Paola Uccelli|Mariela Páez
Narrative and Vocabulary Development of Bilingual Children From Kindergarten to First Grade: Developmental Changes and Associations Among English and Spanish Skills
Boston College
purpose research identified english oral language proficiency critical bilingual students literacy development study examines developmental patterns associations among oral vocabulary narrative skills longitudinal sample 24 spanishenglish bilingual children low socioeconomic backgrounds understanding development oral proficiency method english spanish data gathered using standardized vocabulary tests narrative elicitation tasks provided kindergartners first graders narratives coded length using two measures productivity quality two levels story score language score descriptive correlation multivariate regression analyses conducted results significant gains kindergarten first grade found english oral language measures despite showing improvements english vocabulary majority children continued score monolingual mean first grade english narrative productivity total number different words tdw proved sensitive developmental measure contrast total number words tnw spanish significant gains noted narrative story score kindergarten spanish story scores predicted firstgrade english narrative quality even controlling effects english vocabulary english narrative productivity firstgrade spanish narrative quality best predicted spanish vocabulary implications need early assessment monitoring expressive vocabulary oral narrative skills potential contributions spanish story organization skills english narrative performance bilingual children low socioeconomic families highlighted