Bilingual education programs which foster literacy first in the mother tongue and then in the second language, before the second language is used as a medium of instruction, are proving to be successful in a number of locations around the world. Several social, psychological, and pedagogical advantages result from this bilingual education strategy. Such programs encourage community understanding and support, minimize the culture shock for the child entering school, augment the child's sense of personal worth and identity, develop the child's habit of academic success, and utilize the child's fluency in his own language in learning the skills of reading and writing. Conscious control of one's own language facilitates the learning of a second language in the formal school setting. New ideas can be introduced in the mother tongue; reading ability facilitates the learning of a second language. In such bilingual programs, literacy in the mother tongue is followed immediately by learning to read and write in the second language. (VM)