Exposure to English Before and After Entry into Head Start1: Bilingual Children's Receptive Language Growth in Spanish and English

Abstract

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.

Conceptual Scoring of Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Measures in Simultaneous and Sequential Bilingual Children

“…Differences have been identified in the language acquisition patterns of these two groups. For example, Hammer and colleagues (Hammer, Lawrence, & Miccio, 2008) documented differences between simultaneous and sequential bilinguals in their English and Spanish receptive vocabulary scores at the beginning and end of a two-year period in Head Start. During the school-age years, a phenomenon of shifting dominance has been documented in sequential bilinguals such that a gap emerges between their receptive and expressive skills in the home language, with continued receptive development and plateaued expressive skills (Gibson, Oller, Jarmulowicz, & Ethington, 2012; Hemsley et al, 2010; Kan & Kohnert, 2005; Oller et al, 2007; Sheng et al, 2011).…”

Examining Similarities and Differences Among Parent–Teacher Reports of Spanish–English Productive Vocabulary

“…As stated previously, this issue has the potential to result in over-or underestimation of skills. Studies show that bilingual children's mean vocabulary scores on standardized assessments tend to be below those of monolingual children in both languages when each language (i.e., Spanish and English) is measured separately (Bialystok, Luk, Peets, & Yang, 2010;Hammer, Lawrence, & Miccio, 2008;Jackson, Schatschneider, & Leacox, 2014;Páez, Tabors, & López, 2007;Uccelli & Páez, 2007;Uchikoshi, 2006). Consequently, alternative measures have been proposed that take into account both languages of the bilingual child when appraising the lexicon.…”

Spanish-Speaking Preschoolers' Early Literacy Development: A Longitudinal Experimental Comparison of Predominantly English and Transitional Bilingual Education

“…English than single scores alone either in English or Spanish (Hammer et al, 2007;Hammer, Lawrence, & Miccio, 2008).…”