BILINGUAL LANGUAGE DIVERSITY OF LATINO PRESCHOOLERS: PROFILES, COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE, AND RELATIONS WITH SCHOOL READINESS

拟议项目的总体目的是通过整合观点和方法，以整体、细致和基于优势的方式了解拉丁裔DLL学龄前儿童的西班牙语和英语语言多样性，并检查语言技能、家庭和课堂因素以及入学准备结果之间的关系。该项目将通过标准化评估探索拉丁裔DLL儿童跨语言和语言领域的分布式知识，并通过更自然的评估探索他们的沟通能力技能，从而全面了解他们的整体语言能力。该项目将以以下目标为指导：(1)探索拉丁裔DLL儿童的不同语言特征，并对与这些特征相关的不同家庭因素和课堂因素进行建模；(2)研究不同的语言背景是否会导致儿童的交际能力和入学准备技能的差异；(3)根据研究结果开展专业发展会议和家长研讨会，为教师和护理人员提供有关支持西班牙语和英语语言习得和发展的实践。该项目建立在与两个当地启智中心现有伙伴关系的基础上，有可能为这些中心以及国家一级的实践和政策提供信息。此外，确保提供最好的教育环境，以支持拉丁裔儿童的发展。

The overarching purpose of the proposed project is to understand Latino DLL preschoolers' language diversity in both Spanish and English in a holistic, nuanced, and strengths-based way, by integrating perspectives and methodologies, and to examine the relations between language skills, home and classroom factors, and school readiness outcomes. This project will explore Latino DLL children's distributed knowledge across languages and language domains on a standardized assessment, as well as their communicative competence skills on a more naturalistic assessment, thereby providing a comprehensive account of their total language abilities. The project will be guided by the following objectives: (1) To explore the different language profiles of Latino DLL children and to model different home factors and classroom factors associated with these profiles; (2) To examine whether different language profiles lead to differences in children's communicative competence and school readiness skills; (3) To develop professional development sessions and parent workshops based on the results of the study to inform teacher and caregiver practices about supporting the language acquisition and development of both Spanish and English. This project is built on existing partnerships with two local Head Start centers, and has the potential to inform practice and policy at those centers as well as on the national level. In addition, to ensure that the best educational environment is provided to support Latino children's development.