Language-independent and language-specific aspects of early literacy: An evaluation of the common underlying proficiency model.

Abstract

According to the common underlying proficiency model (Cummins, 1981), as children acquire academic knowledge and skills in their first language, they also acquire language-independent information about those skills that can be applied when learning a second language. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relevance of the common underlying proficiency model for the early literacy skills of Spanish-speaking language-minority children using confirmatory factor analysis. Eight hundred fifty-eight Spanish-speaking language-minority preschoolers (mean age = 60.83 months, 50.2% female) participated in this study. Results indicated that bifactor models that consisted of language-independent as well as language-specific early literacy factors provided the best fits to the data for children’s phonological awareness and print knowledge skills. Correlated factors models that only included skills specific to Spanish and English provided the best fits to the data for children’s oral language skills. Children’s language-independent early literacy skills were significantly related across constructs and to language-specific aspects of early literacy. Language-specific aspects of early literacy skills were significantly related within but not across languages. These findings suggest that language-minority preschoolers have a common underlying proficiency for code-related skills but not language-related skills that may allow them to transfer knowledge across languages.

Effects of Family Literacy Programs on the Emergent Literacy Skills of Children From Low-SES Families: A Meta-Analysis

“…They propose to make programs more culturally valid-that is, consistent with parents' values and behaviors. Such suggestions reflect a wider movement away from a deficit view toward a perspective that builds on the knowledge and resources available in families (Irvine & Larson, 2007;Street, 1995), as elaborated in concepts such as "funds of knowledge" (González al., 2005;Moll et al, 1992) and "community culture wealth" (Yosso, 2005). The assumption is that using family knowledge and resources can play an important role in children's academic achievements, as was corroborated by Rios-Aguilar (2010).…”

“…At the same time, several studies have shown substantial variability in how children's home literacy environments (HLEs) are shaped, not only between, but also within SES groups (Auerbach, 2001;Lynch, 2009;van Steensel, 2006). Using refined conceptualizations of the HLE, such studies suggest that low-SES families do provide opportunities for literacy development, but in different ways (González et al, 2005). Consequently, it is recommended that FLPs adhere to the resources available in these families.…”

Linguistic interdependence of receptive vocabulary skills in emergent bilingual preschool children: Exploring a factor-dependent approach

“…Therefore, linguistic transfer through a CUP may not be the source of successful interdependence in language learning. Nevertheless, Goodrich and Lonigan (2017) note that the lack of a CUP does not rule out all types of transfer of language skills; prior evidence suggests that children transfer some word-specific information across languages (Goodrich et al, 2016). Summarizing the results of available studies conducted with young Spanish-English bilinguals, Patterson and Pearson (2004) conclude that there is no consistent evidence that knowing a word in L1 will make it easier to learn it in L2.…”

Within and Across Language Predictors of Word Learning Processes in Dual Language Learners

“…For this reason, a significant proportion of DLLs' early vocabularies may be comprised of words known in one or the other language, but not both (Peña, Bedore, & Zlatic-Giunta, 2002;Rinker, Budde-Spengler, & Sachse, 2017). Moreover, a large body of work suggests that vocabulary growth in one language may be more strongly linked with properties of input in that language than the other, at least in the early stages of development (Goodrich & Lonigan, 2017;Hoff et al, 2012).…”

“…Although grammar development is undoubtedly linked with exposure to each language (Marchman, Mart ınez-Sussmann, & Dale, 2004), children may also generate abstract grammatical representations by detecting distributional regularities in the input across languages (Goodrich & Lonigan, 2017;Messenger & Fisher, 2018). Thus, in comparison with vocabulary, the domain of grammar may be relatively language-independent.…”