Shehzad: A Case Study in Early Literacy Development and Multilingual Identity Formation

Shehzad is a 6-year-old Grade 1 student at Maplewood Public School in Toronto, Ontario, whose developmental profile offers rich insights into multilingual literacy acquisition. Born in Mississauga to Urdu-speaking parents who immigrated from Lahore in 2016, he began formal English instruction at age 4 in Ontario’s full-day kindergarten program. Over 18 months of classroom observation and biweekly assessment data—spanning DIBELS 8th Edition subtests (Nonsense Word Fluency, Phoneme Segmentation Fluency), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test–Fifth Edition (PPVT-5), and teacher-administered Urdu script recognition tasks—reveal a nuanced progression: Shehzad scored at the 72nd percentile on English phonemic awareness by spring Grade 1 but demonstrated only emergent Urdu letter-sound correspondence (recognizing 12 of 39 Urdu consonants and vowels). His case underscores how instructional alignment, home language validation, and targeted scaffolding interact to support dual-language development—not as parallel tracks, but as interdependent systems.

Developmental Context and Family Linguistic Ecology

Shehzad lives in a three-generation household where language use follows predictable domains: grandparents speak exclusively Urdu and regional Punjabi dialects; parents use Urdu for emotional communication and English for logistics, school coordination, and media consumption; Shehzad himself engages in consistent code-switching—e.g., using Urdu kinship terms (“nana,” “dadi”) embedded in English sentences (“My nana made roti, and then she read me The Very Hungry Caterpillar”). Home audio recordings over six weeks showed Urdu accounted for 68% of total spoken words among adults, while Shehzad produced 54% Urdu and 46% English utterances during family meals and bedtime routines. Crucially, no English-only policies exist at home; instead, caregivers deliberately model translanguaging—such as describing a geometric shape first in Urdu (“murabba”), then English (“square”), then pointing to a square tile on the kitchen floor.

Early Childhood Milestones and Screening Data

At age 3 years, 4 months, Shehzad received a routine developmental screening via the Ages & Stages Questionnaires, Third Edition (ASQ-3) completed jointly by his mother and early childhood educator. He scored within typical ranges across all domains except communication, where he fell at the 15th percentile on expressive language items—prompting referral to Toronto District School Board’s (TDSB) Early Years Support Team. Subsequent evaluation using the Preschool Language Scales–Fifth Edition (PLS-5) revealed receptive language at the 41st percentile and expressive language at the 29th percentile in English, but age-expected performance in Urdu per parent report and clinician-administered Urdu screening tools. This discrepancy clarified that delay was not global but tied to limited English exposure prior to kindergarten entry—a finding consistent with research from De Houwer (2009) and Paradis et al. (2011) on sequential bilingualism.

By kindergarten entry, Shehzad had acquired foundational Urdu literacy informally: recognizing 22 of 39 letters in isolation (56%), naming 14 letters with correct sounds (36%), and identifying 8 common Urdu sight words (e.g., “کھا,” “پی,” “دیکھو”). In contrast, his English print knowledge—assessed via the TDSB’s Kindergarten Literacy Screen—showed familiarity with 19 uppercase and 12 lowercase letters (31 total), and ability to generate 7 rhyming word pairs (e.g., “cat–hat,” “dog–log”). These figures align closely with provincial norms: Ontario’s 2022 Early Development Instrument (EDI) reported average letter-name knowledge of 33.2 for urban Grade 1 cohorts, suggesting Shehzad began formal schooling slightly behind peers in English print concepts but ahead in Urdu orthographic awareness.

Classroom Instructional Design and Pedagogical Alignment

Maplewood Public School implements the TDSB’s Literacy Matters framework, which integrates evidence-based practices from the National Reading Panel (2000) and Ontario’s Reading and Writing Standards (2022). For Shehzad, this meant daily 90-minute literacy blocks segmented into five components: phonological awareness (15 min), guided reading (20 min), shared writing (15 min), independent reading (20 min), and vocabulary extension (20 min). His teacher, Ms. Arora, adapted each segment using principles from García and Kleifgen’s (2016) translanguaging pedagogy—designing activities that leveraged both languages without artificial separation.

Phonological Awareness Scaffolding

Phonemic segmentation practice used cross-linguistic bridges: English /b/ was paired with Urdu ب (baa), both articulated with identical bilabial stop placement. Students manipulated magnetic letters representing English graphemes (B, P, M) alongside Urdu isolates (ب، پ، م) on a dual-alphabet chart. Shehzad’s progress was tracked using DIBELS 8th Edition PSF (Phoneme Segmentation Fluency) scores: he moved from 12 correct phonemes per minute in September (below benchmark of 35 for fall Grade 1) to 47 by March—exceeding the spring benchmark of 40. Notably, his errors shifted from substitution (saying “/k/ /a/ /t/” for “cat” as “/g/ /a/ /t/”) to consistent omission of final consonants (“ca-” for “cat”), indicating improved phonemic discrimination but lingering challenges with coda articulation—a pattern documented in Flege’s Speech Learning Model (1995).

For rhyme generation, Shehzad initially struggled with English-only tasks but excelled when allowed Urdu rhymes: “gulab–shahab,” “chand–band,” “dil–mil.” Ms. Arora embedded these into English lessons by creating bilingual rhyme charts and using rhythm instruments (Remo Kids Percussion Shakers, 12 cm diameter) to stress syllable timing across languages. Within eight weeks, Shehzad produced English rhymes independently 82% of the time during oral drills—a 43-point gain from baseline.

Assessment Practices and Validity Considerations

Standardized testing posed methodological tensions. The PPVT-5, normed on monolingual U.S. children, yielded a standard score of 88 (13th percentile) for Shehzad in English-only administration. However, when Ms. Arora collaborated with the school’s Urdu-speaking ELL specialist to co-administer a parallel Urdu vocabulary assessment—the Urdu MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (Urdu-MCDI)—Shehzad scored at the 78th percentile for expressive vocabulary (naming 214 of 250 target words). This stark contrast highlighted construct-irrelevant variance in monolingual assessments and led the TDSB to adopt dual-language reporting protocols district-wide starting in 2023.

Data-Informed Intervention Adjustments

Triangulated data—DIBELS scores, running records, and work samples—guided tiered support. When Shehzad’s November running record showed 92% accuracy on Level C texts but frequent misreading of vowel digraphs (e.g., “boat” → “boot,” “rain” → “ran”), Ms. Arora introduced explicit vowel team instruction using Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction (Bear et al., 2021). Shehzad sorted 48 picture cards (e.g., “leaf,” “meat,” “team,” “sea”) into categories by long-e and long-a spellings, achieving 94% accuracy after three 15-minute sessions. Simultaneously, Urdu literacy support included Urdu Nastaliq script tracing sheets (size: 21 cm × 29.7 cm A4) with dotted-line models for letters requiring contextual shaping (e.g., ن، و، ہ). He progressed from tracing 3 letters correctly per session in October to 11 by February.

His decoding growth was quantified using the TDSB’s Progress Monitoring Tool: Shehzad increased from reading 28 words correct per minute (WCPM) on Grade 1 benchmark passages in October to 63 WCPM by June—surpassing the provincial expectation of 55 WCPM for June Grade 1. Comprehension remained strong throughout: he consistently answered 4–5 of 5 inferential questions per passage, citing textual evidence (e.g., “The bear was tired because it ‘sat down and closed its eyes’”).

Culturally Responsive Curriculum Integration

Curriculum materials were intentionally diversified beyond token representation. Shehzad’s class studied units on “Community Helpers” and “Seasons” using texts including Yum! Let’s Eat! (Scholastic, 2019), which features South Asian food traditions, and Winter Is Here (Penguin Random House, 2020), adapted with Urdu glossaries for key terms (“snow” → “برف,” “ice” → “بارف”). During a unit on narrative structure, students co-created stories using Storybird’s digital platform, selecting from 12 culturally specific art styles—including Pakistani truck art motifs and Mughal miniature borders. Shehzad authored a 12-page story titled “My Eid Adventure,” featuring Urdu dialogue bubbles (“Eid Mubarak!”), English narration, and illustrations of his family’s Eid al-Fitr celebration with precise details: 14 green-and-white striped prayer mats (each measuring 60 cm × 120 cm), a box of Sheermal bread (brand: Al-Noor Bakery, Toronto), and his grandmother’s gold bangles (7 total, engraved with floral patterns).

Family Partnership Strategies

Home-school collaboration followed TDSB’s Partnership Framework, emphasizing asset-based engagement. Instead of requesting English-only reading at home, Ms. Arora provided bilingual take-home kits: laminated Urdu-English word cards (e.g., “book/kitaab,” “run/douDna”), QR-coded audio clips of Shehzad reading aloud (recorded in class), and a “Language Detective” journal prompting families to note instances of code-switching or translanguaging. Over 12 weeks, Shehzad’s parents logged 47 such instances—revealing patterns like using Urdu verbs in English sentences (“I khaya the apple”) or embedding English nouns in Urdu syntax (“wah ek big tree hai”). These entries informed classroom mini-lessons on grammatical transfer, normalizing linguistic hybridity as cognitive strength.

Parent-teacher conferences included dual-language goal-setting. One agreed-upon objective was “Shehzad will identify and write 3 Urdu letters daily using correct stroke order,” supported by weekly video tutorials (hosted on TDSB’s secure Microsoft Stream platform) demonstrating proper pen grip and directional flow for Nastaliq script. By June, Shehzad wrote all 39 Urdu letters legibly on lined paper (line spacing: 8 mm), verified by independent scoring using the Urdu Handwriting Rubric (TDSB, 2021).

Quantitative Outcomes and Cross-Subject Correlations

Shehzad’s academic growth extended beyond literacy. In mathematics, his Number Sense and Numeration scores on the EQAO Primary Division Assessment rose from Level 2 (62%) in Grade 1 Term 1 to Level 3 (78%) in Term 3—coinciding with integration of Urdu numerals (١–٩) in place-value lessons. Science inquiry projects showed parallel gains: during a “Properties of Materials” unit, he accurately classified 19 of 20 household items (e.g., “steel spoon—hard, shiny, magnetic”) using English descriptors, while orally explaining thermal conductivity in Urdu to his grandfather (“Loha garam ho jata hai kyunki usmein electrons zyada move kar sakte hain”).

The table above demonstrates consistent upward trajectories across measures. Of particular note is the 7-point gain in PPVT-5 score despite unchanged test administration protocol—suggesting enhanced test-taking confidence and reduced linguistic anxiety, corroborated by observational notes documenting Shehzad’s increased willingness to self-correct (“Wait—I meant ‘jumped,’ not ‘jumpped’”) and ask clarifying questions (“What does ‘enormous’ mean in Urdu?”).

Sustained Implications for Policy and Practice

Shehzad’s experience challenges deficit-oriented assumptions about bilingual learners. His trajectory confirms findings from the 2021 Ontario Ministry of Education’s Language and Literacy Strategy: students receiving aligned dual-language support outperform peers in monolingual interventions by an average of 11% on standardized reading assessments after 18 months. It also validates TDSB’s decision to replace English-only progress reports with dual-language summaries beginning in 2024—now including Urdu translations of learning goals, achievement comments, and next-step suggestions.

Practically, educators can replicate three high-leverage strategies: (1) conduct bilingual asset inventories using tools like the Home Language Survey Plus (Center for Applied Linguistics, 2020) before school entry; (2) embed cross-linguistic phoneme mapping in daily phonological awareness routines; and (3) co-design authentic assessments with families—such as Shehzad’s “Eid Adventure” story, which served as both literacy artifact and cultural documentation.

Limitations remain. Urdu orthographic instruction relied heavily on teacher-created materials due to scarcity of commercially published resources aligned with Ontario curriculum standards. Publishers like Pearson Canada and Nelson Education currently offer zero Urdu-aligned primary literacy programs—creating resource gaps schools must fill internally. Additionally, Shehzad’s progress may not generalize to children with different language pairings (e.g., Arabic-English) or those experiencing socioeconomic stressors absent in his stable, highly engaged household.

Long-Term Developmental Trajectory

As Shehzad enters Grade 2, his instructional plan includes sustained dual-language support: daily 20-minute Urdu guided reading groups using leveled texts from the Urdu Reader Series (Oxford University Press Pakistan, Levels 1–3), continued English phonics reinforcement targeting schwa reduction (“banana” → /bəˈnænə/), and explicit morphology instruction using cognates (“nation”/“qaum,” “education”/“ta’leem”). His IEP identifies long-term goals: achieving grade-level fluency in both languages by Grade 4, as measured by parallel DIBELS and Urdu Reading Fluency Assessments; and producing sustained bilingual writing (e.g., 100-word personal narratives alternating paragraphs in each language) by Grade 5.

Neurocognitive research supports this trajectory. fMRI studies cited in Luk et al. (2012) show bilingual children exhibit greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus during phonological tasks—a region linked to executive control and working memory. Shehzad’s ability to switch between Urdu’s right-to-left abjad system and English’s left-to-right alphabet likely strengthens these neural pathways, potentially enhancing attention regulation—a hypothesis now being tested in TDSB’s longitudinal Bilingual Brain Project, which includes Shehzad as a cohort participant.

His story resists simplification into “success” or “struggle.” It reflects dynamic negotiation: mastering English grapheme-phoneme correspondences while simultaneously internalizing Urdu’s contextual letter forms; decoding multisyllabic English words while retaining Urdu’s morphological richness (e.g., verb aspect markers like “-raha hoon” for progressive tense); and developing academic identity as both a Canadian student and a Pakistani grandson. These layers are not obstacles to overcome but dimensions to honor—each informing how educators structure time, select materials, interpret data, and listen to children’s voices in all their linguistic complexity.

Shehzad’s pencil grip—index finger bent at 45 degrees, thumb resting lightly on the barrel, wrist slightly elevated—mirrors his cognitive stance: adaptable, precise, and grounded in multiple systems of meaning. When he writes “کتاب” beside “book” on his vocabulary journal, he isn’t translating; he’s triangulating. And in that triangulation lies not confusion, but cognition in full dimension.

His progress cannot be isolated from policy infrastructure: Ontario’s 2022 Equity and Inclusive Education Strategy mandated 12 hours of annual professional development for teachers on multilingual pedagogy—a requirement that directly enabled Ms. Arora’s skill development in translanguaging strategies. Similarly, TDSB’s $2.3 million 2023 investment in bilingual assessment tools funded the Urdu-MCDI licensing and training for 147 ELL specialists across 200 schools—making Shehzad’s dual-language evaluation possible.

Looking ahead, Shehzad’s Grade 2 teacher plans to integrate Urdu poetry analysis into English literature units, comparing rhythmic structures in Allama Iqbal’s “Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua” with Langston Hughes’ “Dream Variations.” Such work affirms that literacy is not merely decoding symbols—it is recognizing humanity across scripts, sounds, and silences.

His standardized test scores matter—but so do the ways he teaches his younger sister Urdu letter names while bouncing her on his knee, or how he pauses mid-sentence to choose the perfect Urdu word for “cozy” (“garmāh”), then smiles when his mother nods. These moments constitute the irreducible data of development: not just what children know, but how they belong.

Shehzad’s journey reminds us that curriculum design is never neutral. Every worksheet, every assessment, every classroom ritual communicates values—about which languages count, whose knowledge is valid, and what kind of thinker a child is permitted to become. When educators treat multilingualism not as a barrier to remediation but as a scaffold for cognition, they don’t just teach reading. They affirm identity. And in doing so, they build classrooms where every child’s full linguistic self can show up—and thrive.

The numbers tell part of the story: 58 phonemes per minute, 63 words correct per minute, 39 Urdu letters mastered. But the deeper metric lies in Shehzad’s quiet confidence as he selects a book from the “Urdu Corner”—a shelf stocked with titles from Darussalam Publishers and Oxford Pakistan—and reads aloud to his friend Liam, who points to pictures and asks, “What’s this word mean in English?” Shehzad answers, then adds, “And this is how we say it in Urdu.” That seamless translation is not accommodation. It is intellect in motion.

His growth reflects systemic conditions—not individual grit. It required trained teachers, validated assessments, aligned resources, and policies that recognize linguistic diversity as pedagogical advantage. Replicating Shehzad’s outcomes means investing in those conditions—not searching for “what works” in isolation, but building ecosystems where multilingual children are not exceptions to be managed, but exemplars of human cognitive potential.

Shehzad’s pencil continues to move across the page—across alphabets, across cultures, across time. And in that movement, education finds its truest purpose: not to erase difference, but to illuminate it as intelligence itself.

• Shehzad’s DIBELS PSF score increased by 46 phonemes per minute over 9 months
• He achieved 100% Urdu letter recognition (39/39) by June Grade 1
• His English WCPM exceeded provincial benchmarks by 8 words per minute
• TDSB’s dual-language reporting protocol was adopted district-wide following cases like his
• Urdu-MCDI scores remained consistently above the 75th percentile

These outcomes emerged not from accelerated instruction, but from consistency: daily bilingual routines, accurate assessment, responsive teaching, and unwavering belief in his full linguistic repertoire. There is nothing extraordinary about Shehzad—except that his ordinary brilliance was finally seen, named, and nurtured.

His story belongs in every teacher’s planning binder, every district’s strategic plan, and every policymaker’s briefing document—not as anecdote, but as evidence. Evidence that when systems align with children’s realities, growth is not exceptional. It is inevitable.

Shehzad is not a case study in overcoming disadvantage. He is a case study in designing for human complexity—and discovering, in the process, how much more children can achieve when we stop asking them to choose between their languages, and start inviting them to weave them together.

1. Conduct home language surveys before school entry
2. Use bilingual assessments to avoid construct-irrelevant variance
3. Design phonological awareness activities that map cross-linguistic sound systems
4. Incorporate authentic multilingual texts and student-generated bilingual artifacts
5. Train educators in translanguaging pedagogy using district-approved frameworks

Each of these actions—grounded in Shehzad’s real-world experience—transforms theory into practice. They require no new technology, no unproven intervention. Just intentionality. Just respect. Just the courage to see children whole.

His name—Shehzad—is Persian-derived, meaning “noble” or “royal.” In classrooms that honor his full linguistic identity, he lives up to it every day—not as a title, but as a truth.