Research Findings: As the population of Hispanic children grows within U.S. preschools, it is increasingly important to understand how these classrooms facilitate school readiness, such as positive engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks, for Spanish-speaking Dual Language Learners (DLLs). A growing literature base indicates that DLL students'…

The current U.S. sociopolitical climate has resurfaced long-held ideas associated with public perceptions concerning the Spanish language, Latin@s, and their portrayal in United States society. Amidst this climate, educators face the challenge of creating critical learning spaces for Latin@ bilingual children within multiple boundaries. This case…

Advancing equity in early childhood education is crucial as our broader society faces issues of inequities across systems, including education. Professionals must honor children's home language and cultural contexts, coming from a perspective of value and respect rather than from a traditionally dominant Eurocentric perspective. Through this…

Multitiered systems of support hold promise for dual language learners when culturally and linguistically responsive practices guide instruction. We modeled growth on Spanish and English early literacy skills and examined the role of language exposure and use at the individual and classroom instruction level in a group of 313…

Background: Gaps between dual language learners (DLLs) and monolingual English-speaking children have been reported at kindergarten entry, and many DLL children are classified as long-term English learners, having less access to the general curriculum in the upper grades (NASEM, 2017). The supposed underperformance of DLLs might be due to the…

We explore the classification accuracy of a parent and teacher report measure, the Inventory to Assess Language Knowledge (ITALK), to screen for developmental language disorder (DLD) in bilingual children. Participants were 120 Spanish-English bilingual children with typical development (TD) and 19 bilingual children with DLD, ranging in age from…

Multitiered systems of support hold promise for dual language learners when culturally and linguistically responsive practices guide instruction. We modeled growth on Spanish and English early literacy skills and examined the role of language exposure and use at the individual and classroom instruction level in a group of 313…

Purpose: This study describes the language diversity (the within-group variability in dual-language skills) of a sample of Latino dual-language learners (preschoolers, 3-5 years of age) and how language diversity is related to home and classroom factors. Method: A sample of 161 caregivers and their preschoolers participated in this study.…

Spanish speakers in the United States are a steadily increasing population, up by 233% since 1980. Given the growing population of dual language learners (DLLs) and the large numbers of Spanish-speaking children enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs, addressing the educational needs of preschool-aged DLLs has become a national imperative.…

Spanish speakers in the United States are a steadily increasing population, up by 233% since 1980. Given the growing population of dual language learners (DLLs) and the large numbers of Spanish-speaking children enrolled in pre-kindergarten programs, addressing the educational needs of preschool-aged DLLs has become a national imperative.…

Purpose: This work explores the clinical relevance of three measures of morpheme use for preschool-age Spanish-English bilingual children with varying language skills. The 3 measures reflect accuracy, diversity (the tense marker total), and productivity (the tense and agreement productivity score [TAP score]) of the English tense and agreement…

Background: Decades of research suggest that when young children are enrolled in high-quality pre-K classrooms they have better literacy, language, math, and social outcomes at the end of the pre-K year. A traditional approach to capturing the quality of children's experiences, including the quality of their engagement with academic content and…

Prior inquiry into teachers' beliefs demonstrates that a top priority of early childhood teachers' is developing children's social-emotional skills (e.g., Hollingsworth & Winter, 2013; Kowalski, Pretti-Frontczak, & Johnson, 2001). This study builds upon and advances the knowledge base by providing evidence that the pervasiveness of these…

Dual language learners make up an increasing share of preschool students, but they often perform worse than monolingual students on assessments measuring school achievement. This study compares Head Start classrooms implementing either the dual language model or the English with home language support model. The author examines how the models…

This longitudinal qualitative study examined the progression in the levels of writing conceptualizations in Spanish and English of 20 simultaneous bilingual children from PreK-K. Using a constructivist framework and a holistic bilingual perspective, we examined children's understandings about writing in their two languages as demonstrated in their…