Attachments
10
PreK-3rd:
Challenging
Common Myths
About Dual
Language
Learners
An Update to the
Seminal 2008 Report
by Linda M. Espinosa, Ph.D.
PreK-3rd
Policy to Action Brief
No. Ten
August 2013
PreK-3rd Policy to Action Briefs
PreK-3rd Policy to Action Briefs seek to promote the idea of PreK-3rd and to provide guidance for
its implementation. The goal of PreK-3rd Grade Education is the creation of a seamless learning
continuum from PreK to Third Grade.
PreK-3rd is a national movement of schools, districts, educators and universities seeking to
improve how children from ages 3 to 8 learn and develop in schools. While these different
efforts use a variety of names, all are working to connect high-quality PreK programs with
high-quality elementary schools to create a well-aligned primary education for all our
nation’s children.
What is PreK-3rd Education?
PreK-3rd approaches require that educational standards, curricula, assessment and
professional development are strongly aligned across high-quality PreK, Kindergarten,
First, Second and Third Grades.
The PreK–3rd approach consists of:
• Public funding for Full-Day education starting at age three, including:
– Voluntary, Full-Day PreK for three- and four-year-olds
– Required, Full-Day Kindergarten
• Aligned educational strategies within and across grades, including:
– Aligned standards, sequenced curriculum, instruction, and assessments
– Well-rounded curriculum, including literacy, math, arts, physical education, social
and emotional learning and science
– Regular joint planning and shared professional development among all PreK,
Kindergarten, and 1st–3rd grade teachers and staff
• Principal leadership to support joint professional development and teacher collaboration
around PreK-3rd curriculum and instruction
• Family engagement focused on supporting what children learn in school and on
promoting a Dual-Generation strategy
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 3
Introduction
With the continued demands for external accountability and the rigorous grade-
level expectations in English Language Arts specified in the new Common
Core State Standards (CCSS), educational policymakers are focusing increased
attention on young children (ages 3-8) from non-English speaking backgrounds.
Young children who speak a language other than English in the home and are not
fully fluent in English have been identified as Dual Language learners (DLLs).
The term, dual language learners has been adopted by the Office of Head Start
and the United States Department of Education to highlight and promote the
linguistic assets of young children and families who speak languages other than
English.i Since 2008, when the first edition of this policy brief was published, the
scientific community has greatly advanced our knowledge of both how children
acquire two languages during the PreKindergarten years and the consequences of
growing up with more than one
language.
The rate of growth of DLL children in
the Early Care and Education (ECE)
systems as well as the public schools
continues to exceed projections with 10 states experiencing more than 200%
growth from 1990-2010.ii In some parts of the country more than 50% of the
PreKindergarten population come from non-English-speaking homes.iii As a
group, DLL students have often struggled to become proficient in English,
chronically been in the lowest levels of academic achievement, and had school
drop out rates almost twice those of native English speakers.iv
The confluence of these factors has created an urgent need to design and
implement instructional approaches and school structures that are based on
our latest scientific evidence about how to best support full English proficiency
and high academic achievement for DLL students. Our educational systems are
challenged to capitalize on the linguistic, cognitive, and social talents of young
children who are developing capacities in more than one language.
Our educational systems are challenged to
capitalize on the linguistic, cognitive, and social
talents of young children who are developing
capacities in more than one language.
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 4
Fortunately, in the past 15 years, there have been advances in neuroscience,
rigorous research on the processes and consequences of dual language development,
and program evaluations and international research on multi-lingual development
that can provide useful guidance on best policies and practices for young
DLL children.
When carefully analyzed, this new research often challenges commonly held
beliefs and myths that have influenced the instruction, assessment practices, and
organizational structure of educational programs that serve DLL children ages
3-8 years. This brief presents two new and updates five commonly held beliefs
about the development and learning of young children who are learning English
as their second language and presents current research evidence that can better
guide our policies.
Underlying this perspective is the belief that a consistent, coherent approach
to early education that provides continuous, enhanced learning opportunities
from PreKindergarten through Third Grade offers the best chance for improved
academic performance. DLL children in PreK-3rd programs would have the
advantage of six years of continuous schooling with a consistent approach to
language development, common curriculum, and aligned assessments to master
the essential elements of the English language while learning challenging
academic content. Their teachers would also have more opportunities to forge
partnerships with parents, and increase the likelihood of the children’s positive
adjustments to early schooling. Creating a sound foundation in basic and
academic language, as well as conceptual development and reading proficiency,
by the end of Third Grade sets the stage for future school success.
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 5
MYTH 1: Learning Two Languages During the Early Childhood Years Will
Overwhelm, Confuse, and/or Delay Acquisition of English.
When we hear PreKindergarteners inserting Spanish into their English sentences
or school-age children alternating between the two languages while socializing
with their peers, it is easy to conclude that they are confusing the two languages.
Since language learning is such a monumental and challenging task during the first
years of life, it is also reasonable to believe that expecting young children to learn
not one—but two—languages, as they are just beginning to learn the complexities
of understanding and using language may delay overall language development.
In fact most young children throughout the world successfully learn more than
one language from their earliest years. Recent research from developmental
cognitive neuroscientists and psycholinguists on the processes and consequences
of learning two languages during the infant-toddler years has continued to
underscore the extensive capacity of the human brain to learn multiple languages
during the early childhood years, as well as the ability of the child to sort the
sounds of each language into separate categories and interpret contextual cues
to know when it is appropriate to use which language.v
There is wide scientific consensus that bilingual infants develop two separate
but connected linguistic systems during the first year of life.vi We now know that
infants have the innate capacity to learn two languages from birth and that if the
early dual language exposure is sufficient in quantity and quality, young children
can successfully become fully proficient in both languages.
The most current scientific research suggests that the development of two
languages from a child’s earliest years has specific impacts on a variety of
cognitive functions discernable as early as seven months of age that are persistent
throughout childhood and may even offer some protection from symptoms of
Alzheimer’s.vii Enhanced executive function abilities such as working memory,
inhibitory control, attention to relevant vs. irrelevant task cues, and mental or
cognitive flexibility, as well as improved language skills, have been linked to early
bilingualism when proficiency in each language is roughly balanced.viii These
abilities have been portrayed as the biological foundation for school readiness,
providing the platform upon which children’s capacities to learn (the “how”)
educational content (the “what”) depends. It has been found in multiple studies
that there is a bilingual advantage when comparing monolinguals and bilinguals
on tasks that require selective attention, cognitive flexibility, and certain literacy
skills such as decoding when the two languages have similar writing systems.ix
Notably, these advantages have been found across all socio-economic, racial, and
ethnic groups, and as noted above, are linked to the level of bilingualism; those
children who had more balanced skills in each language showed greater advantage.
These studies have also demonstrated that knowing more than one language does
not delay the acquisition of English or impede academic achievement in English
when both languages are supported.x Research on children who learn English after
their home language has been established—usually around three years of age—has
also shown that most young children are capable of adding a second language and
that this dual language ability confers long-term cognitive, cultural, and economic
advantages.xi The early childhood period from 3-8 years of age is critical for
developing mastery of the sounds, structure and functions of language and thus
an ideal time to expose children to the benefits of two languages.xii Current
research has clearly indicated that young dual language learners should be given
opportunities to develop high levels of proficiency in both of their languages
because the advantages are significant and lasting.
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 6
In the brain, the ability to hold onto and work with information, focus
thinking, filter distractions, and switch gears is like an airport having
a highly effective air traffic control system to manage the arrivals and
departures of dozens of planes on multiple runways. Scientists refer to
these capacities as executive function and self-regulation—a set of skills
that relies on three types of brain function: working memory, mental
flexibility, and inhibitory-control. Center on the Developing Child at
Harvard University (n.d.). Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning
Myth 2: The Language Development of Dual Language Learners Looks the Same
as Monolingual Language Development.
When young children learn more than one language their experiences in each
language alter the neural patterning and language processing systems in the
developing brain.xiii During the first year of life, an infant is able to perceive and
process all sounds of all spoken languages, but sometime between 8-10 months
this speech perception starts to narrow. By the end of the first year of life, infants
have lost some of their ability to discriminate sounds that they do not regularly
hear. After seven years of age, the human capacity to hear and process unfamiliar
phonemes (the sounds of language) has dramatically decreased.xiv This is one reason
why the PreK-3rd years are an ideal time for children to learn a second language.
Recent studies from cognitive neuroscientists have found differences in brain
activity in the areas of the brain that process language across bilingual and
monolingual PreKindergarteners.xv Young bilingual children develop more widely
dispersed and evenly distributed neural pathways across both brain hemispheres.
The unique linguistic challenges faced by young DLL children lead to different
sets of skills than those of monolinguals. The cognitive demands of processing
input in two languages, may lead to slower word retrieval in each language, but
enhanced abilities in other areas.xvi While it may take DLL children longer to
respond to language tasks that require word retrieval, and they may not know as
many words in each language, the additional cognitive challenges of switching
between languages is also associated with increased cognitive control and executive
function skills. In short, all language experiences influence cognitive and linguistic
learning mechanisms and since DLL children are developing unique neural
connections and pathways, their brain development and learning will look different
from monolingual children.xvii
While language differences have been reported in studies of young DLL children,
these differences should not be interpreted as language delays due to learning in
more than one language. Most often, these differences are evident only in certain
areas of language development, e.g., vocabulary and rapid word retrieval, but other
areas, e.g., phonological awareness and decoding skills, may be comparable. It is
also important to note that learning expectations or state standards developed for
monolingual English speakers may not be appropriate for DLL students.
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 7
Finally, there are important socio-cultural differences both between DLL and
non-DLL students and within the DLL population that affect the development of
important language and literacy skills. For example, young DLL children are much
more likely than native English speakers to have parents without a high school
education, to live in low-income families, and to be raised in cultural contexts that
do not reflect mainstream norms in the United States.xviii The language and early
literacy development of DLL children also follows unique trajectories toward full
English proficiency with significant implications for instructional planning. These
background and developmental characteristics of young DLL students need to be
understood when making judgments about individual children’s progress and
making inferences about program effectiveness.xix
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 8
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 9
Myth 3: Total English Immersion from Prekindergarten Through Third Grade Is
the Best Way for a Young Dual Language Learner to Acquire English.
Common sense suggests that the more time children spend listening to and
speaking English, the more rapidly they will master the fundamentals of the
English language. For adults and older children who have a well-established first
language, this may be the case. It is true that young children need sufficient input
and opportunities to use a second language in order to gain fluency. Many educators
are also concerned that young children will be confused and their acquisition of
English language and literacy skills will be delayed if they are not instructed in
English-only programs from the very beginning. The reasoning is logical: since
children during their first five years of life are primed to learn language and
eventually they will need to master English Language Arts, it is best if they are
introduced to an English-only instructional environment as early as possible.
Much research on the effects of early English immersion programs for DLL
students contradicts this belief. For young children who are actively processing
and have not yet mastered the fundamentals of their first language, completely
shifting to a new, unfamiliar language during the early childhood years may
negatively impact the ongoing development of their home language, as well
as academic achievement in English in the long run.
The evidence suggests that children in English immersion ECE programs tend to
lose their ability to communicate in their first language, start to prefer the English
language, frequently develop communication problems with their extended
families, and experience depressed academic achievement in English.xx While
English can be successfully introduced during the PreKindergarten years, if it
replaces the home language, and children do not have the opportunity to continue
to learn in the language they know, advanced linguistic, conceptual, and academic
development is at-risk. Systematic, deliberate exposure to English during early
childhood combined with ongoing opportunities to learn important concepts in
the home language results in the highest achievement in both the home language
and English by the end of Third Grade and beyond.xxi
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 10
The conclusions from recent studies suggest that young children are capable of
learning academic content in two languages, that they benefit cognitively and
socially from learning more than one language, that transitioning to English too
soon may cost them in the long run, and that many early literacy skills learned
in Spanish clearly transfer to English. The children who were taught in English-
only classrooms or transitioned to English instruction before they demonstrated
well established oral language abilities in their own language and had achieved
high levels of English oral proficiency did not fare as well as those who had the
opportunity to learn through two languages.
The most recent evidence suggests that support for the home language during
the PreKindergarten years will help, not hurt, long term attainment in English.
Young children can learn nursery rhymes, songs, extended vocabulary and early
literacy skills in English and their home language with adult support. DLL
children who receive systematic learning opportunities in their home language
during the early years consistently out-perform those who attend English-only
programs on measures of academic achievement in English during the middle
and high school years.xxii These dual language learning opportunities can be
provided during designated instructional times throughout the day in each
language, in addition to extended activities conducted in the home by family
members in the child’s first language. Encouraging DLL children’s families to
continue to talk with, read to, sing to, and use the home language in everyday
activities will promote continued development of children’s first language while
they are also acquiring English in their PreK-3rd settings.
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 11
MYTH 4: Because Schools Don’t Have the Capacity to Provide Instruction in all the
Languages Represented by DLL Children, Programs Should Provide Instruction in
One Common Language—English.
Early education programs throughout the country are reporting not only more
DLL children, but also more different languages represented among their
children and families. Head Start has documented more than 140 different
languages among their families enrolled in 2009-2010 with approximately 30%
of all children identified as dual language learners.xxiii The state of California has
reported that approximately 25 percent of all K-12 students speak a language
other than English at home and more than half of all four-year-olds are children
of immigrants (PPI, 2012).xxiv In some communities the concentration of DLLs
is even more dramatic; In Los Angeles County, more than 55 percent of the
five year olds entering Kindergarten in 2009-2010 were children whose primary
language spoken in the home was not English with 88% being from Spanish-
speaking homes.xxv At the same time less than 10 percent of our teachers are
fluent in more than one language and few teachers certified in early childhood
education have any training in cultural and linguistic diversity.xxvi
With such a daunting challenge facing our educators, it seems reasonable to
expect most programs will implement English-only instructional approaches.
While reasonable, this would be a misguided conclusion. From the preceding
discussion, it is clear that young DLL children need frequent and intentional
support for the home language while they are acquiring English in order to benefit
academically, socially, and cognitively from their emergent bilingualism. Even
when teachers do not speak the child’s home language, there are many specific
teaching practices that will support continued development of the home language.xxvii
Teachers and ancillary staff can support children’s home language throughout
the day in all kinds of learning situations recognizing that most ECE teachers are
monolingual English speakers; they can also train parents, community members,
and volunteers to work with DLL children in their home language. In addition,
research has shown that multiple long-term benefits are accrued when teachers
promote literacy skills in children’s home language as well as English.
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 12
English Language Development (ELD)
Instructional strategies that promote ELD and support DLL children’s home language development:
• Early in the school year, teachers meet with parents to learn critical information about the child
and family.
• Visual displays that represent the languages, cultures, and family practices of the children
enrolled in the classroom.
• Provide books and materials that authentically represent the cultures and languages of your
students and families. Have students help you understand and read them or elicit a volunteer
or parent to help you with this.
• Have key vocabulary words introduced in child’s home language by parent or
community volunteer.
• Pre-read stories in child’s home language.
• Use similar words in home language to bridge into English.
• Use pictorial, real world objects, and concrete experiences to convey meaning of words
and concepts.
• Use visual cues and physical gestures and signals linked to specific content vocabulary to
imprint meaning.
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 13
MYTH 5: Spanish-Speaking Latinos Show Social As Well As Academic Delays
When Entering Kindergarten.
The academic achievement gap for young Latino dual language learners continues
to be significant at Kindergarten entry and persists throughout the school years.xxviii
Low-income Hispanic DLL children consistently score significantly below the
national average in math and reading achievement at Kindergarten entry. These
educational achievement disparities persist as DLL students continue to have
substantially lower levels of academic achievement, including high school completion
and college enrollment and completion rates, than their peers from English-only
backgrounds.xxix Although these academic discrepancies are well documented and
well known among the educational community, very little comparable attention
has been paid to the social competencies of young DLL children.
We know that the emotional and social health of young DLL children is important
to their school adjustment and academic achievement. Young children need to be
able to regulate their emotions, follow directions, form positive social bonds, and
express their feelings appropriately to succeed in school. According to multiple
measures of family risk factors (i.e., poverty, immigrant status, English language
fluency, access to mental and physical health services) Latino DLL children would
appear to be at greater risk than their non-Hispanic peers for poor mental health.
However, several researchers have found that children from low SES Mexican
immigrant families had lower levels of internalizing and externalizing symptoms
than both their White and African-American peers.xxx In one study, teachers
rated the children of Mexican immigrant families at Kindergarten entry as more
socially and emotionally competent than their peers from similar socio-economic
backgrounds. This is remarkable given the multiple risk factors associated with
the Mexican immigrant families and yet these children showed distinct social and
behavioral advantages at Kindergarten entry.
In addition, as described above, PreKindergarten-aged DLL children have been
repeatedly shown to have more advanced executive function skills. Dual language
learners consistently outperform monolingual children on tasks that require
focused attention, inhibitory control, planning and working memory abilities, and
mental flexibility.xxxi These advantages for bilinguals have been found during the
first year of life across language, ethnicity, and SES groups. Several researchers
have found advantages for bilingual children on executive control tasks when
comparing lower SES Spanish-English bilingual children with middles-class
monolingual English-speaking children. However, these advantages are found
only when the child has developed advanced levels of bilingual proficiency; one
researcher has suggested, “intensive experience and practice with more than one
language may be required to reap benefits in executive control”.xxxii
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 14
These largely unrecognized social-emotional and executive function strengths
among a population often viewed only through the “at-risk” lens offers a
potential source of resilience that school personnel should recognize, support,
and enhance. Since young low-income Spanish-speaking DLL children are
judged to be at least as, if not more, emotionally and socially competent than
their peers, something about Hispanic child-rearing practices has promoted their
children’s ability to control their emotions and get along with others at school
entry—two highly-prized social competencies for school success. The ability to
plan, initiate, and carry out tasks while disregarding distracting input also has
enormous implications for successful school performance.
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 15
MYTH 6: Native English Speakers May Experience Academic and Language Delays
in Dual Language Programs.
Dual language programs educate all children in two languages, typically, English
and another language. Over the past decade, dual language programs have grown
tenfold, with an estimated 2,000 currently operating in the U.S. The goal is to
promote bilingualism and biculturalism for all the students enrolled. In these
classrooms all the students experience the benefits and challenges associated
with learning a second language during the early childhood years as well as the
richness of socio-cultural integration.
Many parents and educators are reluctant to enroll native-English speaking
children in programs where much of their academic instruction is in a language
the children have not mastered. They fear that their children may “lose ground”
over the PreK-3rd years compared with their monolingual English-speaking
peers. Since most important achievement testing is conducted in English, and the
stakes for academic failure are higher than ever, there is also the fear that the
students will be disadvantaged by the amount of instructional time spent learning
a second language.
In fact, the data from recent evaluations shows that a balanced dual language
approach is an effective model for both DLL students and native English speakers.
It is one of the few instructional approaches that can fully close the achievement
gap for DLL students while not showing any adverse effects for non-DLL
students. All students seem to benefit cognitively, academically, and culturally
when they develop proficiency in more than one language as measured by
standardized achievement testing in addition to positive reports from parents,
teachers, and administrators.xxxiii
In one landmark longitudinal study, when the dual language model was consistently
implemented over the early elementary and through high school grades, the
achievement gap between DLL students and native English speakers was closed;
the educational experience also became more inclusive for all students with
students reporting friendships across class and language barriers.xxxiv “In the
long run, dual language schools have tremendous benefit,” says author Jo Anne
Kleifgen. “You have young adults with strong skills, who graduate from high
school, who can communicate in more than one language.”
Challenging Common Myths About Young Dual Language Learners: An Update to the Seminal 2008 Report
Page 16
Myth 7: If the Instruction in Your Program is Delivered Primarily in English,
You Do Not Need to Worry About DLL Children’s Progress in Their Home Language.
With the increased demands for accountability, educators need to frequently
assess children’s progress, identify those who may be in need of specialized services,
monitor the effectiveness of their interventions, and frequently adapt instructional
approaches based on assessment feedback. Accurate and valid assessment information
that is linked to improved instruction is critical to the academic achievement of
young DLL students. In …