Culturally Responsive Language and Early Literacy Assessment: IGDIs Español

• In Event: Developing Assessments for All Early Learners: Towards a More Equitable Understanding of Young Children’s Development

Abstract

Language and early literacy development are key predictors of children’s reading performance, which is essential for long-term academic and social success (Pace et al., 2019). Despite the importance of early language development for all children, evidence makes clear that there are large and persistent gaps in reading achievement between multilingual (MLL) children and their monolingual English-speaking peers (Figueras-Daniel & Barnett, 2013; Reardon & Galindo, 2009).
One approach to understanding how to reduce such disparities for preschool age MLLs is to develop measures that appropriately and equitably assess language and early literacy skills in both of their languages. Measures designed for MLLs require special attention to the developmental course of bilingual language and literacy development through the growth trajectory and context of their heritage language (in contrast to English) and dialectical differences in language phonology and use (Durán, et al., 2019; Wackerle-Hollman, et al., 2019). This approach allows such measures to reflect the cultural nuances of MLLs experiences (Peña, 2007). With information in both languages, educators will be better equipped to consider how to adjust their instruction to meet each MLL’s full language and early literacy needs, rather than tailoring instruction to English alone. Indeed, evidence makes clear that dual language approaches to instruction produce the best outcomes and that dual language measurement is likely to improve accuracy and predictive validity (Hammer, Lawrence, & Miccio, 2007; Jackson, Schatschneider, & Leacox, 2014).
This presentation will describe the design process and collection of validity evidence for the Individual Growth and Development Indicators-Español (IGDIs-Español) and Hmong IGDIs with 3-5 year old preschoolers (Wackerle-Hollman et al., 2016; 2020; Wackerle-Hollman et al., 2021). The IGDI design process uses an anti-bias anti-racism (ABAR) lens to develop and test items. Highlighting various quantitative and qualitative processes, this presentation will report on community focus groups (n = 20), bias review panels (n = 23), and differential item functioning with student level data (n = 725) across three studies with Spanish-speaking and Hmong-speaking families. The first study summary will review community focus group interviews and survey data for 20 Hmong families to illustrate how various perspectives about language development are present in communities relative to their generation. In the second study, we will review bias panels presented to 23 early educators, families, and administrators who work with Spanish speaking children in Minnesota, California and Puerto Rico. We will discuss substantive differences in perspectives by geographic location and dialect relative to expectations for language and early literacy development. Third, we will present a study that examined differential item functioning (DIF) for Spanish IGDI items with 725 children and 85 items. We will discuss DIF analysis results relative to ABAR strategies. Finally, we will discuss the impact of these design approaches on creating equitable interpretation and use arguments (Kane, 2013), and considerations for score interpretation in applied practice.

Authors

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

• Lillian Karen Duran, University of Oregon

• Alejandra Miranda, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Carlos Chavez, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA