A second-grade teacher gently reminds a bilingual child who is working on a story that he has subconsciously shifted from writing in English to writing in Spanish. Why is this strategy useful at this grade level when it would NOT have been meaningful several years ago?
◦ The child has acquired metalinguistic awareness.
◦ The child has separated his mental dictionary into two categories.
◦ The child has now achieved a higher level of reading competence.
◦ The child is transitioning to the production stage in bilingual development.