There are loads of studies which show considerable benefits of bilingualism. I am looking for something which specifically refers to literacy. Does anyone know of any relevant research/articles?

Our Minister for Education wants to see improved literacy and numeracy skills amongst students, but at the same time is also saying that there is too much time being spent on Irish in primary schools. I believe that if students accessed Irish properly in primary school and became competent, improved literacy skills would be another consequence. Word attack strategies and general skills involved in comprehending and analysing information are transferable between languages so therefore something learned in one language benefits the other.

Does anyone know of anything that would show improved literacy skills when competent in two languages? Not just opinion, but something evidence-based is what I am after.

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I can't answer your question. One thing I and some of my fellow teachers have noticed is that a large proportion of students who come from a Gaelscoil have disastrously bad spelling and it is very hard to change. We have guys going into Third Year or later in secondary school who, for example, spell i gcomhair as igor. Many of their fellow students will have picked up the correct spelling visually from books, but it seems that some of the ex-Gaelscoil students allow the sound of the word as they already know it to dictate. This is more than bad spelling - it seems to reflect the poor pronounciation that can be found in some of the Gaelscoileanna.

Maybe these students are just weak academically, and this fact is simply masked by their good oral ability. After all, even the weakest students will make significant progress in a language if they are immersed in it.

If I think about the Leaving Cert Higher Level classes I have had over the years (including last year), very few of the top guys in the class come from all-Irish primary schools. They are normally overtaken by other students as the years go by. Again, it may be because these students are in the minority, and therefore have less chance of being among the most academically able (because of their small numbers).