Narrative Assessments with First Grade Spanish-English Emergent Bilinguals: Spontaneous versus Retell Conditions.

This study used qualitative analyses to investigate similarities and differences in narrative production across two task conditions for four first grade Spanish-English emergent bilingual children. Task conditions were spontaneous story generation and retelling using the same story. Spanish stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in vocabulary, while English stories from two children were compared on the basis of similarity in overall discourse skills. Results show that when the total number of words used was similar across English narratives, the retell included more different words and higher quality story structure than the spontaneous story. When overall discourse scores in the Spanish examples were similar, the spontaneous story required more words than the retell, but also included more central events and greater detail. Yet, the retell included more advanced narrative components. This study contributes to our understanding of narrative skills in young Spanish-English bilinguals across task conditions.

The Development of Bilingual Narrative Retelling Among Spanish-English Dual Language Learners Over Two Years.

Purpose: This exploratory study investigates the development of oral narrative retell proficiency among Spanish-English emergent bilingual children longitudinally from kindergarten to second grade in Spanish and English as they learned literacy in the 2 languages concurrently. Method: Oral narrative retell assessments were conducted with children who spoke Spanish at home and were enrolled in a dual language immersion program (N = 12) in the spring of kindergarten and second grade. Retells were transcribed and coded for vocabulary and grammar at the microlevel (Miller, Andriacchi, & Nockerts, 2015, 2016) and story structure at the macrolevel (Heilmann, Miller, Nockerts, & Dunaway, 2010). Results: In microstructure paired-sample t tests, children showed significant improvements in vocabulary in both languages (Spanish total number of words η2 = .43, Spanish number of different words η2 = .44, English total number of words η2 = .61, English number of different words η2 = .62) but not grammar by second grade. At the macrostructure level, children showed significantly higher performance in English only (English narrative scoring scheme η2 = .47). Conclusions: The finding that children significantly improved in vocabulary in both languages but in overall story structure only in English suggests that discourse skills were being facilitated in English whereas Spanish discourse development may have stagnated even within a dual language immersion program. Results contribute to what is currently known about bilingual oral narrative development among young Spanish speakers enrolled in such programs and can inform assessment and instructional decisions.

Cross-Linguistic Lexical, Grammatical, and Discourse Performance on Oral Narrative Retells Among Young Spanish Speakers.

This study investigated relations among microlevel and macrolevel domains of oral narrative retells within and across the languages of Spanish-speaking bilingual children. Fifty-six first and second graders (Mage = 7 years, 3 months) were assessed on a retell task in Spanish and English. Two statistical analyses were conducted: (a) correlations within and across microlevel lexical (number of different words) and grammatical (mean length of utterance-word and subordination index) domains and (b) hierarchical regression to determine the influence of microlevel domains on a macrolevel discourse score. Results highlighted a number of significant within- and cross-language correlations, and identified vocabulary as a significant predictor of macrolevel discourse scores within both languages, while grammar was a predictor within English only.