Use of the home language in preschool classrooms and first- and second-language development among dual-language learners

• In Event: 3-090 - Teacher and Peer Language Use in ECE and Dual Language Learner Outcomes

Integrative Statement

Practitioners and policy makers seek to learn about optimal teacher English and home language use in the classroom in order to augment children’s skills in both English and home languages. This study uses data from Spanish-English DLL children attending 16 of 21 Educare Head Start sites. Sites were from all parts of the United States: Southeast, Midwest, South Central, West and Northwest. All sites served children at poverty level, provided birth-to-kindergarten, full-day, full-year, center-based early childhood education, and shared a goal to use at least some amount of the home language in classrooms with Spanish-English DLL children. The sample for the study consisted of 1,961 Spanish-English DLL children over 18-months of age who participated in these Educare programs during the years 2008 through 2016. All children with any language assessments were included. See Table 1 for a description of the classrooms and participants. The study provided an opportunity to examine the role of classroom language use and child language outcomes with a large number of children across multiple sites and multiple years. Each classroom was observed annually and classroom quality was assessed using the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R; Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 2005) or the Infant Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ITERS-R; Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 2006). During the observation, a rating of the use of Spanish in the classroom was completed. Data collectors recorded the languages used in the classroom during the 3-hour classroom quality observations. Three groups with similar sample sizes were identified: (1) no home language - English with little or no Spanish (i.e., used Spanish 0-10% of the time); (2) limited home language - English with some Spanish (i.e., reported using Spanish 11-25% of the time); and (3) substantial home language -English and Spanish (i.e., reported using Spanish 26-90% of the time).

Analyses, controlling for site, ERS classroom quality total score, child sex, whether the child had an IEP/ISFP, maternal education, maternal age, and whether the parent was single, demonstrated that irrespective of classroom group, DLL children showed gains comparable to test norms on all three measures, with gains at rates greater than expected in English and Spanish Auditory Comprehension (AC). The children in classrooms with both English and Spanish scored higher than children in the other classroom language groups in Spanish Auditory Comprehension (AC), but there were no differences for Spanish Expressive Comprehension (EC) or English PPVT by classroom language group (See Table 2). Children in all three groups demonstrated greater than expected English The findings suggest that classroom language group as we defined it in this study did not make a difference for English learning, but did for Spanish, at least for AC.

Group Authors

Educare Learning Network (ELN) Investigative Team

Authors

• Helen Raikes, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  Presenting Author

• Lisa White, American Institutes for Research (AIR)
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sheridan Green, Clayton Early Learning
  Non-Presenting Author

• Peg Burchinal, University of North Carolina
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kirsten Kainz, University of North Carolina
  Non-Presenting Author

• Diane Horm, University of Oklahoma, Tulsa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gary Bingham, Georgia State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alan Cobo-Lewis, University of Maine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lisa St. Claire, University of Nebraska Medical Center
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daryl Greenfield, University of Miami
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jan Esteraich, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katelyn Hepworth, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
  Non-Presenting Author