Within the framework of the IFV, a study is being conducted on the acquisition of reading and writing skills in German among primary school children with different languages of origin. The languages of origin are strongly represented minority languages such as Russian, Turkish and Arabic.

A subset of the children from the BIVEM study, whose linguistic development was already examined over the course several years during preschool, will also participate in the study. The integration of children from the BIVEM study’s support phase offers a unique opportunity to follow and investigate the language development of over 100 Russian-German and Turkish-German bilingual children all the way to primary school level. The initial examination of these children took place between the ages of 2-3 when they entered kindergarten. The study, which will be carried out in primary schools, will focus on the acquisition and development of written language and on indicators pointing to possible problems in the field of written language acquisition. These will be identified on the basis of results from earlier phases of language development (e.g. narrative skills).

The aim is to combine the expertise from linguistics and social pedagogy with the expert knowledge of teachers, educators and social workers from Berlin schools and family centres.