Caregiver Report of the Home Language Environments of Spanish-Speaking Children

• In Event: Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Topic - Language, Communication

Abstract

The home environment, including caregiver language interactions, is arguably the most important contributor to how a child’s language develops (Brito, 2017; Christakis et al., 2019). Studies show the ways parents engage in language and literacy skill support is positively associated with children’s language and early literacy skills for bilingual children (Hwang et al., 2020; Lewis et al., 2016). As such, capitalizing on family strengths can be an important catalyst to improving children’s language skills (Farver et al., 2013).

Home language environment surveys are designed to measure these interactions, and there are many available in the field, but few have been designed in Spanish or examined for their technical characteristics. This study examined the technical adequacy, descriptive trends, and predictive power of a new home language environment survey, the Spanish Home Activity and Language Environment (SHALE) survey. It focuses on three research questions:
• What is the underlying structure of the SHALE survey?
• What are the caregiver’s response trends on the SHALE?
• To what degree does caregiver response on the SHALE predict children’s Spanish language outcomes at the beginning of pre-k?

Method
This study included 679 Spanish speaking preschoolers (4-5 year-olds) and their families (343 in 2017-2018, 336 in 2018-2019). Children were tested five times across the year using the oral language Individual Growth and Development Indicator-Español progress monitoring measures and families completed the SHALE survey.
The SHALE survey includes 28 items. Items are organized into 3 sections conceptualized as Activity, Negative Reading Attitudes, and Positive Reading Attitudes.
The Verbos Expressivo and Identificación de los Dibujos IGDIs-E measures are easy to use, instructionally-relevant, and technically adequate progress monitoring measures, scaled using Rasch modeling, to be sensitive to growth over time (see Wackerle-Hollman et al., 2019). They include 25 items administered in parallel forms.

Analysis & Results
To examine underlying structure, we employed a confirmatory factor analysis of the SHALE survey, anticipating 3 factors. Table 1 provides results, including model-data fit. Three distinct factors emerged, ensuring relative independence of scores. With factors confirmed, we examined descriptive trends on the SHALE. Results showed that parents and caregivers had the highest instances of engaging in literacy building activities and reported having positive attitudes towards reading. Finally, we used the SHALE survey as a predictor in a hierarchical linear model to predict children’s intercepts on the IGDIs-E at the child and classroom levels. Results are presented in Table 2 and show that children in classrooms with families who have higher negative reading attitudes have below average scores on Verbos Expresivos and classrooms with families with high positive reading attitudes start out with lower scores on Verbos Expresivos.
These results indicate the SHALE represents three underlying home literacy factors. Given this finding, our descriptive trends show that Spanish-speaking parents’ strongest home literacy assets are in engaging in literacy building activities and having positive attitudes towards reading. When parents’ negative attitudes toward reading are low, they predict initial knowledge of Spanish verbs, but this is complicated by the nature of the classroom membership.

Authors

• Alisha K. Wackerle-Hollman, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Presenting Author

• Lillian Karen Duran, University of Oregon
  Non-Presenting Author

• Carlos Chavez, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
  Non-Presenting Author

• Michael C Rodriguez, University of Minnesota
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alejandra Miranda, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Non-Presenting Author