1-132 - Contexts for Communication: Understanding Latino Preschool DLLs’ Language Skills, Home and Classroom Language Environment

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

In line with the theme of global change and child development, this symposium examines the development of young Latino DLLs from immigrant families in their home and school contexts. These contexts are considered the most important, proximal and dynamic influences on children’s development learning and education (Weisner, 2002). Each paper in this symposium examines aspects of Latino DLLs’ language environments that might be important for DLLs’ development and discusses different methods for measuring the language environment as well as considerations related to DLLs’ English-Spanish abilities.

The first study describes Latino immigrant families’ beliefs about dual language development and the features of language input they provide to their young children prior to preschool entry. The second study investigates three groups of Spanish-speaking DLLs classified by language dominance at preschool entry and their development of English and Spanish school readiness skills while attending predominantly English-instruction classrooms. The third study examines the relation between the classroom language environment in predominantly English-instruction classrooms and DLLs’ social-emotional skills as well as the influence of teachers’ language ideologies. All studies highlight aspects of DLLs’ Spanish-English language skills and their language environments, which might be distinctly important for DLLs as they transition from home to preschool. With the increasing number of DLLs entering US schools (Gil, 2015), this symposium seeks ways to connect the language knowledge available to children at home to the classroom to address existing discontinuities between early childhood professionals serving Latino DLLs and families from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Maria Cristina Limlingan, Tufts University

Discussant

• Lillian Durán, University of Oregon

Individual Presentations

• The Early Home Language Environments of Children from Mexican Immigrant Backgrounds - Presenting Author: Lauren Cycyk, University of Oregon; Carol Scheffner Hammer, Columbia University

• The School Readiness of Three Groups of Preschool-Age DLLs in English-Instruction Classrooms - Presenting Author: Dana Bitetti, La Salle University; Carol Scheffner Hammer, Columbia University

• The Relations between Classroom Language Environment, Teachers’ Language Ideologies and Latino DLLs’ School Readiness Skills - Presenting Author: Maria Cristina Limlingan, Tufts University; Christine McWayne, Tufts University