An Investigation of Dual Language Learning, Working Memory, and Math Achievement in Kindergarten using the ECLS-K:2011

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

An Investigation of Dual Language Learning, Working Memory, and Math Achievement in Kindergarten using the ECLS-K:2011

Nearly 10% of all public school students are dual language learners (DLLs), individuals with varying skill in their home language and the English language. Extensive research documents DLLs’ advantage for executive function, including working memory (WM), the ability to simultaneously store and process information. This advantage is relevant to education because WM is crucial for complex cognitive activity, including mathematical cognition. Uncovering a possible mathematical advantage is critical for DLLs who lag behind their monolingual peers in English vocabulary size during elementary school.
Using the nationally-representative ECLS-K:2011 dataset, WM at kindergarten entry, growth in WM across the kindergarten year, and math skills in the spring of kindergarten of bilingual children, DLLs with limited English (DLLs-LES), and English-monolingual children were compared. Given the importance of WM in mathematics achievement, it was hypothesized that the WM benefits bilingual children receive will explain their comparable or higher math skills in kindergarten compared to DLLs-LES, and monolingual children. Additionally, it was predicted that DLLs-LES would show lower math skills relative to other groups of children and that this association would be partially explained by DLLs-LES’s relatively low WM skills at kindergarten entry, but that DLLs-LES’s poor math achievement may be somewhat attenuated by their increased rate of WM growth over time.
Results will be discussed in terms of a potential WM and mathematical advantage for DLLs in the classroom, which would be an asset for teachers, parents, and policymakers who witness DLLs struggle with verbal tasks but seek ways to play to their strengths.

Author

• Emily N Daubert, University of Hawaii at Manoa