BILINGUAL LANGUAGE DIVERSITY OF LATINO PRESCHOOLERS: PROFILES, COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE, AND RELATIONS WITH SCHOOL READINESS

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

The overarching purpose of the proposed project is to understand Latino DLL preschoolers' language diversity in both Spanish and English in a holistic, nuanced, and strengths-based way, by integrating perspectives and methodologies, and to examine the relations between language skills, home and classroom factors, and school readiness outcomes. This project will explore Latino DLL children's distributed knowledge across languages and language domains on a standardized assessment, as well as their communicative competence skills on a more naturalistic assessment, thereby providing a comprehensive account of their total language abilities. The project will be guided by the following objectives: (1) To explore the different language profiles of Latino DLL children and to model different home factors and classroom factors associated with these profiles; (2) To examine whether different language profiles lead to differences in children's communicative competence and school readiness skills; (3) To develop professional development sessions and parent workshops based on the results of the study to inform teacher and caregiver practices about supporting the language acquisition and development of both Spanish and English. This project is built on existing partnerships with two local Head Start centers, and has the potential to inform practice and policy at those centers as well as on the national level. In addition, to ensure that the best educational environment is provided to support Latino children's development.