Language skills and reading comprehension in English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual children in grades 2–5

2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (9) ◽  
pp. 1381-1405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca D. Silverman ◽  
C. Patrick Proctor ◽  
Jeffrey R. Harring ◽  
Anna M. Hartranft ◽  
Brie Doyle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Monolingual

scholarly journals Spanish-English Bilingual Children’s Relative Use of English Tense and Agreement Morphemes

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Potapova ◽  
Sonja L. Pruitt-Lord
Keyword(s):  
Best Practice ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Language Assessment ◽  
Language Ability ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Past Tense ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Bilingual Speakers ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Third Person

Best practice for bilingual speakers involves considering performance in each language the client uses. To support this practice for young clients, a comprehensive understanding of how bilingual children develop skills in each language is needed. To that end, the present work investigates relative use of English tense and agreement (T/A) morphemes—a skill frequently considered as part of a complete language assessment—in Spanish-English developing bilingual preschoolers with varying levels of language ability. Results indicate that developing bilingual children with both typical and weak language skills demonstrate greater use of copula and auxiliary BE relative to third person singular, past tense and auxiliary DO. Findings thus reveal a relative ranking of T/A morphemes in developing bilingual children that differs from that of English monolingual children, who demonstrate relatively later emergence and productivity of auxiliary BE. In turn, findings demonstrate the importance of utilizing appropriate comparisons in clinical practice.

Influences of language input and production on the language skills of Persian-English bilingual immersion preschool children

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-106
Author(s):  
Bita Payesteh ◽  
Lizbeth H. Finestack
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Language Production ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Language Performance ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Language Input ◽  
Old Persian ◽  
The U.S

Abstract The purpose of this study was to better understand bilingualism in Persian-English preschool-aged children, and how their language performance across two domains of language related to their language production and parental language input. Participants were 15, 2- through 5-year old Persian-English bilingual children attending a Persian immersion preschool in the U.S. The participants completed a battery of language tasks in English and Persian and participants’ parents provided language input and production information. Data indicate that greater input in the heritage language outside school, Persian, will likely lead to better Persian skills, while greater English input may negatively affect the children’s Persian skills. Participants received consistent native-level Persian input in school, yet the results suggest that Persian as a heritage language in the U.S. may be susceptible to the same vulnerability that affects other non-mainstream languages.

Phonetic equivalence in the acquisition of /l/ by Spanish–English bilingual children

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
JESSICA A. BARLOW ◽  
PAIGE E. BRANSON ◽  
IGNATIUS S. B. NIP
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Phonetic Category ◽  
Contextual Variation ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
Second Formant ◽  
English Monolingual

Spanish [l] is characterized as clear, and is associated with a high second formant (F2) frequency and a large difference between F2 and the first formant (F1) frequencies. In contrast, English [l] is darker (with a lower F2 and a relatively smaller F2–F1 difference) and also exhibits contextual variation due to an allophonic velarization rule that further darkens [l] postvocalically. We aimed to determine if Spanish–English bilingual children evidence these differences productively, in a manner comparable to that of monolinguals, or if they produce an [l] that is intermediate to that of Spanish and English monolinguals. We acoustically analyzed [l] productions of seven Spanish–English bilingual, seven Spanish monolingual, and seven English monolingual children. Results showed that the bilinguals had similar prevocalic F2 and F2–F1 values for [l] in both languages, comparable to those of Spanish monolinguals, but significantly higher than those of English monolinguals. The bilinguals also produced English (but not Spanish) [l] with significantly lower postvocalic F2 and F2–F1 values. We assume that the bilinguals have a merged phonetic category for prevocalic [l] but not postvocalic [l], and further, that they maintain separate grammars, allowing the allophonic velarization rule to apply in English but not Spanish.

scholarly journals Cultural differences in the content of child talk: evaluative lexis of English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual 30-month-olds

2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 844-869
Author(s):  
Martha SHIRO ◽  
Erika HOFF ◽  
Krystal M. RIBOT
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Semantic Categories ◽  
Vocabulary Skills ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Monolingual

AbstractWe examined the size, content, and use of evaluative lexis by 26 English monolingual and 20 Spanish–English bilingual 30-month-old children in interaction with their mothers. We extracted the evaluative words, defined as words referring to cognition, volition, or emotion. Controlling for overall vocabulary skills as measured by the MacArthur-Bates inventories, monolinguals had a larger evaluative lexicon than the bilinguals’ Spanish evaluative lexicon, but no difference was found between monolinguals’ and bilinguals’ English evaluative lexicons. There were differences between the monolinguals and bilinguals in the distribution of evaluative words across semantic categories: English monolingual children used more words pertaining to volition and cognition and talked more about volition than the Spanish–English bilingual children. These results suggest that the development of evaluative lexicons is influenced by cultural differences, and consequently, bilingual children, who are also bicultural, follow a different developmental path in both languages from the path followed by their monolingual peers.

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