Poster #180 - Effortful Control Abilities and Spanish-Speaking Preschoolers’ Vocabulary and Letter-Word Skills in English

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

Many Spanish-speaking children struggle academically due to limited English skills upon entering school (Halle et al., 2012). Eisenberg et al. (2010) developed a framework for how effortful control (EC) abilities may foster preschoolers’ academic skills by enhancing teacher-child relationships and classroom engagement. However, this framework does not address English language learning (ELL) children for whom entering school represents the first time they are exposed to an English learning environment. Research suggests that EC skills facilitate English learning, especially for ELLs whose parents provide limited English support at home (Palermo et al. 2017). In this study, we tested an adapted model of Eisenberg et al.’s framework by examining the association between EC and Spanish-speaking preschoolers’ English skills, whether close teacher-child relationships and classroom engagement mediated that association, and whether the mediated association varied by children’s English environment at home.

Participants were 137 Spanish-speaking preschoolers’ (Mage = 53 months, SD = 4.42; 53% boys) from 10 Head Start classrooms in the southwest. Data were gathered in the fall and spring semesters. In the fall, classroom teachers completed the attention shifting, attention focusing, and inhibitory control subscales of the Child Behavioral Questionnaire (α ≥ .74; Rothbart et al., 2001) to rate children’s EC, the closeness subscale from the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (α = .75; Pianta, 2001), and 8-items measuring children’s classroom engagement (α = .95; Fabes et al., 2003). Parents completed 7-items on the home English environment, namely how often children heard and used English at home; never (0), sometimes (1), most of the time (2), or always (3; α = .87; Hamilton et al., n.d.). In the spring, children completed the English Picture Vocabulary and Letter-Word Identification subscales of the Woodcock-Johnson, 3rd ed. (α ≥ .81; Woodcock et al., 2000).

We tested the moderated-mediation model in Figure 1 controlling for family income, the number of children’s English books, and children’s fall nonverbal cognitive abilities measured by the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (Naglieri, 2003). An indirect path was found from EC to children’s English vocabulary and letter-word skills through close student-teacher relationships and classroom engagement. The significant path from Children’s EC × Home English Environment indicated that the indirect effect varied based on the amounts of English children heard and used at home. The Johnson-Neyman (1936) plot in Figure 2 shows the home English environment value at which the indirect effect becomes nonsignificant (.10 above the mean or 1.17 for the non-centered variable). Specifically, close student-teacher relationships and classroom engagement mediated the positive association between EC and English vocabulary and letter-word skills for the children who heard and spoke English sometimes or never (β = .023, S.E. = .011, p = .039), but not for those who heard and used English most of the time or always (β = .016, S.E. = .012, p = .189). The discussion will highlight key mechanisms, and how ELLs with limited exposure to English may rely more on their EC abilities to begin learning English skills in preschool than those who receive greater exposure to English.

Authors

• Francisco Palermo, University of Missouri
  Presenting Author

• Seunghee Han, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Rachel Thibodeau, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ariana M. Mikulski, Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Vida Bonney, University of Missouri
  Non-Presenting Author