description) This project explores how a key experience in the lives of many bilingual immigrant children--their work as """"""""language brokers"""""""" or translators between their families and the English-speaking world--relates to their English literacy development and success in school. A survey administered to 5th and 6th grade Hispanic students in a majority-Latino public elementary school located in a Mexican immigrant community will explore the depth and range of children's experiences as language brokers. Based on responses to this survey, twenty-four students will be selected for focused observations-12 classified as """"""""brokers"""""""" and 12 as """"""""non-brokers"""""""". Each will be observed weekly in Language Arts classes in school; the brokers will also be observed at least once a month in out-of-school translating situations. 5-10 translating episodes by each participant will be audiotaped and analyzed qualitatively for the kinds of strategies that children use to deal with problems that arise while translating (when they don't know a word; when they don't understand the material; when their audience doesn't seem to understand). These will be compared with multiple measures of the strategies that the same children use when they confront similar problems while reading and writing, as measured through miscue analysis and think-aloud protocols administered (for reading and for writing in two genres: a recount and story) to them. School records (grades, test scores, and teacher comments) will be used to further illuminate the relationship between translating experiences, classroom experiences, and particular kinds of reading and writing skills. The goals of the project are to (1) examine the kinds of language strategies that children use when they broker between English and Spanish in a range of daily-life situations; (2) Compare these strategies with the kinds of strategies that the same children use when they read and write in school and on school-related tasks; (3) Compare these in turn with strategies that """"""""non-brokers"""""""" use when they read and write in school and on school-related tasks; and (4) Consider ways to better leverage the brokering skills that bilingual children use, mostly in settings outside of school, for the development of English literacy in school. A long-term goal of the project is to launch a program of study that explores children's work as language brokers within a broader look at their developmental trajectories and immigrant family processes, as well as to articulate ways of better leveraging children's brokering experiences for their healthy development, acquisition of English literacy, and success in school.
