DEVELOPING READING LITERACY IN A BILINGUAL ENVIRONMENT: THE PRACTICE OF KAZAKH SCHOOLS IN THE BAYAN-OLGII REGION

The article examines the problem of developing students’ reading literacy in the context of bilingual education based on the experience of Kazakh schools in the Bayan-Ölgii region. Although the language of instruction in Kazakh schools in Mongolia is Kazakh, the dominance of the Mongolian language in the socio-public and official domains directly affects students’ learning activities.The purpose of the study is to identify the specific features of reading literacy among students studying in a bilingual environment, determine the main difficulties, and describe effective methods and techniques used in teachers’ practice. The research employed observation, analysis of text-based tasks, and a comparative method.The findings indicate that students frequently demonstrate a predominance of translation-based thinking, as well as terminological and lexical difficulties and a weak understanding of implicit meaning. At the same time, it has been proven that the purposeful and systematic use of reading strategies has a positive effect on deep text comprehension and the development of reading literacy.The conclusions of the article can serve as a practical basis for improving methodological work aimed at developing reading literacy in a bilingual environment.