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

Abstract

The present article reports third-year findings from a three-year longitudinal, experimental-control study involving 31 Spanish-speaking preschoolers (aged 38-48 months) randomly assigned to two Head Start classrooms. In Year 1 preschoolers were randomly assigned to a transitional bilingual education (TBE) or predominantly English classroom, and their receptive and expressive language and phonological awareness skills were measured in English and Spanish through two years in preschool and their kindergarten year. The TBE model was found to confer significant benefits in Spanish-language and literacy development without cost to English development. Future research directions and implications for practice are discussed. Lillian Durán is affiliated with Utah State University. Cary Roseth is affiliated with Michigan State University. Patricia Hoffman is affiliated with Minnesota State University, Mankato. M. Brooke Robertshaw is affiliated with Utah State University.

Spanish instruction in head start and dual language learners' academic achievement

“…Future work should continue to study how classroom language use differs across language and literacy domains, as this appears to be an important source of variation for Spanish-speaking DLL children’s English school readiness skills. Future research should also include an analysis of the effects of Spanish language instruction on Spanish outcomes, which was not possible in this study, given that there may be benefits to instructing children in Spanish on Spanish assessment measures (e.g., Barnett et al, 2007; Burchinal et al, 2016; Durán, Roseth, & Hoffman, 2010; Páez et al, 2007). …”

“…A complete list of descriptive statistics for these baselines scores and outcomes one academic year later is reported in Table 1. Although there may be benefits to instructing children in Spanish on Spanish assessment measures (e.g., Barnett et al, 2007; Burchinal et al, 2016; Durán, Roseth, & Hoffman, 2010; Páez et al, 2007), because DLL children were only given the English assessments as outcomes, such a focus on Spanish results was not possible and this study was limited to English-only outcomes.…”

“…Prior research suggests that the language of classroom interaction and instruction may be important for Spanish-speaking DLL children’s school readiness skills (Barnett et al, 2007; Burchinal et al, 2016; Chang et al, 2007; Durán et al, 2010; Páez et al, 2007). Moreover, Head Start mandates support promoting the linguistic context in which DLL children are served (U.S.…”

“…Furthermore, prior research with preschool-aged DLL children, some of which is experimental, demonstrates that classroom use of both the home language and English may lead to improvement in Spanish word reading skills and at least equivalent English emergent literacy skills compared with Spanish-speaking DLL children in all-English contexts (e.g., Barnett et al, 2007; Burchinal et al, 2016; Durán, Roseth, & Hoffman, 2010; Páez et al, 2007). Research on Spanish language instruction with older elementary-aged children suggests similar results for bilingual education compared with English-only programs by fourth grade (e.g., August & Shanahan, 2006; Goldenberg, 2012; Slavin & Cheung, 2005; Slavin, Madden, Calderón, Chamberlain, & Hennessy, 2011).…”

“…Those that have taken advantage of random assignment experiments (e.g., Barnett et al, 2007; Dúran et al, 2010; Slavin et al, 2011) used samples that were either small in size or not nationally representative. Further, no known studies to date have analyzed whether Head Start program impacts may differ by Spanish instruction in the classroom.…”