Language and literacy environments [electronic resource] : how do family and community contexts contribute to language and literacy development among dual-language learners?
Keywords: Education.

In the United States, approximately 20% of students are raised in homes where a language other than English is regularly spoken (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008b). These students are frequently referred to as dual-language learners (DLLs) because they are learning a language other than English at home while simultaneously or sometime thereafter learning English (Durgunoglu & Goldenberg, 2011, p. 4). Three-quarters of DLL students speak Spanish at home (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008a). On average, the academic achievement of Latino students is well below that of their English-only peers, especially in the area of literacy (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2006; Reardon & Galindo, 2009). Children's families and communities influence their language and literacy development (Adams, 1990; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998). However, our knowledge of the ways that family and community environments affect language and literacy development in DLLs' multiple languages is quite limited. The three studies in this dissertation all address some aspect of how family and community environments affect Latino children's language and literacy development in both English and Spanish. Methods The data for all three studies come from a large-scale study of English and Spanish language and literacy development among young Latino children. The analytic sample included 870 Spanish-speaking kindergarteners attending schools in 34 communities from three different regions (urban California, urban Texas, and border Texas). Data on language use and literacy practices within the home, parents' language and literacy skills, and parents' beliefs about language use were collected from parent surveys administered in kindergarten and second grade. Data on language and literacy use in the community were collected from community observations. Finally, data on students' language and literacy skills were collected in the fall and spring of each year from kindergarten to second grade using the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery - Revised. All three studies used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to model growth over time in students' language or literacy skills in both English and Spanish. Study #1 A vexing question for researchers is why so many children raised in homes where a language other than English is regularly spoken do not become fluent in their home language (see De Houwer, 2007; Fillmore, 1991; Portes & Hao, 1998). Study 1 applied a family language policy framework to this issue by exploring the relationship between children's English and Spanish oral language development and three components of family language policy: language ideologies, or parents' beliefs and attitudes about language; language practices, or how parents actually use language; and language management, or parents' attempts to plan, intervene, and manage language use. Parents' language ideologies were related to children's language use in second grade, but were not related to children's oral language skills. Parents' language practices had language specific relationships with both children's language use and initial language skills. The more English parents spoke, the more English their children used and the higher their children's English oral language skills at the start of kindergarten, while the more Spanish parents spoke, the more Spanish their children used and the higher their children's Spanish oral language skills at the start of kindergarten. However, children who heard more Spanish showed greater summertime growth in their English and, in one region, Spanish skills than children who heard more English. Parents' language management was associated with both children's language use and children's language skills, although language management was more strongly related to language use in second grade but more strongly related to language skills in kindergarten. There were regional differences in the relationships between family language policy and children's language use and oral language skills. Study #2 Children enter school with varying degrees of competency in basic reading skills, which prior research suggests is due, at least in part, to the wide range of exposure young children have to books and reading in the home (Adams, 1990) and community (Neuman & Celano, 2001; Reese, Thompson, & Goldenberg, 2008). This study explored the relationship between children's exposure to English and Spanish language and literacy in the home and community and young Latino students' literacy development in English and Spanish. Students' reading skills were related to language and literacy exposure in the home, but not the community. Students' exposure to language had language-specific effects on reading skills that differed by interlocutor. Adult language use was related to Spanish reading skills and youth language use was related to English reading skills. However, oral language skills partially mediated these relationships. The home literacy practice most associated with children's reading skills was the frequency the child read books on his or her own. Study #3 Scholars who study reading fall roughly into one of two camps. The cognitivist camp describes reading as a set of cognitive skills that include decoding and listening comprehension, among others (Adams, 2011; Kirby & Savage, 2008; National Reading Panel, 2000). More socioculturally oriented scholars view literacy as a set of culturally-specific ways of using oral and written language (Bloome, Harris, & Ludlum, 1991; Gillanders & Jiménez, 2004; Madrigal, Cubillas, Yaden, Tam, & Brassell, 1999). Study 3 applies a sociocultural perspective to explaining the cognitive contributors to students' reading skills as outlined in a framework called the Simple View of reading (SVR; Gough & Tunmer, 1986). This study addressed how family language and literacy practices and parents' language and literacy skills contribute to DLLs' English and Spanish reading comprehension skills directly and indirectly through their influence on decoding and listening comprehension. Family language and literacy practices were related to students' English and Spanish reading comprehension skills both directly and indirectly through their relationships with the component skills of decoding and listening comprehension. The SVR was a better predictor of Spanish reading than English reading. Decoding and listening comprehension explained more variance in both initial reading comprehension skills and reading comprehension growth for Spanish reading than for English reading. One implication of this finding is that the development of L2 reading is more complex than the development of L1 reading.