Spanish Heritage Learner's Emerging Literacy: Empirical Research and Classroom Practice (Routledge, UK) is an important contribution to the literature on heritage language teaching and learning. Because of its excellent overview of the field, it is a must read for researchers and practitioners approaching heritage language education from a variety of perspectives.
Guadalupe Valdés, Stanford University
Spanish Heritage Learners Emerging Literacy: Empirical Research and Classroom Practice, by co-authors Flavia Belpoliti and Encarna Bermejo, delves into a topic of utmost interest to the field of heritage languages. Anyone involved in the field, from researchers to practitioners in heritage language education contexts, will treasure this book because it provides much needed empirical information followed by how to apply that knowledge in the classroom. The publication is based on a meticulous methodology that measures the emerging writing skills of heritage language learners of Spanish from different viewpoints: From their spelling abilities to discursive competence, including lexical knowledge, command of both form and function of the Spanish verbal system as well as other syntactic elements. It addresses instructional issues, pedagogical approaches, and specific classroom activities for all the linguistic aspects analyzed. Belpoliti and Bermejo should be commended for writing such a well-executed work, that details the linguistic knowledge of beginner Spanish heritage language learners as evidenced in their writing. I look forward to including the text in my graduate seminars as an example of research techniques in the Research in HLE course, and as best-teaching practices in my Methods of SHL course.
Marta Fairclough, University of Houston
Spanish Heritage Learners Emerging Literacy makes an excellent contribution to the literature on literacy development and pedagogy of Spanish heritage speakers in the United States. It focuses on "emerging literacy in Spanish as a heritage language", an area that has so far been little studied and that is extremely urgent as an increasing number of second and third generation Spanish speakers access higher education being schooled mostly in English. This book is a valuable resource for teachers of Spanish as well as linguists and language practitioners which provides a thorough description of the linguistic features that characterize emerging literacy in Spanish. Based on their empirical analysis of a large number of students, the authors offer a comprehensive blueprint for designing and planning specific classroom learning experiences. Definitely, this book is truly a massive step forward toward our understanding of emerging literacy in Spanish. Bravo!
María Cecilia Colombi, University of California
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