Impact on Academics
1. Retrieval Fluency and Automaticity - Letters
We tend to think that all abilities develop relatively easily and without any problem, and generally, with appropriate instruction, mostly they do. However, there are some that are dependent upon time and timing, as well as how old you are, what grade you are in and prior learning. Retrieval fluency and automaticity are very good examples of this.
We expect children to develop automaticity with certain things as they get older--like letters of the alphabet. But just because you've done that doesn't mean that everybody should be able to do it or that it was easy to do. How did you develop it? You practiced and rehearsed it. You learned the alphabet first by memorizing all 26 letters. And you had to over learn it and say all of the letters of the alphabet very quickly so that it became fluent. It became automatic. You didn't really have to think about what letter comes after "c" since you were in the first grade.
But that doesn't mean you are very fluent with it. If you didn't practice something, you didn't rehearse it. What if I ask you to say the alphabet (which you're very fluent at) as quickly as you can, but to do it backwards? Okay, what is wrong? It's just the alphabet, you know it. Isn't it the same thing? Actually, no it's not.
Now you see that learning things and being able to retrieve things is something that multilingual learners will struggle with because by the time they actually learn them, that opportunity for practice and rehearsal to develop automaticity has long since passed them by.