The Language Of Vocabulary Instruction

The article, Many Languages, One Teacher: Supporting Language and Literacy Development for Preschool Dual Language Learners, explains to educators how to support the language development in young children who are learning English, how to incorporate Personalized Oral Language Learning (POLL) into the classroom, and how to be intentional about supporting the needs of the English language learners. The four individuals who wrote this article consult programs on dual language learners and have their masters or doctorates in education (Magruder, et al., 2013).

It is common in the United States to see DLL preschoolers who attend English dominant ECE programs tend to quickly show a preference towards English and tend to use their home language less and less (Espinosa, 2015, p. 46). Young language learners often experience first language loss, which is when DLLs become more proficient in the English language while their exposure to their native language takes a back seat. It is imperative that attention must be given to both English language development along-side the native language in order to facilitate the cognitive, social, and linguistic benefits of early bilingualism, while encouraging learning readiness goals (p. 46). Learning a second language during early childhood within the United States should not disable the development of the native

Kan and Kohnert (2005) investigated the lexical-sematic development of preschool bilinguals at a Hmong-English preschool. Nineteen typically developing, native Hmong speakers ranging in ages from 3-5 participated in this study. The researchers decided to measure the lexical-sematic development of their participants using picture naming and picture identification tasks. They selected items from the English version of the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventories (CDI; Fenson et al., 1993). Two bilingual preschool teachers from the school chose items from the inventory they felt were culturally relevant to the preschoolers they taught. The researchers selected 100 nouns from the teacher selected tasks to use in their measure. Then they taught the teachers to administer the measure because neither of the researchers spoke Hmong. The researchers used procedural reliability to ensure bilingual preschool teachers could administer Hmong tasks without error. Pui Fong Kan observed during the administration of these tasks. She conducted the

Dahlgren, D. M. (2008). Oral Language and vocabulary development Kindergarten & First Grade. Nashville: Reading First National Conference. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/programs/readingfirst/2008conferences/language.pdf

This study will require almost 40 children, aged 6, to participate. The reason for this is many children at this age they are on the ongoing process of learning and are on the verge to still develop their English vocabulary as well as the capacity to hold large amounts of vocabulary. Participants will be put into two groups, those who have English as a second language and those that have English as their native language. It is essential to have 20 participants in each group to avoid any biases.

They compared bilingualism in children with typical development and those with communication disorders. They emphasized that children become bilingual to a different degree; using different paths. For some, there is an exposure to a different language at a very early stage in life, and for some it only occurs once they are 3 years old, and enter the schools for education. In some cases when the home language is not supported in school, the child will have reduced opportunities to experiment the language thus becoming receptively bilingual, meaning they would understand their home language but lack in expressive skills in that language. However, Kohnert (2010) reports that continued support in the home language during preschool years is directly related to cognitive and academic gains in later age. While the research has ample advantages of a bilingual environment for typically developing kid but it changes when a kid has a developmental delay or communication disorder like autism. Most parents and professionals are still fearful of using more than one language with children who have significant communication problems. The authors elaborated that there is a significant scarcity in the literature comparing the performance of bilingual and monolingual children with communication disorders. However, they agreed to a growing body of research that maintains that bilingual children with disabilities can use their first language to acquire a second language if trained systematically. Authors maintain that children who are exposed to two languages may benefit to a great degree from a bilingual approach to intervention. (e.g., Kohnert, 2010, 2013). Finally on the serving needs of children who are bilingual and with a communication

One reason the language gap exist can be contributed to the amount of words children hear. In a study done by Hart and Risley (1995), it was shown that children from high SES homes heard approximately 215,000 words,

Dr. Franco’s mission is similar to the Latino Educational Achievement Partnership’s mission to enhance children’s literacy with the correct support (FPGCDI, 2017). She Served as Co-Pi in a study funded by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development focusing on Nuestros Niños Program: Promoting School Readiness for English Language Learners (FPGCDI, 2017). Dr. Franco is now working on research directed towards helping childhood teacher working with dual language learners (FPGCDI, 2017).

Two particular aspects of this topic I saw play out was their economic status, and linguistic background. The learning cite where I participated was aimed at helping children who came from a low income household, and also those who had English as their secondary language. Due to the fact that their families struggled financially I noticed many of these children where behind in school, and primarily in their English development. This could be a direct effect of low economic status because perhaps they lacked resources which could aid their learning, or their parents where not as involved because they were constantly at work. Therefore, they had very limited schedules and their involvement in their child’s education was short. Their linguistic background played a significant role in how they performed at school, because their practice was strictly limited to the time they spent at school they showed detriments in how well they acquired other languages such as English. They came from homes where they only spoke Spanish or otherwise and therefore they were taught to not practice it at home and leave everything they learnt or acquired at school, restricting them from further developing skills, which would develop their English. The environmental context in which children are brought up has a very significant role in children’s development; in my experience, I particularly saw the effect it had within their cognitive

To understand children’s language learning we have to go beyond language classrooms. Regarding the child as a language learner we have

This article discusses the differences between working memory and short-term memory in children who have either a phonological delay or typically developing speech. It aims at discovering whether there is any other language or cognitive aspects that are involved in phonological errors in children with phonological delay and the differences between phonological working memory and phonological short-term memory. This was measured using various memory tasks and measuring each child’s receptive vocabulary size (Waring, Eadie, Liow, & Dodd, 2016).

Preparing students who are ELL to succeed in the general education classroom requires an understanding of the language and pragmatic skills they are likely to encounter. The lack of understanding of the language and pragmatic skills of the general education teachers and ELL teachers is a major contributing factor to poor instructional practices used with ELL students (Brice et al., 2006). According to Alt (2014), success in schools depends heavily on children's ability to understand and use the language of instruction to learn. However, there is much to learn about how language proficiency can affect academic performance. Studies show that preschool age ELL students that have a strong language base either in English or in Spanish perform better in class discussion. They also show that explicit vocabulary instruction, either in English or Spanish, with preschool age students can show tremendous gains in student performance (Gorman et al., 2012 ; Lugo-Neris et al., 2010). Ultimately, pre-reading skills development for Spanish-speaking ELLs should emphasize strategic scaffolding in which teachers are knowledgeable of orthographic, phonemic, semantic, and alphabetic similarities between Spanish and English and can mediate instruction by making instructional decisions that facilitate the development and transfer of skills across the languages (Cardenas-Hagan et al.,

As a second year Early Childhood Studies student, I was excited to be placed at a toddler classroom in a center that is our school’s lab school for my field placement. Diverse backgrounds are evident in the center due to the urban and multi-cultural location of the setting. Working in the field alongside the professionals, educators, staff, families, and children at the center has given me great insight in regards to the importance of building partnerships with the families and making connections to the child’s behaviors in the classroom. It is crucial to foster an environment that is language rich, that is able to promote children’s communicative, verbal and non-verbal language. More significantly, incorporating the

Respond to prompts 4a–c below by referring to children’s range of vocabulary development related to the learning segment—What do they know, what are they struggling with, and/or what is new to them?

The study solidified the theory that social interaction is key to a toddler developing his language. This study proved that children with mothers who talk and text frequently, or disengage from their children, are less likely to learn the new words. This disengagement distracts the toddler and thus interrupts the important cognitive processes occurring in the brain to map the new words. This study was effective because of the intention and concern in its design. The researchers did an amazing job explaining the material and taking great pains to control as many