Examining Biliteracy and Bidirectional Cross-Linguistic Transfer in a Low Literacy and Multilingual Context: Insights from Internally Displaced Children in Northeast Nigeria

Internally-displaced children often lack schooling and reside in highly multilingual contexts. In Nigeria, children must learn to read in a local language (e.g., Hausa), and English; here, language skills can transfer across languages to support biliteracy. Importantly, the strength of transfer is constrained by proficiency in language skills. Formal schooling and early life exposure are crucial for acquisition of language skills. In our sample of 1595 Nigerian internally-displaced children, we investigated how pre-displacement school enrollment and early life language language exposure (i.e., at home) predict language skills, and how language skills transfer across languages to support literacy. Pre-displacement school enrollment particularly supported phonological awareness, and early life language exposure particularly supported vocabulary. Phonological awareness was stronger in Hausa relative to English, resulting in greater transfer from Hausa to English. IDP context allows the investigation of cognition and environment to enrich theoretical models of biliteracy, and inform pedagogical practices.