Аннотация
The article is devoted to the study of the effectiveness of the bilingual approach in the development of reading skills in English among younger schoolchildren. The aim of the study was to determine the role of the native language (L1) as a means of semantic and cognitive support when working with a foreign language text. 36 primary school students aged 9-10 years with an English language level A2 participated in the pedagogical experiment. All participants were divided into control and experimental groups of 18 people each. The educational material was an adapted story, equipped with a system of tasks before, during and after reading. The main difference between the groups was the format of the text presentation: the experimental group worked with an electronic version containing three types of hyperlinks in their native language - translation, visualization, and contextual explanations; the control group worked with identical text, but without any support. The experiment consisted of three stages: a pre-test, work with bilingual support, and a post-test. Quantitative analysis, pedagogical observation, and student questionnaires were used to evaluate the results. The results showed a significant advantage for the experimental group, whose average score increase was 2.6 versus 1.1 in the control group. In addition, there was an increase in confidence, motivation, and engagement among students who worked with bilingual support. Contextual explanations have been recognized as the most effective type of hyperlinks. The data obtained confirm the practical importance of using the native language in teaching reading in elementary school. The developed model can be successfully implemented in both traditional and digital learning, especially in a multilingual educational environment. The methodology corresponds to modern approaches in the field of TELL and translingual education.