Understanding factors that influence reading achievement among bilingual children is considerably more complex than it is for monolingual children. Research on dual language development indicates that bilingual children’s oral language abilities are often distributed across languages in varied ways, due to heterogeneity of dual language exposure and input. Consequently, there may be greater variability in the associations between oral language proficiency and reading achievement among bilingual children than there is for monolingual children. This study evaluated how vocabulary knowledge and morphosyntactic ability in Spanish and English were associated with English reading achievement among 117 bilingual kindergarten and first grade children in the USA using both OLS and quantile regression. Results indicated that although English vocabulary and morphosyntax were both significantly associated with reading achievement, English vocabulary knowledge was most strongly associated with reading at higher quantiles of reading achievement. Cross-language analyses indicated that both Spanish vocabulary and morphosyntax made significant contributions to predicting English reading achievement beyond the effects of English oral language. Spanish vocabulary was uniquely predictive of reading at high and low quantiles of English reading, whereas relations between Spanish morphosyntax and English reading did not differ across quantiles. These results were consistent with predictions derived from theoretical models such as the simple view of reading and suggest that Spanish vocabulary knowledge may provide more unique information about children’s underlying capacity for acquiring language and literacy skill than does morphosyntax.

Purpose: Early literacy skills are key indicators of future reading development for young dual language learners (DLLs). Additionally, emerging evidence indicates that young children's executive function (EF) skills are uniquely associated with elementary school reading outcomes (Ribner et al., 2017). Therefore, the purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the potential for embedding strategies to support EF development within evidence-based early language and literacy instruction for young DLLs. Method: Sixty-nine preschool DLLs were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: a business-as-usual control group (BAU), a group that received early literacy instruction only (EL group), and a group that received early literacy instruction with embedded EF strategies (EL + EF group). The intervention focused on improving children's early literacy skills, including letter–name knowledge, phonological awareness, and oral language. Children completed assessments of early literacy and EF immediately before and after the intervention. Results: The EL and EL + EF groups significantly outperformed the BAU control group for two early literacy outcomes, and effects of evidence-based early literacy instruction were strongest for children with poor EF skills. Results indicated that there were no significant differences between the EL + EF and EL groups. Conclusions: This pilot study indicated that there was no significant benefit to adding supports for EF skills within evidence-based early literacy instruction. Additional research is needed with larger samples to replicate observed effects. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.21834465

This study represents an extension of the findings of Kieffer and Thompson (2018) and evaluates potential correlates of state- and district-level achievement gaps in reading and mathematics between monolingual and multilingual students. Using data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, this study reported that there were substantial achievement gaps that were narrowing over time at the state level but that there were no achievement gaps between monolingual and multilingual students in large school districts. Larger numbers of dual language programs were associated with smaller achievement gaps. State achievement gaps narrowed more over time for states with larger numbers of multilingual students. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.

Purpose: This study explored approaches for measuring vocabulary among bilingual children with varying levels of proficiency in Spanish and English. Method: One hundred fifteen kindergarten and first-grade Spanish–English-speaking children completed measures of vocabulary and sentence repetition in Spanish and English. Scores were derived from their responses to the vocabulary measure: Spanish-only vocabulary, English-only vocabulary, conceptual vocabulary, and total vocabulary. Best language sentence repetition was also obtained. Using both visualization of data and statistical analysis, we tested for potential associations between children's relative language skills in Spanish and English and the scores they received on each of the vocabulary metrics. Results: Participants' single-language vocabulary scores were linearly associated with their relative language scores. Higher relative Spanish language skills corresponded with higher Spanish-only vocabulary scores, and higher English language skills corresponded with higher English-only vocabulary scores. A quadratic association between children's relative language and their conceptual vocabulary scores was observed. Children with more balanced skills in Spanish and English received lower scores for conceptual vocabulary. No association between total vocabulary and relative language was observed. Conclusions: Results revealed evidence of differential test bias for single-language vocabulary scores and conceptual vocabulary scores. Spanish-only vocabulary underestimated knowledge of participants with higher English proficiency, whereas English-only vocabulary underestimated knowledge of participants with higher Spanish proficiency. Conceptual scoring yielded lower values for participants with relatively balanced proficiency in Spanish and English. There is need for further consideration of score and test functioning across the full continuum of bilinguals with dynamic proficiencies in each of their languages. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.23796330

Researchers are still exploring the impact of the novel COVID-19 disease. This global pandemic has altered daily life, including how we interact with others. One radical change is the wide use of cloth or disposable face masks that cover people’s faces from the nose down. The current paper explores issues related to the diminished ability to identify others’ facial expressions and what impact that may have on people’s ability to perceive emotions and the social cues attached to those emotions. To further explore this issue, an exploratory, experimental study was conducted, participants (n = 7) were asked to complete a facial recognition task in which their reaction time and accuracy were measured for three different blocks of trials. There was no difference in reaction time between trial type, but there was a difference in accuracy which may be related to the costs of switching between masked vs. no mask conditions. Implications of these findings are further discussed.