This study was part of a larger three-year investigation of the effectiveness of a small-group, content-focused (science, social studies) preschool shared book reading vocabulary intervention implemented with Spanish-speaking emergent bilinguals enrolled in a one-way dual-language bilingual program. A subset of bilingual preschool teachers (N =…

Drawing from a qualitative approach and through individual "pláticas" (processes of co-constructing knowledge through dialogue) as a linguistic and cultural framework, this work explored informal contextual factors valued by Spanish-speaking Latina mothers of children, three to five years of age and enrolled in a nonprofit California…

Bilingualism has been systematically associated with better self-regulatory skills (), however, this advantage does not seem to automatically transfer for most dual language learners. This suggests that there are other contextual factors that are necessary to trigger this advantage. This study examines the role of teacher-child interactions in the…

The authors assessed a battery of number skills in a sample of over 500 preschoolers, including both monolingual and bilingual/ multilingual learners from households at a range of socio-economic levels. Receptive vocabulary was measured in English for all children, and also in Spanish for those who spoke it. The first goal of the study was to…

Emergent bilinguals (EB) from Spanish-speaking homes are an already large and rapidly growing population in the U.S., yet limited research examines their language environments, particularly in the English dominant contexts where most attend school. This explanatory sequential mixed-methods study first quantitatively examines adults' use of Spanish…

Vocabulary plays a critical role in later reading achievement of emergent bilingual children (EBC) who are learning two languages. Given emerging vocabulary intervention research for EBC, we synthesize studies on vocabulary interventions designed for preschool and kindergarten EBC to provide the cumulative knowledge on the following dimensions:…

Extensive evidence indicates that early vocabulary skills predict later reading development among monolingually developing children. Some evidence suggests that a relationship between vocabulary and later reading also holds across languages among children whose home language differs from the school language. However, these findings have been mixed…

In a study comparing executive functions among US Spanish-English bilinguals from low socio-economic (SES) backgrounds to monolinguals of each language, Grote et al. find that bilingual advantages already manifest themselves in pre-school children. This commentary recommends building on this finding, and further investigate the causes underlying…

In the United States nearly one third of children under five live in homes where a non-English language is spoken. However, many of these language-minority (LM) children shift towards English monolingualism after beginning school in early childhood. While language input and usage are central to acquisition and maintenance in each language, less is…

We identify language and discourse skills in 54-month-old Spanish-English bilingual preschoolers and their English-speaking monolingual peers, using multiple measures. Forty-one Spanish-English bilingual and 25 English monolingual children, all US born, viewed an eight-minute wordless video. The bilingual children recounted the story once in…

There are several benefits for Dual Language Learners (DLLs) when their home language is integrated into classroom instruction. For example, instruction in students' home language facilitates the learning of the new language more rapidly and supports bilingualism. One way to enhance young children's language learning is to engage families in home…

We presented 28 Spanish monolingual and 28 Catalan-Spanish close-language bilingual 5-year-old children with a video of a talker speaking in the children's native language and a nonnative language and examined the temporal dynamics of their selective attention to the talker's eyes and mouth. When the talker spoke in the children's native language,…

This secondary analysis study examined patterns, predictors, and outcomes of dual language learners' (DLLs') development in Spanish and English. Research Findings: Latent profile analysis identified three groups of DLLs: Balanced Bilinguals (54%), English-Dominant Bilinguals (25%), and Spanish-Dominant Bilinguals (21%). These groups had fairly…

This preliminary study examined the relationship between clinicians' perceptions (i.e., speech pathologists) of children's scores on the Assertiveness scale of the Teacher-Child Rating Scale 2.1 and gains in naming and defining words following English-only or Spanish--English intervention for emergent bilinguals (EBs). Twenty-eight…

Background: Dual language learners (DLLs) -- young children learning and developing in two or more languages -- comprise a third of the U.S. preschool and early elementary student population (MPI Data Hub, 2020). Therefore, identifying the most promising, empirically informed practices to promote DLLs' development is of critical importance.…