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There is a virtual consensus regarding the types of language processes, interactions, and material supports that are central for young children to become proficient readers and writers (Shanahan et al., 2008). In this study, we examine these supports in both home and school contexts during children's critical transitional kindergarten year. Participants were 70 children living in 2 different communities: neighborhoods of concentrated poverty (i.e., poverty rates over 40%) and borderline neighborhoods (i.e., poverty rates of 20 -40%). From an ecological perspective, our goal was to examine the quantity and quality of knowledge-building supports in these contexts, and their relationship to children's school readiness outcomes. Interactive parent-child tasks were designed to elicit child-directed language in the home, while naturalistic observations in the kindergarten classrooms captured teachers' child-directed language. Children living in concentrated poverty were more likely to experience language of more limited complexity and diversity in both home and kindergarten contexts as compared to children living in borderline communities. We argue that the "double dose of disadvantage" in the language supports children receive at home and at school may affect their school readiness in significant, yet distinct, ways. Educational Impact and Implications StatementChildren's early exposure to a rich set of language practices is critical for their later reading success. Nevertheless, this study shows that children from poor neighborhoods are likely to receive less complex language and fewer knowledge-building opportunities from adults in home and school, constituting a "double dose of disadvantage" in their kindergarten year. These results suggest that children will need a more expansive approach to intervention, involving both families and teachers in language-building instruction to overcome these early disadvantages to better ensure their opportunity to learn.

This article reports on two studies designed to examine the landscape of online streamed videos, and the features that may support vocabulary learning for low-income preschoolers. In Study 1, we report on a content analysis of 100 top language-and literacy-focused educational media programs streamed from five streaming platforms. Randomly selecting two episodes from each program, we identified the prevalence of vocabulary opportunities, and the pedagogical supports-techniques or features in these media that are designed to orient children to specific vocabulary words. In over the 2,000 scenes coded, we identified two overriding categories of supports: ostensive cues, designed to provide definitional information to children; and attention-directing cues, designed to signal children's attention to a target word. In Study 2, we use eye-tracking technology to examine which of these pedagogical supports might predict children's ability to identify program-specific vocabulary. Results indicated that although ostensive cues predicted overall attention to scenes, attention-directing cues were most effective in directing children to target words and their subsequent word identification. Children with higher language scores were more likely to use these cues to their advantage than their lower language peers. These results may have important implications for designing digital media to enhance children's opportunity to learn vocabulary. Educational Impact and Implications StatementScreen media use on mobile devices for children ages 8 and under has risen rapidly in recent years to an average of 48-minutes day. Recognizing its potential to engage children's interest, this study examines the current landscape of educational media programs for children's word learning and vocabulary development. Our study shows both the prevalence and wide variation of word learning opportunities and highlights the production cues that appeared to differentially elicit children's attention to words and media content. These results could support a more intentional approach to media design to enhance children's opportunity to learn vocabulary.

W e ' ve had our share of lively debates in the field of reading, but not on this particular topic: background knowledge. There is a virtual consensus that background knowledge is essential for reading comprehension. Put simply, the more you know about a topic, the easier it is to read a text, understand it, and retain the information. Previous studies (Alexander, Kulikowich, & Schulze, 1994 ;Shapiro, 2004 ) have shown that background knowledge plays an enormous role in reading comprehension (Hirsch, 2003 ).The contribution of background knowledge to children ' s comprehension became all that more clear for us in a recent three-part experiment including 4-year olds from low-and middle-SES (socioeconomic status) families (Kaefer, Neuman, & Pinkham, in press). In the first experiment, we assessed lowand middle-SES children ' s background knowledge about birds by creating a task with fictional characters and names: "This is a toma. A toma is a bird. Can a toma live in a nest?" and other items in a similar format. The experiment revealed stark differences in knowledge about birds between the two groups: ( t (43) = 3.22, p = .002), Cohen ' s d = .93. Low-SES children had significantly more limited background knowledge than their middle-class peers.So, to tap how these differences in background knowledge might relate to comprehension in text, we created an 18-page illustrated storybook in our second experiment that featured the adventures of four types of birds (named for extinct species ): the moa, faroe, cupido, and kona. The book had a total of 238 words and shared a common plot and story grammar, including the setting (i.e., a house), problem, response, and resolution. Using a receptive comprehension measure that examined children ' s understanding of critical story events and their ability to make causal inferences, we found once again that the low-SES children experienced greater difficulty comprehending the story than their middle-SES peers. These children demonstrated significantly poorer comprehension of the text ( t (75) = 1.99, p = .050), with a moderate effect size (Cohen ' s d = .46).Consequently, in our third study, we attempted to neutralize background knowledge by introducing a storybook narrative context that would be novel to both groups. Here was our reasoning: If children ' s preexisting background knowledge underlies these differences in comprehension, then we would expect that there would be no differences in learning among our differing SES groups. For this study, we created