  English proficiency is enormously important.  I teach English learners.  I want my students to become confident, capable English speakers, readers, and writers.

But I also want them to remain confident, capable readers and writers in the languages they already know.

Why should those goals compete?

Imagine a fifteen-year-old arriving in an Iowa high school from Guatemala.

He speaks Spanish fluently but reads Spanish at approximately a third-grade level   Maybe his formal education was interrupted.  Maybe he never received explicit reading instruction.  Maybe he has an unidentified learning disability.

He also knows very little English.

What do we do?

We enroll him in English learner services.  We work on English vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, and academic language.  We provide accommodations in his content-area classes.

All of those things can be important.

But who is teaching him to read Spanish?

Who is addressing the literacy gaps that existed before he arrived?

Who is helping him become an educated young adult in both languages?

Why should learning English require putting his first language’s literacy development on hold?

My answer is simple.

It shouldn’t.

Children Do Not Arrive Empty

One of education’s most troubling assumptions is that limited English proficiency somehow reflects limited academic ability.

It doesn’t.

A student may understand complex mathematical concepts but lack the English vocabulary to explain them.

A student may have studied world history extensively but struggle to demonstrate that knowledge on an English-language assessment.

A student may be an accomplished reader in Spanish, Arabic, or another language but appear to struggle academically in an English-only classroom.

And another student may genuinely struggle with literacy in both languages.

These are fundamentally different educational situations.

Yet without appropriate assessment and instruction, we risk treating them as the same.

Children do not arrive at our schools as blank slates.

They arrive with languages, experiences, knowledge, identities, and educational histories.

Our job is to discover what they bring and build upon it.

Not start over simply because we don’t understand the language in which they learned it.

Let’s Talk About Special Education

This part of the conversation deserves far more attention.

As a dyslexia specialist and English learner teacher, I know that identifying reading disabilities in multilingual students requires careful consideration.

Learning English is not a disability.

Limited English proficiency does not indicate intellectual deficiency.

Interrupted schooling is not automatically a learning disorder.

But multilingual children absolutely can have dyslexia, developmental language disorders, and other disabilities.

And when they do, they deserve appropriate evaluation and effective intervention.

Here’s my question:

If a child has dyslexia in Spanish, why would we assume that teaching that child to read only in English fully addresses their literacy needs?

Dyslexia does not disappear when a student changes languages.  Its characteristics can look different depending on the writing system and language, but the underlying difficulties do not magically vanish.

A student who needs explicit, systematic reading instruction should receive it.

And when that student’s educational goals include literacy in Spanish, we should be developing appropriate ways to provide that instruction in Spanish, too.

I recognize that bilingual special educators are difficult to find.  I recognize that districts face staffing shortages, limited budgets, and complicated scheduling.

I live in the real world of public education.

But I refuse to accept that a problem is unworthy of solving simply because it would be difficult to solve.

We didn’t develop specialized reading instruction because it was convenient.

We developed it because children needed it.

Multilingual children deserve that same commitment.

We Celebrate Bilingualism—But Whose Bilingualism?

Here’s something I find particularly frustrating.

When an English-speaking child learns Spanish, we celebrate.

We call it an advantage.  We discuss cognitive flexibility, career opportunities, cultural understanding, and global citizenship.

We encourage families to seek dual-language programs.

But when a Spanish-speaking child enters our schools, we often focus overwhelmingly on how quickly that child can become proficient in English.

Why?

Why is bilingualism an enrichment opportunity for one child but primarily a language barrier to address for another?

Why do we value learning Spanish without making the same investment in helping Spanish-speaking children maintain and develop their literacy?

If bilingualism is valuable, then it is valuable regardless of which language a child learned first.

And if literacy is fundamental to education, then literacy in a child’s home language deserves serious consideration.

A language doesn’t become less valuable because it belongs to an immigrant child.

English Proficiency Should Not Be the Finish Line

Imagine a student who arrives in the United States at age eight.

At that age, she speaks Spanish fluently and is beginning to read and write in Spanish.

She enters an English-speaking school.

Over the next several years, she becomes proficient in English.  She reads English novels, writes English essays, and graduates from high school.

By traditional measures, she is a success story.

And in many ways, she absolutely is.

But what if she can no longer comfortably read a novel in Spanish?

What if she struggles to write a letter to her grandmother?

What if her spoken Spanish remains strong, but her academic Spanish never develops beyond an elementary level?

Did we accomplish everything we could have?

I would argue that wedidn’tt.

Not because English proficiency isn’t an achievement.  It is.

But gaining one language shouldn’t require sacrificing the development of another.

We should be ambitious enough to want both.

What Would a Better System Look Like?

I’m not naive enough to believe that every public school can establish a comprehensive dual-language program tomorrow.

But I am stubborn enough to believe we should be working toward something better.

I envision public schools where multilingual students receive meaningful assessments of their literacy in both English and their home languages.

Where students with interrupted education receive targeted literacy instruction that addresses their actual needs, not just their English proficiency levels.

Where special education evaluations account for linguistic and cultural differences and, when appropriate, provide interventions in the student’s home language.

Where students have access to books, instructional materials, and academic opportunities in multiple languages.

Where families can participate meaningfully in their children’s education without being expected to become fluent English speakers first.

Where bilingual literacy is an intentional educational outcome.

Not an afterthought.

Not a luxury.

Not something available only in wealthier districts or specialized programs.

An educational priority.

Would this require more bilingual teachers?  Absolutely.

More professional development? Yes.

More thoughtful assessments, curriculum development, collaboration, and funding?  Without question.

But public education has never advanced by limiting its goals to what is easiest to accomplish.

And What About Families?

Literacy doesn’t begin when a child walks into kindergarten, and it doesn’t end when the school bell rings.

It lives in homes, libraries, community centers, and conversations between generations.

A parent who reads fluently in Spanish offers something valuable to their child, even if they speak very little English.

A grandmother who tells stories in her home language supports a child’s linguistic and cultural development.

A family that reads together in Arabic, Spanish, Dari, or another language is supporting literacy.

We should be encouraging those experiences.

Instead, families sometimes receive the message that English is the language of education while their home language belongs outside the classroom.

I want schools and community organizations to work together to change that.

I want books in children’s homes.

I want parents and children reading alongside one another.

I want libraries with meaningful multilingual collections.

I want families to have access to literacy resources that respect the languages they speak.

And I want those community efforts to complement strong public school instruction, not compensate for its absence.

This Is Bigger Than English Learner Services

What I’m describing is not simply an improved English learner program.

It is a different understanding of what public education owes multilingual children.

English language development is essential.

But English language development and bilingual literacy are not interchangeable.

Teaching a child English does not automatically develop that child’s literacy in their home language.

And providing translated worksheets does not constitute a comprehensive bilingual education.

I believe we should be asking more ambitious questions.

What if every multilingual student had an individualized literacy profile that recognized strengths and needs across languages?

What if we measured growth in home-language literacy alongside English development?

What if bilingual special education expertise played a meaningful role in how districts designed their services?

What if students could graduate not merely proficient in English, but with documented literacy skills in two languages?

What if we stopped asking how quickly students could transition away from language supports and started asking how fully we could develop their linguistic potential?

That is the kind of public education I want to see.

The Hill I’ll Die On

I believe children should learn English.

I believe they should also have meaningful opportunities to develop literacy in their home languages.

I believe students with disabilities deserve appropriate evaluation and specialized instruction that considers their complete linguistic profiles.

I believe families should partner in literacy development, not stand apart from their children’s education because of language.

And I believe public education should recognize bilingual literacy as a worthy goal for every multilingual child, regardless of income, immigration history, disability, or ZIP code.

I know this vision would require significant changes.

I know some people will say it is too expensive, too complicated, or too difficult to implement.

Those are legitimate implementation questions.

But they are not reasons to stop imagining a better system.

Because here’s what I keep coming back to:

A child should not have to lose one language to gain another.

A child should not have to abandon existing knowledge to access new knowledge.

And a child should not have to choose between receiving appropriate special education services and developing literacy in their family’s language.

We can teach English.

We can develop home-language literacy.

We can provide appropriate specialized instruction.

And we can recognize that all three belong in the conversation about a complete public education.

That’s the hill I’ll die on.

And frankly, I think it’s worth fighting for.