M. Adelaida Restrepo

PAVEd for Success: An Evaluation of a Comprehensive Preliteracy Program for Four-Year-Old Children.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effectiveness of PAVEd for Success, comprehensive preliteracy program guidelines to support the development of foundational preliteracy skills in 4 year olds. Prekindergarten teachers received professional development on variables of the program that included a summer institute, after-school workshops, and classroom support from preliteracy specialists. Children were assessed at prekindergarten entry, following the implementation period and at the end of the school year. Vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, and alphabet knowledge were assessed during the prekindergarten year, and early literacy indicators and early decoding skills were assessed at the end of the kindergarten year. While all experimental variables showed some benefits to the development of childrens preliteracy skills, only the full program benefited children who entered the prekindergarten program at risk for reading difficulties. The program participants benefited in early literacy and decoding skills when compared to controls. Implementation by teachers with support and sustainability of program features without support was also evaluated. Teachers were most likely to implement and sustain program features which shared consistency with some prior literacy focus and when they were able to integrate program features across the curriculum. This research suggests that long-term change in the literacy skills of young children will involve complex and multifaceted approaches to preliteracy development.

Comparison of Spanish morphology in monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual children with and without language impairment ∗

This study compares Spanish morphosyntax error types and magnitude in monolingual Spanish and Spanish–English bilingual children with typical language development (TD) and language impairment (LI). Performance across groups was compared using cloze tasks that targeted articles, clitics, subjunctives, and derivational morphemes in 57 children. Significant differences were observed between bilingual TD and LI groups on all tasks; however, no differences were observed between bilinguals with TD and monolinguals with LI except on a sum-score across all tasks. There were no observed differences between bilinguals and monolinguals with TD; however, 60% of bilinguals with TD were misclassified as LI when using a cut score derived from monolingual-only data. Results support evidence that Spanish morphosyntax is vulnerable to error in monolingual and bilingual Spanish–English children with LI. However, the grammatical deficit seems clinically relevant only when children are compared to the same language peer group (i.e., bilinguals compared to bilinguals).

Classroom practices for vocabulary enhancement in prekindergarten: Lessons from PAVEd for success

Contents: Preface. M.L. Kamil, E.H. Hiebert, Teaching and Learning Vocabulary: Perspectives and Persistent Issues. Part I: Perspectives on How Vocabulary Is Learned. W. Nagy, Why Vocabulary Instruction Needs to Be Long-Term and Comprehensive. A.E. Cunningham, Vocabulary Growth Through Independent Reading and Reading Aloud to Children. J.A. Scott, Creating Opportunities to Acquire New World Meanings From Text. Part II: Instruction and Interventions That Enhance Vocabulary. S.A. Stahl, Four Problems With Teaching Word Meanings and What to Do to Make Vocabulary an Integral Part of Instruction. M. Calderon, D. August, R. Slavin, D. Duran, N. Madden, A. Cheung, Bringing Words to Life in Classrooms With English Language Learners. M.S. Carlo, D. August, C.E. Snow, Sustained Vocabulary-Learning Strategy Instruction for English-Language Learners. P.J. Schwanenflugel, C.E. Hamilton, B.A. Bradley, H.P. Ruston, S. Neuharth-Pritchett, M.A. Restrepo, Classroom Practices for Vocabulary Enhancement in Prekindergarten: Lessons From PAVEd for Success. J.F. Baumann, G. Font, E.C. Edwards, E. Boland, Strategies for Teaching Middle-Grade Students to Use Word-Part and Context Clues to Expand Reading Vocabulary. Part III: Perspectives on Which Words to Choose for Instruction. I.L. Beck, M.G. McKeown, L. Kucan, Choosing Words to Teach. A. Biemiller, Size and Sequence in Vocabulary Development: Implications for Choosing Words for Primary Grade Vocabulary Instruction. E.H. Hiebert, In Pursuit of an Effective, Efficient Vocabulary Curriculum for Elementary Students.

Language Ability Groups in Bilingual Children: A Latent Profile Analysis

PURPOSE Classifying children into two language ability groups, with and without language impairment, may underestimate the number of groups with distinct language ability patterns, or, alternatively, there may be only a single group characterized by a continuum of language performance. The purpose of the current study was to identify the number and characteristics of latent (unobservable) language ability groups in an unclassified sample of predominantly Spanish-speaking children. METHOD An unclassified sample of 431 predominantly Spanish-speaking 5- to 7-year-olds learning English participated in the study. The groups were identified on the basis of (a) language sample analyses (semantic, grammatical, and sentence-length measures); (b) language processing tasks (phonological working memory and processing speed measures); and (c) nonverbal cognitive abilities assessed using a standardized measure. All tasks were administered in Spanish. Latent profile analysis was used to examine the number and nature of distinct language ability groups in the unclassified sample. RESULTS Results indicated that a three-group model best represented the data, characterized by low grammaticality in one group, low phonological working memory in another group, and average skills in a third group. CONCLUSION Classifying children into two groups, those with and without language impairment, may lead to misidentification of language impairment.

Language Sample Analysis and Elicitation Technique Effects in Bilingual Children With and Without Language Impairment

Purpose This study examined whether the language sample elicitation technique (i.e., storytelling and story-retelling tasks with pictorial support) affects lexical diversity (D), grammaticality (grammatical errors per communication unit [GE/CU]), sentence length (mean length of utterance in words [MLUw]), and sentence complexity (subordination index [SI]), which are commonly used indices for diagnosing primary language impairment in Spanish-English-speaking children in the United States. Method Twenty bilingual Spanish-English-speaking children with typical language development and 20 with primary language impairment participated in the study. Four analyses of variance were conducted to evaluate the effect of language elicitation technique and group on D, GE/CU, MLUw, and SI. Also, 2 discriminant analyses were conducted to assess which indices were more effective for story retelling and storytelling and their classification accuracy across elicitation techniques. Results D, MLUw, and SI were influenced by the type of elicitation technique, but GE/CU was not. The classification accuracy of language sample analysis was greater in story retelling than in storytelling, with GE/CU and D being useful indicators of language abilities in story retelling and GE/CU and SI in storytelling. Conclusion Two indices in language sample analysis may be sufficient for diagnosis in 4- to 5-year-old bilingual Spanish-English-speaking children.

Listening comprehension: Assessment, predictors, and intervention

49/2/278 Clarke, P. J., Snowling, M. J., Truelove, E., & Hulme, C. (2010). Ameliorating children’s readingcomprehension difficulties: A randomized controlled trial. Psychological Science, 21(8), 1106–1116. doi:http://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610375449 Florit, E., Roch, M., Altoe, G., & Levorato, M. C. (2009). Listening comprehension in preschoolers: The role of memory. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 27(4), 935–951. Garner, J. K., & Bochna, C. R. (2004). Transfer of a listening comprehension strategy to independent reading in first-grade students. Early Childhood Education Journal, 32(2), 69–74. doi:http://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-004-1071-y Gersten, R., Fuchs, L. S., Williams, J. P., & Baker, S. (2001). Teaching reading comprehension strategies to students with learning disabilities: A review of research. Review of Educational Research, 71,

Assessing Measurement Invariance for Spanish Sentence Repetition and Morphology Elicitation Tasks

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to evaluate evidence supporting the construct validity of two grammatical tasks (sentence repetition, morphology elicitation) included in the Spanish Screener for Language Impairment in Children (Restrepo, Gorin, & Gray, 2013). We evaluated if the tasks measured the targeted grammatical skills in the same way across predominantly Spanish-speaking children with typical language development and those with primary language impairment. METHOD A multiple-group, confirmatory factor analytic approach was applied to examine factorial invariance in a sample of 307 predominantly Spanish-speaking children (177 with typical language development; 130 with primary language impairment). The 2 newly developed grammatical tasks were modeled as measures in a unidimensional confirmatory factor analytic model along with 3 well-established grammatical measures from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition, Spanish (Wiig, Semel, & Secord, 2006). RESULTS Results suggest that both new tasks measured the construct of grammatical skills for both language-ability groups in an equivalent manner. CONCLUSIONS There was no evidence of bias related to childrens language status for the Spanish Screener for Language Impairment in Children Sentence Repetition or Morphology Elicitation tasks. Results provide support for the validity of the new tasks as measures of grammatical skills.

Performance of Low-Income Dual Language Learners Attending English-Only Schools on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals–Fourth Edition, Spanish

Purpose The aim of this study was to examine the performance of a group of Spanish-speaking, dual language learners (DLLs) who were attending English-only schools and came from low-income and low-parental education backgrounds on the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Fourth Edition, Spanish (CELF-4S; Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2006). Method Spanish-speaking DLLs (N = 656), ages 5;0 (years;months) to 7;11, were tested for language impairment (LI) using the core language score of the CELF-4S and the English Structured Photographic Expressive Language Test (Dawson, Stout, & Eyer, 2003). A subsample (n = 299) was additionally tested using a Spanish language sample analysis and a newly developed Spanish morphosyntactic measure, for identification of children with LI and to conduct a receiver operating characteristics curve analysis. Results Over 50% of the sample scored more than 1 SD below the mean on the core language score. In our subsample, the sensitivity of the CELF-4S was 94%, and specificity was 65%, using a cutoff score of 85 as suggested in the manual. Using an empirically derived cutoff score of 78, the sensitivity was 86%, and the specificity was 80%. Conclusions Results suggest that the CELF-4S overidentifies low-income Spanish-English DLLs attending English-only schools as presenting with LI. For this sample, 1 in every 3 Latino children from low socioeconomic status was incorrectly identified with LI. Clinicians should be cautious when using the CELF-4S to evaluate low-income Spanish-English DLLs and ensure that they have converging evidence before making diagnostic decisions.

When (and how) interacting with technology-enhanced storybooks helps dual language learners.

In a meta-analysis, Takacs, Swart, and Bus (2015) found that when children listen to multimedia electronic storybooks, comprehension is higher than when listening to a traditional oral reading of the story. However, adding interactive features reduced the benefit, and for at-risk children, the interactive features reduced comprehension to below that when listening to the reading. Here we report a contrasting effect. Namely, a type of interactive feature that we call simulation has a large positive benefit on story comprehension in a multimedia environment for dual language learners. In addition, we show that combining simulation with a modicum of support in the native language (in this case, Spanish) produces additional benefits on reading comprehension. That is, when children are poor decoders but have good English-language skills, or when they are good decoders but have poor English-language skills, adding Spanish support to simulation makes up for the deficit and increases performance when reading in English. We trace the differences between our findings and those reported by Takacs et al. to the types of interaction used. In the Takacs et al. findings, the interactive features did not enhance story meaning. In the current research, simulation was specifically designed to highlight meaning. Thus, simulation and Spanish support may be effective for improving comprehension when dual language learners are reading in English.

Embraceing dual language learners

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