Early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs across the United States are experiencing an increasing level of linguistic and cultural diversity among the children they serve. Dual Language Learners (DLLs)--young children who grow up speaking more than one language at home and in the classroom--bring to these classrooms unique learning…

The state of Washington is home to more than 566,000 children under the age of six. About 306,000 of these children have all available parents in the workforce and, thus, potentially need child care. Like many states in recent years, Washington has committed public and private resources toward multiple efforts to improve early care and education…

Over the last two decades, a rising number of families with preschool age children speak a language other than English at home. Known as Dual Language Learners, or DLLs, they are likely to enter kindergarten already academically behind. This gap persists throughout high school, resulting in vastly different academic and life outcomes between DLLs…

One of the most significant recent trends in the U.S. education system is that white students are no longer the majority. This trend is mainly driven by growth in both the number and percentage of Hispanic children. The share of Hispanic students among kindergarten children increased from 19 percent in 1998 to 24 percent in 2010 (ECLS-K,…

Purpose: This study evaluated a newly developed quasi-universal nonword repetition task (Q-U NWRT) as a diagnostic tool for bilingual children with language impairment (LI) who have Dutch as a 2nd language. The Q-U NWRT was designed to be minimally influenced by knowledge of 1 specific language in contrast to a language-specific NWRT with which it…

The population of young dual language learners (DLL) in the United States has tripled in the last several decades and now accounts for 25% of all children in the United States (Migration Policy Institute, June 2014). Many of these children are exposed to multiple languages in the home and the early childhood setting (ECE) setting, and the vast…

In this study, the authors examine how emergent bilingual second graders collaboratively constructed textual understandings, a phenomenon they call "intercomprehending," by building on each other's contributions and positioning their ideas in relation to peer ideas. The study traces the interrelationships of the utterances of emergent…

The case study of bilingual tutors and their impact on the reading comprehension of children whose primary language is not English is fundamental to this dissertation. Recent research has indicated that there is a positive correlation between a tutor having knowledge of the parent language of bilingual children and the children's improvements in…

As schools around the world increasingly use digital text, research is needed to understand the impact different media may have on opportunities for language and literacy development. Using mixed methods to analyze students' collaborative interactions across different media, this study examined how linguistically diverse students engaged with…

In 2011-2012, the Georgia legislature funded a series of ongoing studies to evaluate Georgia's Pre-K Program. The 2016-2017 Georgia's Pre-K Program Evaluation focuses on the results of the fourth year of this longitudinal study, through second grade. The purpose of the current evaluation study was to examine longitudinal outcomes for children…

All too often in U.S. schools, English learners are segregated into classrooms that are on the margins of our educational system. In these learning spaces, English learners are often asked to engage with remedial content and face low expectations. Whereas some schools seemingly maintain limited goals and expectations for English learners, the…

Purpose: Current understanding about the effect of first language (L1) background on morphological awareness (MA) development in those who are bilingual is largely limited to school-aged second-language learners. This study examined the development of MA in bilingual Mandarin-English (ManEngBi) and Spanish-English (SpaEngBi) children ages 4 to 7…

Although young dual language students (DLLs) learn to write and use language expressively in ways that differ from monolingual English speakers, these differences are rarely addressed in curricula and instruction. In particular, despite a recent shift in attention to how identities shape literacy practices and motivations, common frameworks for…

Each edition of the IDRA Newsletter strives to provide many different perspectives on the issues in education topics discussed and to define its significance in the state and national dialogue. This issue focuses on Principal Leadership and includes: (1) Fostering Excellence through Social Justice Principles in Schools Serving English Learners…

New Mexico is one of 48 states that offer a biliteracy seal to high school graduates to recognize their proficiency in a non -English language. The Regional Educational Laboratory Southwest English Learners Research Partnership collaborated with a large urban district in New Mexico to study the characteristics and college readiness of students who…