All bilingual students know one or more languages well. They have no difficulty learning language. If reading and writing are functional to them they will learn them easily and well. Motivation for biliteracy must be built one base of personal and social language functions. The environment which surrounds the learner must be biliterate.
Literacy can only be relevant and functional in the context of a relevant and functional curriculum.
Such a curriculum allows for the natural acquisition of literacy and biliteracy by building on what learners know their language culture, interests, and common experiences. The various tasks of reading and writing need to relate directly to the students experiences. It is simply not possible to treat literacy as an isolated set of skills and expect children to learn. In too many programs for bilingual children, there is too much concern for form without function, too much tradition and too little relevance, too much focus on skill and not enough on comprehension, too much making kids adapt to the curriculum rather than adapting the curriculum to the kids. Curriculum must be meaningful to the child.