Poster #182 - English and Spanish gains across time of dual language learners in rural North Carolina

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - School Readiness/Childcare

Integrative Statement

Dual Language Learners (DLLs) are children who are learning two or more languages simultaneously or learning a second language after acquiring facility in another language (U.S. Department of Education, 2017). DLLs appear to be at risk of poor academic outcomes (National Center for Education Statistics, 2017), and the achievement gaps between DLLs and other children are even larger in rural areas than in the rest of the US (Kieffer, 2008). Access to high-quality early care and education (ECE) programs is especially effective at improving the school readiness of DLLs, and is viewed as a promising means to reduce the achievement gap between DLLs and non-DLLs in the US (Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Considerable evidence examining DLLs attending prekindergarten (pre-K) shows large gains in outcomes related to school readiness (Yoshikawa et al., 2013 ), but it has been documented that those gains diminish over time (Phillips et al., 2017). Few studies, however, have followed children into elementary school and examined their skills in both their first and second languages to document the extent to which ECE gains are maintained after children transition into kindergarten.
This study examined 191 DLL children recruited in 44 randomly selected pre-K classrooms in 6 rural counties in NC. Children were assessed in the fall and spring of their pre-K and kindergarten years on Picture Vocabulary (PV), Letter-Word Identification (LW), and Applied Problems (AP) subtests of Woodcock-Johnson III (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001) and the Bateria-III (Muñoz-Sandoval, Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2005) to measure language, literacy, and math skills in English and Spanish (see Table 1). Analyses using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) examined scores across time for each outcome in each language. Table 2 shows the analysis model that compared change from fall to spring in Pre-K (labeled Gains in PK), spring scores from Pre-k and Kindergarten (labeled K v PK), and whether change from fall to spring was different in Pre-K and Kindergarten (labeled Gains: PK vs Ka). Nesting of children within classroom was accounted for using random classroom intercepts. Analyses included gender, maternal education, and age at entry to pre-K as covariates.
Results showed that DLL children made gains in both pre-K and kindergarten in both English and Spanish in language, literacy, and math skills. Using w scores, gains in English language and math were larger in pre-K than in kindergarten and gains in English and Spanish literacy skills were larger in kindergarten than in pre-K. However, when we examined the standardized scores, language and literacy gains in Spanish were lower in kindergarten when compared to pre-K scores, and children showed smaller gains than expected relative to the norming population in pre-K and kindergarten in Spanish language and literacy skills.
Discussion of these results will focus on the types of practices that offer benefits for DLL children attending classrooms where English is the primary language of instruction in both pre-K and kindergarten to avoid potential loss of the home language as well as to promote growth of English skills.

Authors

• Ximena Franco, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Peg Burchinal, University of North Carolina
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ellen Peisner-Feinberg, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mary Bratsch-Hines, UNC-Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author