Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners

Top Lang Disorders Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 351–364 c 2006 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.  Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners Diane August, PhD; Catherine Snow, PhD; Maria Carlo, PhD; C. Patrick Proctor, EdD; Andrea Rolla de San Francisco, EdD; Elisabeth Duursma, MA, MEd; Anna Szuber, MEd This article describes a series of studies that examine the development of literacy in elementary school Spanish-speaking second-language learners. Findings from the research that addresses our first question—regarding cross-language relationships—indicate that first-language reading skills are related to second-language reading skills, but that children must have first-language literacy in the skill for this relationship to exist; oral proficiency in the first language is not sufficient. In our studies that address the second research questions—bilinguals’ early literacy development in kindergarten and first grade—Spanish-instructed bilinguals were more likely than English-instructed bilinguals or English monolinguals to treat diphthongs as 2 units, reflecting the influence of Spanish language instruction on English phonological analysis. Moreover, both English vocabulary and literacy instruction made unique, positive contributions to English spelling, whereas Spanish literacy instruction played a more important role than Spanish vocabulary in the production of Spanish-influenced spelling in English. Only bilingual students in Spanish literacy instruction exhibited Spanish-influenced spelling, indicating a powerful effect of language of literacy instruction. Our findings related to the third question—the role of home literacy and language environment on bilinguals’ English and Spanish vocabulary development—suggest that becoming or staying proficient in English does not require parental use of English in the home. Spanish, not English, is the at-risk language for children of Hispanic heritage living in the United States. Students need early instruction in Spanish and home support in that language to become and remain proficient in Spanish. Key words: elementary school, second-language learners, second-language literacy D From the Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC (Dr August); Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass (Drs Snow and Rolla and Mss Duursma and Szuber); School of Education, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Fla (Dr Carlo); and Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Mass (Dr Proctor). The work reported in this article is supported through a program project grant from the National Institutes of Child Health and Development and the Office of Educational Sciences, US Department of Education. The grant supported three subprojects; the work reported in this article was conducted by researchers working in one of the subprojects. The grant enabled the researchers to collaborate across institutions and conduct longitudinal research over the course of 5 years. Corresponding author: Diane August, PhD, Center for Applied Linguistics, 4646 40th St, NW, Washington, DC 20016 (e-mail: [email protected]). URING the past several decades, a large number of immigrant families, most of whom do not use English as their home language, have arrived and settled in the United States. In 1979, 6 million children and youth were language minority. By 1999, this number had more than doubled to 14 million. Of those who spoke a language other than English at home, Spanish was the most frequent language spoken (72%). Many schools are not adequately prepared to respond to these rapidly changing student demographics. The existence of large and persistent gaps between the reading performance of English language learners (ELLs) and monolingual English-speaking children represents both an intellectual and a practical challenge. Fourth-grade performance on the 351 352 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2006 National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) reading test shows a 22- to 29-point scale score advantage for children living in homes where a language other than English was never used in comparison with children who lived in homes where a language other than English was always used (National Center for Education Statistics, 2004). Practically, gaining access to the information taught in middle and secondary school content area classes requires that all children exit the elementary grades with good reading comprehension capacity. Without this capacity, access to grade-appropriate content knowledge, entry to challenging courses in secondary school, success on the tests increasingly being required for promotion and graduation, and entry to tertiary education are all unlikely. Thus, closing this gap has high priority if U.S. education is to reduce inequities in access to opportunities that are contingent upon successful school achievement. Research that sheds light on the development of literacy in second-language learners is crucial if educators are to improve educational outcomes for this group of students. OVERVIEW OF A BODY OF RESEARCH This article examines three questions related to the development of literacy in Spanish-speaking children acquiring English in U.S. schools. They are as follows: What is the relationship between learning to read in Spanish and learning to read in English? What does research show about the development of phonological awareness (PA) and spelling in young second-language learners? What role do home literacy and language environment play in bilingual students’ English and Spanish vocabulary development? The first goal of this article is to review the highlights of this collection of studies that test a series of specific hypotheses related to the predictive power of lexical, orthographic, morphological, and phonological knowledge of English and Spanish on English literacy development. The second goal of the studies is to consider their implications for educators and language specialists who work with children at various stages of acquiring oral language proficiency and literacy in two languages. Theoretical background The researchers whose work is reported in this article share a vision of the nature of literacy skills development, the course of second-language learning, and the particular challenges of reading and writing English as a second language. As investigators, we conceptualize literacy development as acquisition of lower level skills and higher level cognitive components that interact. In addition, we believe that development of any one of these components can be studied and evaluated independently. We are persuaded by empirical evidence that suggests that most children need good, explicit instruction about at least some aspects of reading, and we believe that second-language learners may need this more than most (August & Shanahan, 2006). Our work is informed by the observation that second-language learning differs from firstlanguage learning in being much more variable in its course and much more heavily dependent on the quality of the language environment available. Moreover, we have observed that literacy learning in one’s second language differs from literacy learning in one’s first language in that the oral base in the second language on which literacy builds is more variable across learners and potentially influenced by reading skills in the first language. When the second language is English, literacy learning is complicated by the depth of the English phoneme–grapheme mapping system, which contrasts sharply with the relatively shallow orthography of Romance languages such as Spanish (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). The Spanish reader learning to read in English, at different stages of accomplishment of foundational reading in Spanish, and at different stages of knowledge of oral English, provides the perfect natural experiment for assessing the importance of first-language literacy skills and second-language oral language Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners skills in the development of second-language literacy. The research summarized here was conducted to investigate such relationships. Overall project design In designing the series of longitudinal studies, we took into account criteria that are important in studying cross-language relationships. First, we controlled for differences in children’s home learning environments and schooling backgrounds by collecting data on home language use and family reading practices from parent questionnaires, and data on schooling history from school records. Using these data as variables in our analysis enabled us to determine to what extent these factors affected students’ reading ability. We used a similar approach to control for the possibility that children with higher levels of oral language proficiency or higher intellectual abilities perform all tasks at higher levels than children with lower proficiencies and abilities by gathering data about oral language proficiency and general ability level. We also controlled for students’ initial proficiency on the literacy task of interest to ensure that initial proficiency on this task was not the cause of relationship between first-language literacy and second-language literacy. Second, we controlled for variation in teaching methods by studying children only in schools that employed the Success For All (SFA)/Exito Para Todos (EPT) curriculum. This curriculum is based on current research on the ways children learn to read and write. At the heart of the program is 90 min of uninterrupted daily reading instruction that emphasizes a balance between phonics and meaning, using both phonetically regular text prepared for students, along with children’s literature. The highly structured curriculum provides extensive guidance for teachers, helping ensure that all classroom instruction follows the same essential design. Children who receive literacy instruction in Spanish (EPT) generally transition into English instruction (SFA) in third or fourth grade. A third criterion for meaningful research on cross-language transfer is the recognition that 353 literacy comprises many component skills. The component skills of reading must be carefully assessed in the first and second languages to trace the development of first- and secondlanguage abilities in relation to one another. Our research design used a combination of standardized and researcher-developed measures to assess PA, phonemic segmentation (ability to divide words into their component sounds), word reading skills (letter recognition, word recognition, and ability to read pseudowords), word knowledge skills (vocabulary), and listening and reading comprehension skills in both Spanish and English. The researcher-developed measures were thoroughly piloted and revised on the basis of psychometric analyses of the pilot data. Table 1 displays assessments administered at each of four grade levels. As displayed in the table, we assessed students’ oral language proficiency in second through fifth grades,1 PA in second and third grades, and word reading and reading comprehension in second through fifth grades. Beginning in fourth grade, we added measures of word knowledge. Specifically, we evaluated students’ breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge, awareness of derivational morphology and cognate relations, and reading vocabulary. We also administered a demographic survey and collected data on classroom language use. MAJOR FINDINGS OF THE STUDIES The relationship between reading in Spanish and reading in English The goal of the first study (August, Carlo, Calderón, & Proctor, 2005) was to identify 1 We replaced the Language Assessment Scales-O (LAS-O; De Avila & Duncan, 1990) measures used in the EDfunded study with the oral proficiency subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery and replaced the CAAS with the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery (WLPB) reading subtests. This improved comparability to findings from other project studies using the same measures. The change in measures does not represent a problem for our analysis because these measures measure the same constructs as those measured in the ED study. 354 Table 1. Study measures Construct End of 2nd grade End of 3rd grade Spanish and English English End of 4th Grade End of 5th grade Spanish and English Spanish and English LAS-O Vocabulary, Listening Comprehension, and Story Retell (De Avila & Duncan, 1990) Oral language proficiency WLPB Picture Vocabulary & Listening Comprehension (Woodcock, 1991) Oral language proficiency Phonemic Segmentation—researcher developed Phonological awareness Spanish and English English CAAS (Sinatra & Royer, 1993) Letter, Word, and Pseudo-Word Naming (accuracy and speed) Letter, word, and pseudoword recognition Spanish and English English WLPB Letter-Word ID, Word Attack, Spanish and English WLPB Reading Vocabulary Letter, word, and pseudoword recognition Reading vocabulary Spanish and English English Word Association Test (researcher developed) Cognate awareness English English Extract the Base Test (morphology) (researcher developed) WLPB Passage Comprehension Morphology Passage comprehension Raven’s Colored Matrices (Raven, 1976) Nonverbal intelligence Spanish and English Spanish and English English Spanish and English Demographic Survey (researcher developed) Classroom Language Use (researcher developed) a Administered only to new children entering the sample. Note: LAS-O = Language Assessment Scales-O. Spanish and English English English Englisha Spanish and English Spanish and English English Spanish and English Spanish and English Spanish and English TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2006 Measures administered Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners the components of Spanish reading that are predictive of growth in English literacy over time among Spanish-speaking elementary school children. This study examined how performance on indicators of Spanish reading at the end of second grade predicted English performance at the end of third, fourth, and fifth grades, focusing on gains made over the course of each year of English reading instruction and its relationship to level of Spanish reading proficiency assessed in Grade 2. To be certain that students were transferring skills from their first language rather than using skills learned in their second language, the authors studied subjects who had received reading instruction in their first language prior to receiving it in their second language, and who had received sufficient first-language instruction to have developed a base of first-language skills that could be transferred. We reasoned that if the time frame for shifting first-language skills to reading comprehension in a second language requires longer than a curtailed study period, the study results would show no transfer taking place, which would be a misleading conclusion. Our research design, therefore, addressed these issues by studying bilingual students from the beginning of second grade through the end of fifth grade. In conducting this study, we collected data from Spanish-speaking children in schools in Boston, Chicago, and El Paso. Approximately half of the Spanish-speaking students were instructed only in English and half were instructed in Spanish through second or third grade and then transitioned into English instruction in fourth grade. We collected data from four to six classrooms at each site, depending on the number of target students available in each classroom. At the beginning of the study (end of second grade), a total of 287 students were participating. By the end of the fourth grade, 189 students remained in the sample. Of these 189 students, 34 were monolingual English speakers, 59 were Spanish–English bilingual students in English-only instruction, and 96 were Spanish–English bilingual students who 355 received initial reading instruction in Spanish before transitioning into English instruction. Regression analyses were conducted to examine whether initial Spanish performance within each component of reading (phonemic segmentation, letter identification, word reading, pseudoword reading, and comprehension) would predict English performance on the same measure at the end of third or fourth grade. In each analysis, we accounted for the possible contributions of general ability, initial level of oral English proficiency, years of formal instruction in English reading, and initial performance in English on the dependent variable of interest. Findings from multiple regression analyses indicated that Spanish phonemic awareness, Spanish letter identification, and Spanish word reading measured in second grade were reliable predictors of English performance on parallel tasks at the end of third grade. In addition, second-grade Spanish word reading was predictive of English word reading at the end of fourth grade. The effect of Spanish phonemic awareness on English phonemic awareness emerged for all students. However, the effect of Spanish letter identification and word reading on English letter identification and word reading emerged only for students who had received formal instruction in Spanish reading. That is, direct relationships between Spanish and English performance on these measures were observed only among students receiving Spanish reading instruction. A separate set of analyses on transfer of vocabulary knowledge for fourth-grade students also suggested transfer of knowledge for words that have cognate status in the two languages. Cognate status is determined by degree of similarity of words with the same meaning in the two languages. For example, the Spanish word edificio is a cognate of the English word edifice. Comparisons of performance on the cognate awareness measure indicated reliable differences favoring the Spanish-instructed children on words that had cognate status in Spanish and English (e.g., profound, edifice, jocose, malevolent) but no differences between English-instructed 356 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2006 and Spanish-instructed children on noncognate words (e.g., wily, wanton, fiend) that were matched in frequency and part of speech to the cognates. These findings suggest that the Spanish-instructed children were able to access knowledge of vocabulary in Spanish (edificio, profundo, jocoso) to identify the meaning of cognate words on the English test (edifice, profound, jocose). Although research has been conducted to develop models of reading comprehension for native-English-speaking populations, comparatively few studies have sought to model the English-reading comprehension of bilingual Latina/o readers (for notable exceptions, see Hoover & Gough, 1990). Two of our studies (Proctor, August, Carlo, & Snow, 2006; Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2005) have sought to determine whether current models of English comprehension developed with predominantly monolingual populations accurately depict the reading process for a sample of bilingual children. To answer this question, 135 Spanish–English bilingual Latina/o fourth graders were selected from the larger sample described above as participants. Of the 135 students, the majority (69%) were taught to read first in Spanish, transitioning into English literacy instruction in third and fourth grades, whereas the remainder (31%) received initial literacy instruction in English. Proctor et al. (2005) hypothesized a secondlanguage-only model of reading comprehension in which second-language decoding and oral language skills would combine to predict English-reading comprehension. The results showed that, as has been demonstrated in the monolingual literature (Stanovich, 2000), English alphabetic knowledge and Englishreading fluency played a significant role in predicting English-reading comprehension. Our results indicated that a stronger grasp of the alphabetic principle of English, coupled with accurate and speedy word recognition in English, were essential for the successful comprehension of text written in English. However, these decoding skills were less predictive of the participants’ English-reading comprehension than the students’ English oral vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension. The model with its two decoding variables (alphabetic knowledge and fluency) and two oral language variables (expressive vocabulary knowledge and listening comprehension) accounted for 66% of the variation in second-language reading comprehension with the combined sample of 135 students. Furthermore, the model was tested with the students who had experienced all reading instruction only in Spanish and was found to be quite comparable in its predictive power and goodness of fit. The most notable finding of this study was the dynamic role played by vocabulary knowledge, in that vocabulary knowledge directly and indirectly (through listening comprehension) predicted reading comprehension. In a follow-up study, Proctor et al. (2006) sought to understand whether and how Spanish literacy skills contributed to Englishreading comprehension. Whereas the first study established some commonalities in the reading process for first- and second-language learners with regard to the relative contributions of decoding and oral language skill, this second study drew on the foundational work of Cummins (1979), who maintained that first- and second-language development are intertwined. The researchers maintained that development of a truly sound model of English-reading comprehension among a sample of bilingual and biliterate students would require proficiency in the native language to be taken into account. The study we designed to test this hypothesis controlled for language of instruction, English decoding skill, and English oral language proficiency, and explored the effects of Spanish-language alphabetic knowledge, fluency, vocabulary knowledge, and listening comprehension on English-reading comprehension. Results revealed a significant main effect for Spanish vocabulary knowledge on English-reading comprehension. They also showed an interaction between Spanish vocabulary and English reading fluency such that the effect of Spanish vocabulary knowledge on English Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners reading comprehension was stronger for more fluent English readers. These results were reminiscent of classic work by LaBerge and Samuels (1974), who suggested that as decoding-level skills become increasingly automatic, the reader’s ability to focus increasing amounts of attention to the process of creating meaning from text is improved. The cross-linguistic interpretation of the automaticity theory is that as secondlanguage lexical access requires decreasing attention (i.e., as English fluency increases), the bilingual reader is able to devote more cognitive energy to meaning-making strategies that use both the first and the second languages. The fact that vocabulary knowledge was the significant first-language predictor of second-language comprehension is salient in this regard, as vocabulary knowledge has often been considered a proxy for background knowledge (Perfetti, 1998), interpretation (Garcı́a, 1991), and comprehension monitoring (Verhoeven, 2000). These processes may be instrumental in facilitating the firstlanguage–specific strategies that bilingual readers have been shown to employ while reading English language texts, such as cognate recognition (Nagy, Garcı́a, Durgunoglu, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993) and translation (Jiménez, Garcı́a, & Pearson, 1995). In a final study that explored the role of the first language in the acquisition of the second (August, Carlo, Calderón, & Nuttall, 2005), two univariate ANCOVAs were performed to examine differences in broad reading outcomes (a construct that combines word reading and passage comprehension) for three groups of the fifth-grade Spanish-speaking students from the sample described above: students instructed in Spanish only; students instructed in English only; and students instructed first in Spanish and then transitioned into English-only instruction in third or fourth grade. The first model included two covariates: second-grade level of literacy and socioeconomic status (SES; measured as mother’s level of education). The second ANCOVA was performed using the same dependent variable of fifth-grade English Broad Reading scores; 357 however, this model controlled only for SES. With regard to English Broad Reading scores, the data indicated that Spanishspeaking students, controlling for both SES and initial literacy performance in the outcome of interest (English Broad Reading) in one model, and controlling for SES only in a second model, achieved significantly different reading outcomes, depending on the language of instruction. Spanish-speaking children instructed bilingually (initially in Spanish and then in English) fared as well on English Broad Reading outcomes as students instructed only in English. However, the data also indicated that Spanish-speaking students need some instruction in English, as the Spanish-only group fared significantly worse in English Broad Reading scores at the end of fifth grade compared with the other two groups. PA and spelling in young bilingual children In another strand of this research, members of our team conducted a series of three studies to investigate the development of PA and spelling in young bilingual children. As reported previously in this article for all the studies in this subproject, the children in this strand were receiving SFA literacy instruction in English or Spanish. The first of these studies (Rolla San Francisco, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2006) explored the role of language of instruction and vocabulary on bilingual children’s PA performance in English. Participants in this study were kindergartners and first graders who were English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual and were receiving either English literacy instruction (ELI) or Spanish literacy instruction (SLI). These participants were assessed in English PA and in English vocabulary, and in addition, the Spanish group was assessed in Spanish vocabulary. The study was conducted in a public school in the Boston metropolitan area in which 88% of students were eligible for free or reduced lunch, 76% of students were Latino, 19% African American, 4% Anglo, and 1% Asian. 358 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2006 The subjects of the study were 102 kindergarten and first-grade children, consisting of three groups: 45 bilingual children receiving SLI only, 35 bilingual children receiving ELI only, and 22 English monolingual children receiving ELI. Analytical methods included both analyses of variance and multiple regression analyses. Findings indicated that Spanish-instructed bilinguals were more likely than Englishinstructed bilinguals or English monolinguals to treat diphthongs as two units, reflecting their use of Spanish phonology and potentially orthography. Surprisingly, unbalanced bilinguals dominant in either English or Spanish scored better on English PA than children with approximately equivalent scores on the English and the Spanish vocabulary test. This finding suggests that familiarity with many lexical items within a language constitutes a source of analyzable phonological knowledge. The second of the three studies in this strand was also longitudinal and examined the role of PA and language of instruction in the English spelling of Spanish–English bilingual children. The study was conducted in two public schools, one in Chicago, IL, and the other in El Paso, TX. Children were tested in the spring of kindergarten and then again in the spring of first grade. In the Chicago public school, 98% of students were eligible for free or reduced lunch, 89% of students were Latino, 7% African American, and 4% Anglo. In the El Paso school, 85% of students were eligible for free or reduced lunch, 99% of students were Latino, and 1% Anglo. These statistics indicate that these were schools serving lowincome, largely minority communities. There were 78 Spanish–English bilingual children total in the study, in the following subgroups: 17 children in English language instruction from Chicago; 22 children in Spanish language instruction from Chicago; 18 children in English language instruction from El Paso; and 21 children in Spanish language instruction from El Paso. Findings based on multiple regression analyses indicated that only students in SLI exhib- ited Spanish-influenced spelling in an English spelling task. Native Spanish speakers who received ELI showed no transfer errors, suggesting that such errors are not a simple product of phonological interference, but rather a reflection of Spanish orthographic knowledge in the absence of English orthographic knowledge. The students in ELI, on average, spelled more items correctly than students in SLI, who had not yet learned conventional spelling patterns in English. In addition, English phonological representations, as measured by English nonword repetition and English PA, were associated with correct English spelling and a lack of Spanish-influenced errors. Spanish PA was not significantly associated with English spelling outcomes. The third study in this strand investigated the relationship of language of instruction and vocabulary on the English spelling of bilingual first graders receiving either ELI or SLI and of monolinguals in ELI (Rolla San Francisco et al., in press). Students were assessed in English and Spanish vocabulary and with an English spelling task. Data were collected from 66 first-grade students. All of the students attended a public, low-SES school in Boston. The students were categorized into one of three groups: monolinguals in English language instruction (16); bilinguals in English language instruction (21); and bilinguals in Spanish language instruction (29). Findings based on multiple regression analyses indicated that only bilingual students in SLI exhibited Spanish-influenced spelling, suggesting a powerful effect of language of literacy instruction. SLI without ELI may be a specific factor that accounts for the appearance of Spanish influences in English spelling. Spanish-influenced spelling appears to be a normal developmental phenomenon only for those bilingual first graders who have received no ELI. The students in ELI, on average, wrote more orthographically plausible English pseudowords than students in SLI, indicating that the students in SLI simply had not yet learned conventional spelling patterns in English. In addition, children with good Spanish vocabulary showed more Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners Spanish-influenced spelling, whereas English vocabulary predicted more orthographically plausible English spellings. The relationship between English vocabulary and English spelling was similar for children instructed in Spanish and English. English vocabulary and literacy instruction both made unique, positive contributions to English pseudoword spelling, whereas SLI played a more important role than Spanish vocabulary in the production of Spanish-influenced spelling in English. The role of home literacy and language environment on bilinguals’ English and Spanish vocabulary development Previous research on bilingual children’s reading achievement has concentrated on the influence of school literacy instruction on English-reading proficiency. In this strand of the research, we designed a study to examine factors related to home language use and literacy practices of bilingual children and their influence on vocabulary skills in both English and Spanish (Duursma et al., in press). The participants were recruited from four schools: one in Boston, MA; two in El Paso, TX; and one in Chicago, IL. As with the other studies in this subproject, the students were in SFA schools. For our analyses we examined parental reports on language use and literacy practices in the homes of 96 fifth-grade ELLs2 : 61 men and 35 women. Sixty-one of these children had received their initial literacy instruction in Spanish, before transitioning into ELI, and 35 children had received literacy instruction only in English. Among the children who received their initial literacy instruction in Spanish, there was variation in when they transitioned into ELI. Some children transitioned at the end of second grade and others at the end of third or fourth grade. However, in this article, our focus is on the language of their initial literacy instruction. 2 This term is used here to refer to students who have varied proficiency in Spanish and English, but for whom both languages are spoken at home. 359 Measures included a parent questionnaire administered to the children’s parents or guardians when the children were in fifth grade, along with the English and Spanish Picture Vocabulary subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery—Revised (Woodcock, 1991), which were administered to the children. The parent questionnaire was available in both Spanish and English. The questionnaire elicited information about demographic variables and SES, length of stay in the United States, home language use and exposure, and literacy practices in the home in Spanish and English (i.e., number of books at home, frequency with which the parents themselves read, frequency of reading to their children; frequency with which they helped their children with homework). Questionnaire results showed that the literacy support activity most frequently reported was helping the child with learning or homework in English, followed by reading with the child in English. Storytelling in both English and Spanish was the least frequent activity for parents of these fifth-grade students. However, there was wide variation across the households: in some households several of these activities never occurred; in others, they occurred every day. At home, children tended to speak with their parents mostly in Spanish and with their siblings using a combination of both languages but with some preference for English. Almost half the parents reported preferring to read in Spanish, and the other half in English. Vocabulary measured at the end of fifth grade indicated that on average, children had age-appropriate proficiency in both languages. However, the variation in Spanish test scores was greater than the variation in English test scores. Compared with a population mean of 100 with an SD of 15 points, the mean for the standardized vocabulary score was 88.5 (SD = 29.4) in Spanish and 91 (SD = 12.2) in English. Only two thirds (66%) of the children in the sample had average or aboveaverage Spanish vocabulary scores in comparison to the U.S. norms, whereas for English, almost 75% did. This indicates that English 360 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2006 was the stronger language for children in this sample. This study also looked at predictors that might have had a language-specific effect on vocabulary for English (as the “high-status” language in formal education) and Spanish (as the “low-status” language in formal education). We found that the language preferences at home were associated with children’s linguistic proficiency in both languages. This echoes previous research findings that native language maintenance across generations is influenced by the language used at home (Pearson, 2002), among other sociocultural and individual factors (Padilla et al., 1991). In the current study, on average, children from families who preferred to use English at home tended to have higher English proficiency and children from families with a preference for Spanish at home tended to have higher Spanish proficiency scores. A recent study conducted by Reese, Garnier, Gallimore, and Goldenberg (2000) found a series of sociocultural variables predicting early Spanish literacy and later English literacy for Spanish– English bilingual children. Similar to our findings, their study found that parental exposure to English predicted English literacy, and girls did better in both Spanish and English literacy (Reese et al., 2000). Interestingly, paternal preference for English was one of the few significant predictors in predicting both English and Spanish vocabulary. Students who received their initial literacy instruction in Spanish, but whose fathers preferred to speak English, tended, on average, to have higher scores on English vocabulary. Although it is not surprising in itself that language preference of parents predicts children’s proficiency in that particular language, it is interesting that only father’s language preference played a role in this model, not mother’s. We conjecture that fathers who prefer to speak English rather than Spanish at home have higher levels of education and hold jobs that require them to speak English on a daily basis. Families in which fathers prefer to speak English might differ from Spanish-speaking families in whether or not both or one of the parents was born in the United States. This might also influence educational expectations parents have for their children. This would be an interesting question to investigate in future studies. When predicting Spanish vocabulary for students whose initial literacy instruction was in English, both paternal and maternal language preference were significant predictors. When both parents preferred to speak Spanish at home, children had higher scores on Spanish vocabulary, even though they received their initial literacy instruction in English. As mentioned previously, families in which parents prefer to speak Spanish might only recently have moved to the United States or find it important to maintain the native language, in particular when their children receive instruction at school in English. These findings suggest that parental language preferences at home were related to children’s linguistic proficiency in both languages. In the current study, we found that the language children preferred to use with their siblings had a much larger effect on English proficiency than the language preferred by the parents. As Gutierrez-Clellen and Kreiter (2003) proposed, there seems to be little support for the claims that there is a direct relationship between the amount of input in one language and a child’s proficiency in that language. They suggested that even bilingual children with no English input at home can reach appropriate English skills, whereas maintenance and support for Spanish at home appear essential to children’s Spanish proficiency. In our findings, the reverse was true for Spanish, where the language preferred by the parents had a larger effect on Spanish proficiency than the language preferred between the student and his or her siblings. Thus, it was important that parents speak Spanish to their children if they want to help them maintain their Spanish proficiency. This could indicate a greater need for family and home support in order for children to achieve or retain proficiency in Spanish. The results reported Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners by Gutierrez-Clellan and Kreiter suggest that children highly proficient in Spanish might come from households in which parent–child communication takes place mostly in Spanish. In contrast, children who are highly proficient in English tend to come from households where child–child communication occurs in English, and parent–child communication can occur in either English or Spanish. It is likely that the support system for Spanish in such homes is more fragile and sensitive to family, school, and community influences. Although we did not anticipate gender differences, we found a gender effect on English vocabulary scores; girls tended to outperform boys. The importance of gender in predicting vocabulary outcomes has been investigated in research of the monolingual English-speaking population in which, starting at an early age, girls often outperform boys in language skills, particularly on vocabulary measures (Bauer, Goldfield, & Reznick, 2002). At this point, we can only suggest possible explanations for this finding. For example, it is possible that some of these differences are due to out-ofschool activities such as girls spending more time on reading for pleasure than boys. On the other hand, the difference might be explained by other social factors. Research on immigrant (pre)adolescents has shown that many immigrant girls are more restricted by their parents than boys, and they perceive their time at school as a precious period. Immigrant girls often hold more positive attitudes toward school and are more engaged in learning, outperforming immigrant boys, whereas teachers often perceive immigrant boys as threatening (Suárez-Orozco & SuárezOrozco, 2001). In addition, immigrant girls tend to hold very high aspirations for school achievement, while at the same time valuing relations with their families highly (Portes & Hao, 2002). Thus, they might be more motivated to maintain Spanish for familial purposes, but also to acquire English for school achievement. More research is needed in this area. 361 Ongoing and related work In addition to the studies of cross-language transfer, some members of our team have conducted analyses of an intervention designed to enhance fourth and fifth graders’ academic vocabulary and independent vocabulary learning strategies (Carlo et al., 2004). This intervention, which we refer to as the Vocabulary Improvement Project, consisted of 15 weeks of instruction in vocabulary delivered to students who are ELLs in classrooms in Santa Cruz (CA), Fairfax (VA), and Boston (MA). In this study, the meanings of academically useful words were taught together with strategies for inferring word meaning using information from context, from morphology, from knowledge about multiple meanings, and from cognates. Among the principles underlying the intervention were that new words should be encountered in meaningful text and in varying contexts, that native Spanish speakers could be expected to have access to the text’s meaning through Spanish, and that word knowledge involves spelling, pronunciation, morphology, and syntax, as well as depth of meaning. As a consequence of the intervention, fifth graders in the intervention group showed greater growth than the comparison group on knowledge of the words taught, on depth of vocabulary knowledge, on understanding multiple meanings, and on reading comprehension. The intervention effects were as large for the students who were ELLs as for the monolingual English speakers (EOs), although the ELLs scored lower on all pre- and posttest measures. The results show the feasibility of improving comprehension outcomes for students in mixed ELL/EO classes by teaching word analysis and vocabulary learning strategies, regardless of the language of instruction. The study also yielded data that enable us to examine the relationship between paradigmatic and syntagmatic word knowledge (Ordónez, Carlo, Snow, & McLaughlin, 2002). Paradigmatic word knowledge means knowledge of the other words that could 362 TOPICS IN LANGUAGE DISORDERS/OCTOBER–DECEMBER 2006 logically fit into the same slot as the target word—synonyms, antonyms, and close associates. So paradigmatic knowledge about the verb “love” would include knowledge about “adore, like, hate, abhor, marry.” Syntagmatic word knowledge is knowledge of the words likely to be found in a syntactic construction with the target word, so for “love” might be “mothers, puppies, apple pie.” The authors used familiar concrete nouns administered in Spanish and English to 88 bilingual fourth and fifth graders. Students were tested on the ability to provide superordinates (e.g., canine for dog), communicatively adequate definitions, and rich object descriptions. We found that producing superordinates in Spanish was a reliable predictor of the same skill in English when breadth of vocabulary knowledge in each language was controlled. The relationship between communicative skills in Spanish and English was evident only when breadth of vocabulary knowledge in English and Spanish was controlled. Communicative adequacy of definitions and rich descriptions of concrete nouns depended more on specific vocabulary knowledge in English than on transfer. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS By using measures that are designed to assess transfer of oral ability in one language explicitly to reading in another, by employing longitudinal research designs, and by including appropriate control variables, we have been able to address four major shortcomings that have characterized research on this topic to date. First, few assessment tools existed previously that enabled the assessment of parallel reading components in two languages. Second, most prior studies on cross-language relationships have been cross-sectional rather than longitudinal. Third, our research has improved on previous studies in that it has accounted for the effects of variables such as general ability and oral language proficiency, thus allowing us to test competing hypotheses about cross-language relationships. Moreover, our research also controls for language of classroom instruction as well as for instructional practices in reading. We have found that by accounting for these factors we have been able to identify differences in the magnitude and direction of relationships between Spanish and English literacy. Findings from the research that addresses our first question—regarding cross-language relationships—indicate that first-language reading skills are related to second-language reading skills, but that children must have first-language literacy in the skill for this relationship to exist; oral proficiency in the first language is not sufficient. Our findings also indicate that second-language vocabulary is an extremely important predictor of secondlanguage reading comprehension, influencing reading comprehension indirectly through listening comprehension as well as directly. Monolingual models of reading comprehension processes among monolingual students have shown similar effects of vocabulary on reading (see, e.g., Carver & David, 2001); this underscores certain similarities in the reading process between bilingual and monolingual readers. It furthermore suggests that intervention research designed to improve reading comprehension outcomes among Spanish– English bilingual children should include robust vocabulary instruction as an integral component. Moreover, as English fluency increases, the bilingual reader seems to be able to devote more cognitive energy to meaningmaking strategies, as evidenced by apparent use of these strategies in both the first and the second languages. Finally, our findings support the practice of providing literacy instruction in Spanish to Spanish-speaking English-language learners. Children instructed bilingually were able to achieve at similar levels of English and Spanish literacy in comparison with students instructed in one language or the other. The research also indicates that children needed instruction in English literacy if they were to be good English readers. In our studies that address the second research questions—bilinguals’ early literacy Literacy Development in Elementary School Second-Language Learners development in kindergarten and first grade—Spanish-instructed bilinguals were more likely than English-instructed bilinguals or English monolinguals to treat diphthongs as two units, reflecting the influence of Spanish language instruction on English phonological analysis. Moreover, both English vocabulary and literacy instruction made unique, positive contributions to English spelling, whereas SLI played a more important role than Spanish vocabulary in the production of Spanish-influenced spelling in English. Only bilingual students in SLI exhibited Spanishinfluenced spelling, indicating a powerful effect of language of literacy instruction. Our findings related to the third question— the role of home literacy and language environment on bilinguals’ English and Spanish vocabulary development—shed light on circumstances and practices that can lead to balanced bilingualism and high levels of language and literacy skills in both of the children’s languages. The results of this study suggest that becoming or staying proficient in English does not require parental use of English in the home. Spanish, not English, is the at-risk language for children of Hispanic heritage living in the United States. Students need early instruction in Spanish and home support in that language to become and remain proficient in Spanish. 363 With regard to the implications for language learners with possible disorders that flow from this research, findings reported by Rolla San Francisco et al. (2006) suggest that ELLs can exhibit Spanish-influenced PA and spelling in English, a normal developmental phenomenon, especially for children who have received Spanish-language instruction. The influence of Spanish does not indicate that these children should be referred to special education but rather that mainstream teachers ought to be trained in how to recognize children with language difficulties versus children who are simply exhibiting the transfer of Spanish language knowledge to English. On the basis of the research of Duursma et al. (in press), it is important for teachers as well as speech–language pathologists working with ELLs to consider the complex linguistic environment and to provide support in the language that gets most support in other circumstances in children’s lives (e.g., family, friends). 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