This study details the development of a local test designed to place university Spanish students (n = 719) into one of the four different course levels and to distinguish between traditional L2 learners and early bilinguals on the basis of their linguistic knowledge, regardless of the variety of Spanish they were exposed to. Early bilinguals…

At the core of contemporary U.S. language education policy is the dichotomous dividing of bilingual students into English Learners (ELs) who are entitled to extra support and non-ELs who are not entitled to this support. In this article, we genealogically trace the normative assumptions that go into this framing of the issue. We begin by examining…

More than 7.4 million U.S. children ages 5 and under live in a household where a language other than English is spoken by a parent or caregiver. But despite the size and growth of this Dual Language Learner (DLL) population, and these children's distinct linguistic assets and learning needs, standardized policies for identifying them and…

Nationwide, one-third of children ages 5 and under have at least one parent who speaks a language other than English. These Dual Language Learners (DLLs) are an incredibly diverse and growing group of young children, and with the right support these preschoolers have the potential to develop as multilingual and multiliterate individuals. Yet…

Effective talent-identification procedures minimize the proportion of students whose subsequent performance indicates that they were mistakenly included in or excluded from the program. Classification errors occur when students who were predicted to excel subsequently do not excel or when students who were not predicted to excel do. Using a…

A cross section of educators from Ontario, Canada, many of whom were beginning teachers, volunteered to complete the survey at an Ontario Faculty of Education. Of the 121 educators who participated, 55% worked with students at the elementary school level, 24% at the middle school level, and 23% at the high school level. This investigation of…

With the sharp rise in students who are English language learners (ELL), research on identifying and serving the needs of gifted and talented (GT) ELL students offers fertile ground for best practice guidelines. The current study describes GT/ELL identification practices based on an in-depth case study of one diverse school district in the…

This document focuses on some of the key issues that surround any substantive discussion of Limited-English-Proficient (LEP) children and gifted education. The goals, rationale, and criticisms of gifted education are discussed, and answers to how high-ability LEP students might better be served in these programs are sought. The discussion examines…

In this theoretical dissertation my aim is to research the academic literature in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), compare it to the life experiences of past and/or present students, colleagues, children and myself to reflect and summarize my learning in the form of a conceptual framework that I have named, "Framework for…

This document consists of the first two issues of a newsletter designed to disseminate information about the National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented, to serve as a forum for the research activities of scholars and practitioners in the field, and to reach other interested professional and parent groups. The first issue (which is also…

THE DEMONSTRATED EFFECTIVENESS OF HEADSTART AND OTHER PRESCHOOL PROGRAMS IN EXPOSING DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN TO EXPERIENCES THAT DEVELOP LANGUAGE AND CONCEPTUAL GROWTH HAS LED TO A CALL FOR AN EXTENSION OF THIS PROGRAM INTO THE SEQUENTIAL SCHOOL YEARS. THIS PROSPECTUS SEEKS--(1) TO PROVIDE AN EXTENSION OF THESE EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAMS FROM…