This investigation examined the impact of maternal language and children’s gender on bilingual children’s vocabulary and emergent literacy development during 2 years in Head Start and kindergarten. Seventy-two mothers and their children who attended English immersion programs participated. Questionnaires administered annually over a 3-year period revealed that mothers increased their usage of English to their children. In addition, more mothers of sons reported using “More or All English” with their children than mothers of daughters. Growth curve modeling indicated that increased usage of English did not impact children’s English vocabulary or emergent literacy development. However, increased usage of English slowed the growth of children’s Spanish vocabulary. Despite differences in mother-to-child language usage, gender did not impact growth in either language. These findings provide evidence that maternal usage of Spanish does not negatively affect children’s developing English vocabulary or emergent literacy abilities. Maternal usage of Spanish appears necessary to maximize children’s developing Spanish vocabulary.

Purpose-The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between Head Start children's receptive language development and their kindergarten reading outcomes.Method-Eighty-eight bilingual children who were eligible to attend Head Start for 2 years participated in the study. Growth curve models were used to examine the relationship between children's language abilities during 2 years in Head Start and end-of-kindergarten reading outcomes.Results-The results revealed that children's English and Spanish receptive language abilities increased during Head Start, and children's early reading abilities in English were within the typical range of monolingual norms at the end of kindergarten. Children's early reading abilities in Spanish were nearly 1 SD below the test mean or lower. The results also showed that children's growth in their English and Spanish language abilities during Head Start predicted their early reading abilities in English and Spanish.Implications-The findings imply that preschool programs are needed that target children's growth in language and not their performance measured at a particular point in time. Also, the results demonstrate the importance of early and regular evaluation of bilingual children's development in both languages in order to monitor children's growth in their two languages.Keywords bilingual children; receptive language; reading development; Head Start U. S. statistics have consistently shown that children from homes in which a language other than English is the primary language are at risk for poor reading outcomes (Denton, West, & Walston, 2003; National Center for Education Statistics, 2003;Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; U.S. Department of Education, 2000). For example, the results of the Head Start Families and Children Experiences Survey (FACES) demonstrated that Spanish-speaking Head Start and English-proficient bilingual children began kindergarten with language and literacy abilities that were below age expectations for monolingual children (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2003). Unfortunately, these discrepancies typically continue as children progress through the educational system. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Author ManuscriptReports have documented that Latino children read below the mainstream population in grades 4, 8, and 12 (U.S. Department of Education, 2000). As a result, there is a critical need to improve our understanding of factors that influence the literacy outcomes of children who are acquiring Spanish and English.Oral language is one key factor that has been studied in many investigations of monolingual children's reading abilities, but has received relatively little attention in investigations of the reading development of young bilingual children living in the United States. Because of this fact, we review the research on monolingual children before turning our attention to work that has been conducted on bilingual children. The Relationship Between Monolingual Chi...

Purpose-This study investigated the relationship between home literacy experiences and bilingual pre-schoolers' early literacy outcomes.Method-Forty-three Puerto Rican mother-child dyads recruited from Head Start programs in central Pennsylvania participated in this study of home literacy experiences and emerging English literacy abilities. The dyads were grouped according to whether the children had learned Spanish and English from birth (simultaneously; n = 28) or Spanish from birth and English in Head Start (sequentially; n = 15). Mothers of simultaneous and sequential learners were compared on the value they placed on literacy, press for achievement, the number of reading materials that were available in the home, and how often they read to their child. The children were compared on their scores on the Test of Early Reading Ability-2 (Reid, Hresko, & Hammill, 1991), which was given during the first and second years of their Head Start program.Results-Mothers of simultaneous and sequential learners differed with regard to mothers' press for achievement. No differences were found between the two groups with respect to the other measures. When the early literacy abilities of the two groups of children were assessed, all learners had comparable mean emergent reading scores. The mean literacy scores of the entire group of children were significantly lower at Year 2 as compared to Year 1.Clinical Implications-Although the children experienced literacy activities at home and in Head Start, it appears that children's literacy development would benefit from increased exposure to literacy materials and literacy events during the preschool years. Keywords preschoolers; bilingualism; Hispanic; literacy development; home literacy environment Becoming literate is a multifaceted skill that all children living in the United States must accomplish in order to be successful. The process becomes more complex when the language used in children's homes differs from the oral and written language they encounter in school. The experiences of bilingual Hispanic children who live in economically disadvantaged homes are even more multifaceted (August & Hakuta, 1997;McArthur, Contact author: Carol Scheffner Hammer, Department of Communication Disorders, 110 Moore Building, University Park, PA 16802-3101. cjh22@psu.edu. HHS Public Access Author manuscriptLang Speech Hear Serv Sch. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 August 27. Published in final edited form as:Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2003 January ; 34: 20-30. doi:10.1044/0161-1461(2003. Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript 1993). Statistics suggest that children whose first language is Spanish are at risk for poor literacy outcomes in U.S. schools. Spanish-speaking children, for example, are twice as likely as non-Hispanic Whites to read below age level in English (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998), are more likely to drop out of high school than non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2002), a...

This investigation examined the Spanish and English receptive vocabulary and language comprehension abilities of bilingual preschoolers who attended Head Start over a two-year period. It was hypothesised that bilingual children’s development would follow linear trajectories and that the development of children who were only exposed to Spanish in the home prior to school entry would differ from children with exposure to Spanish and English from birth. Results revealed that the two groups’ language abilities in Spanish and English differed at the beginning of the study as measured by raw and standard scores and that these differences were maintained over the two years. The exceptions to this were found in the children’s vocabulary abilities, with the difference between the two groups’ English standard scores narrowing over time and the difference between their Spanish standard scores increasing during the two-year period. Similar to research on monolingual and bilingual children with low socioeconomic status (SES), children’s development in both languages essentially followed linear trajectories. Children’s raw scores on the English receptive vocabulary test accelerated, similar to research findings on monolingual children of middle SES. Also, children’s standard scores on the Spanish language comprehension measure decelerated after an initial period of linear growth. Future directions for research are discussed.

No abstract