Low-Income Ethnically Diverse Children's Engagement as a Predictor of School Readiness Above Preschool Classroom Quality.

This study examined whether children's observed individual engagement with teachers, peers, and tasks related to their school readiness after controlling for observed preschool classroom quality and children's baseline skills. The sample included 211 predominately low-income, racially/ethnically diverse 4-year-old children in 49 preschool classrooms in one medium-sized U.S. city. Results indicated that children's positive engagement with (a) teachers related to improved literacy skills; (b) peers related to improved language and self-regulatory skills; and (c) tasks related to closer relationships with teachers. Children's negative engagement was associated with lower language, literacy, and self-regulatory skills, and more conflict and closeness with teachers. Effect sizes were small to medium in magnitude, and some expected relations between positive engagement and school readiness were not found.

Cross-Language Associations in the Development of Preschoolers' Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary.

The increasing population of dual language learners (DLLs) entering preschool classrooms highlights a continued need for research on the development of dual language acquisition, and specifically vocabulary skills, in this age group. This study describes young DLL children's (N = 177) vocabulary development in both English and Spanish simultaneously, and how vocabulary skills in each language relate to one another, during a contextual shift that places greater emphasis on the acquisition of academic English language skills. Findings demonstrated that DLL preschoolers made gains in vocabulary in both languages with more change evidenced in receptive, in comparison to expressive, vocabulary as well as in English in comparison to Spanish. When examining whether children's vocabulary scores in one language at the beginning of preschool interact with their vocabulary scores in the other language to predict vocabulary growth, no significant associations were found for receptive vocabulary. In contrast, the interaction between initial English and Spanish expressive vocabulary scores was negatively related to growth in English expressive vocabulary. This cross-language association suggests that children who have low expressive vocabulary skills in both languages tend to grow faster in their English expressive vocabulary. The study extends previous work on dual language development by examining growth in expressive and receptive vocabulary in both English and Spanish. It also provides suggestions for future work to inform a more comprehensive understanding of DLL children's development in both languages.

Bidirectionality in Self-Regulation and Expressive Vocabulary: Comparisons Between Monolingual and Dual Language Learners in Preschool.

Significant differences in language and self-regulation skills exist among children when they enter formal schooling. Contributing to these language differences is a growing population of dual language learners (DLLs) in the United States. Given evidence linking self-regulatory processes and language development, this study explored bidirectional associations between English expressive vocabulary and self-regulation skills for monolingual English and DLL preschool children (N = 250) from mixed-income families in Los Angeles. Across three time points, findings provide initial support for bidirectionality between these developing skills for both monolinguals and DLLs. Results provide strong empirical support for vocabulary serving as a leading indicator of self-regulation skills in preschool. Findings also suggest that early self-regulation skills play a particularly important role for vocabulary development.