Classroom language environments in preschool and kindergarten: Variability across activities, time, and content

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Children’s language environments have been linked to their early educational development. However, most work in this area focuses on home language environments involving parent-child (particularly mother-child) interactions. Yet, children spend a considerable amount of time in non-caregiver educational settings including preschool and kindergarten. Better understanding how language environments—both general and domain-specific—vary between and within children, across time, and how they relate to children’s academic performance can provide a more robust foundation for the environmental influences children experience during this critical period of time.

Paper 1 examines how children’s language environments differ across activities in preschool classrooms. The Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system was used to measure adult word count (AWC) and child vocalization count (CVC) across the day. They found significant variation across types of activity in AWC and CVC, particularly based on who initiated the conversation. Paper 2 examines the variation in AWC and teacher-child conversational turns using the LENA across three waves of data during preschool, and its relation to vocabulary. They found the relations between language environment and vocabulary was primarily due to within classroom variability, rather than between classroom variability. Paper 3 examines the content, quality, and quantity of kindergarten classroom mathematics instruction by using LENA recordings to code math-related classroom instruction and interactions. They found that these variables did not predict growth in mathematics skills. Together, these studies highlight the ways in which classroom language environments, both at the general and domain-specific levels, can be used to better understand children’s school readiness development.

Sub Unit

• Education, Schooling

Chair

• David James Purpura, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Discussant

• David James Purpura, Purdue University, West Lafayette

Individual Presentations

• Quantitative examinations of adult word counts and child vocalizations in preschool teacher-child conversations - Presenting Author: Craig K. Van Pay, University of Oklahoma; Non-Presenting Author: Ji Young Choi, Iowa State University

• Preschool language environments: Variation throughout the day and year, and between- and within-classrooms - Presenting Author: Robert Duncan, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Non-Presenting Author: Kirsten Lee Anderson, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Non-Presenting Author: Yemimah King, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer Kristine Finders, Purdue University, West Lafayette; Non-Presenting Author: Sara Anne Schmitt, University of Oregon; Non-Presenting Author: David James Purpura, Purdue University, West Lafayette

• Examining the measurement and contribution of kindergarten mathematics instruction - Presenting Author: Alexa Ellis, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; Non-Presenting Author: Pamela Davis-Kean, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor