Interpreting the early language trajectories of children from low-SES and language minority homes: Implications for closing achievement gaps.

Abstract

On average, children from low SES homes and children from homes in which a language other than English is spoken have different language development trajectories than children from middle class, monolingual English-speaking homes. Children from low SES and language minority homes have unique linguistic strengths, but many reach school age with lower levels of English language skill than middle class, monolingual children. Because early differences in English oral language skill have consequences for academic achievement, low levels of English language skill constitute a deficit for children about to enter school in the U.S. Declaring all developmental trajectories to be equally valid would not change the robust relation between English oral language skills and academic achievement and would not help children with poor English skills to be successful in school. Remedies aimed at supporting the development of the English skills required for academic success need not and should not entail devaluing or diminishing children’s other language skills.

Neuroscience and education: prime time to build the bridge

“…Even if research on bilingualism has flourished over the last years, current evidence may not yet be sufficiently consolidated to convey a decisive response to this question 45 . The main argument is that one cannot conclude that variations in performance in any given task should promote a societal, educational or parental reaction when the causes and consequences of such variations in real-world measures are not yet understood 58 . Bilingualism is a good example of why neuroscientists should be prudent when communicating their findings to the general public.…”

Parent–child cultural orientations and child adjustment in Chinese American immigrant families.

“…Given the critical role of English proficiency in early school adjustment among children of language minority immigrant families (Halle et al, 2012;Hoff, 2013), we hypothesized that Chinese American children's orientation to American culture would be associated with better adjustment. Based on prior research on parent-youth acculturation gaps on youth adjustment in immigrant families (e.g., Birman, 2006a;Costigan & Dokis, 2006), we hypothesized that greater gaps in parent-child cultural orientations would generally be associated with poorer child adjustment.…”

“…Because early acquisition of English proficiency (a key aspect of acculturation) is critical for behavioral and academic adjustment (Halle, Hair, Wandner, McNamara, & Chien, 2012;Hoff, 2013), acculturation in language proficiency during early elementary school may be particularly critical for children from language minority homes. By contrast, the benefit of acculturation might decrease or even reverse in adolescence due to a host of risk processes associated with immigrant youths' higher acculturation to the host culture, such as association with deviant peers and substance use (Gonzales et al, 2009).…”

Guidelines for Designing Social Robots as Second Language Tutors

“…Preschool years are vital for L2 learning, because later academic success depends on early language skills [29]. For children learning English as their school language, their English vocabulary size predicts their performance in English reading tests [57].…”

“…These guidelines concern: (a) age differences; (b) target word selection; (c) the use of a meaningful context and interactions to actively involve the child; and (d) the dosage of the intervention. These specific aspects were chosen based on a review of the literature showing that they are the most crucial factors to consider in designing an intervention for language teaching in general and specifically L2 (see e.g., [29,51]). …”