Considering Language and Literacy Outcomes in Children with Diverse Language Experiences

• In Event: Bilingualism - later childhood

Abstract

Children in the U.S. public education system have diverse language experiences, with over a third speaking a language other than English at home (MPI Data Hub, 2021). Despite this diversity, English is often the sole language of instruction in many educational settings. In this paper, we examined language and literacy outcomes as they relate to bilingual and monolingual children’s shared and distinct experiences. Specifically, we ask whether the English literacy skills – an outcome of shared educational environments at school (Kremin et al., 2019) – and English language skills, which we expect may develop differently due to children’s diverse home language contexts (Lauro et al., 2020) differed when comparing Spanish-speaking bilingual and English monolingual children.

Using data from a larger study examining the long-term impacts of early education, we followed 625 children from Tulsa, Oklahoma (91% from low-income homes; 50% female; 55% Hispanic/Latinx, 18% Black, 11% White, 9% multiracial, 6% another race/ethnicity) from 2018-2021 (data collection was paused from spring 2020-spring 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic). Children were administered English language (Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Expressive Vocabulary subtest; Semel et al., 2004) and literacy (Woodcock-Johnson III Letter-Word Identification subtest; Woodcock et al., 2001) tests in the fall and spring of kindergarten (2018-2019), fall of first grade (2019), and fall of third grade (2021).

Raw scores for bilingual (N=326) and monolingual (N=299) children were compared at each timepoint using independent sample t-tests, and longitudinal data were analyzed using piecewise mixed-effects multilevel growth regressions. At each timepoint, bilingual children had lower English expressive vocabulary scores than monolingual children (see Figure 1). At the start of kindergarten, bilingual children scored 0.61 SD lower in English expressive vocabulary than monolingual children (SE=0.06, p<.001), and they experienced slower growth from fall to spring of that year (Beta=-0.12, SE=0.06, p=.002). However, there was no significant group difference in their rate of expressive vocabulary growth from spring of kindergarten to fall of first grade (Beta=-0.07, SE=0.04, p=.09). Bilingual children experienced accelerated growth compared to monolinguals from fall of first grade to fall of third grade (Beta=0.15, SE=0.05, p=.007). For English letter-word identification, bilingual children started kindergarten with lower scores on average (Beta=-.10, SE=0.04, p=.013), but experienced the same rate of growth as their monolingual peers in each subsequent timepoint (Beta=0.01-0.10, SE=0.03-0.06, p=.101-.671) (see Figure 2).

Bilingual children’s pattern of English expressive vocabulary development is consistent with prior research finding that bilinguals have smaller single-language (e.g., English) vocabulary early in development, but catch up to their monolingual peers over time (Hammer et al., 2014). For English letter-word identification, however, we do not find this pattern but rather find no differences in growth over time between bilinguals and monolinguals, possibly reflecting their collective learning experiences at school. Results suggest contextualized experiences ought to be considered when evaluating language and literacy outcomes for children from linguistically diverse homes.

Group Authors

Tulsa SEED Study Team

Authors

• Gigi Luk, McGill University
  Presenting Author

• Anne Partika, Georgetown University

• Anna D. Johnson, Georgetown University