Mandarin classifiers are a complex system, but little is known about how Mandarin-speaking children manage to learn the system. Based on the extant literature, we explored potential factors influencing the comprehension and production of Mandarin shape classifiers, including classifier-based semantic categorization and errors pertaining to the…

Research-supported knowledge about how children develop language is considered foundational for high-quality instruction and as such, measuring and developing teachers' knowledge has been emphasized across the field of early childhood. However, there is a critical gap in understanding how this static knowledge gained through pre-service and…

Research Findings: This study used the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to examine barriers to teachers implementation of a supplemental academic language curricula. Despite high satisfaction with this scripted curriculum, three past studies indicated heterogeneity in teachers fidelity of implementing the curriculum as well as difficulty going…

The Coaching Early Conversation Interaction and Language (CECIL) Project, which started in September 2020, has focused on exploring coaching-led approaches to support the effective implementation of early language interventions, especially in Private, Voluntary & Independent (PVI) settings. At the core of the CECIL approach is a way of…

This report is a summary document which explains the rationale for the CECIL (Coaching Early Conversations Interaction and Language) project, delivery within the context of COVID-19, the findings, the learnings, and next steps. The Institute for Employment Studies (IES) led an Implementation and Process Evaluation (IPE), and the University of…

No one would disagree that young children's literacy learning is of primary importance in the early childhood years. One of the best ways for children to learn oral language is through play. However, many teachers view play as a child's work and not as a space where the teacher can support children's literacy learning. This study investigated the…

Research Findings: This study investigated the long-term interrelations among children's language competencies, their home literacy environment (HLE), and 3 aspects of socioemotional development from ages 3 to 8, controlling for characteristics of the child and family. For this sample of 547 typically developing German children, parents and…

In this study, we investigated how multiple types of knowledge and beliefs, along with holding an early childhood-related degree and teaching experience were linked to amounts of early childhood educators' language and literacy instruction. Quantile regression was used to estimate associations between these variables along a continuum of language…

Educators of young children, including speech-language pathologists, are often uncertain as to how to effectively work with children from diverse backgrounds because they do not know enough about cultural and linguistic diversity and its impact on language development. The current study helps to address this gap by examining the validity of parent…

The current study is one of the first to investigate children's perceptions of quality in teacher-child relationships using a narrative measure. It is also one of the first studies to investigate how the child's report is associated with the teacher's report and with an observer's report of quality in teacher-child interactions. Participants…

This paper reports on school readiness (SR) and its predictors in five- to six-year-old children from a prospective, longitudinal study of children from eight months to seven years (the Early Language in Victoria Study--ELVS). The ELVS children came from a representative sample of children recruited though the State Government Infant and Child…

This article evaluates the utility of the Early Authors Program, a 12-month early literacy intervention emphasizing highly meaningful language interactions that was implemented in childcare facilities in an ethnically and linguistically diverse, urban, low-income community. Children learn to be writers and readers by creating their own…

This longitudinal study examined growth in the English productive vocabularies of bilingual and monolingual children between ages 24 and 36 months and explored the utility and validity of supplementing parent reports with teacher reports to improve the estimation of children's vocabulary. Low-income, English-speaking and English/Spanish-speaking…

The discussion and activities in this booklet are designed to "tune in" language arts teachers to children's language so that they appreciate and respond properly to student language development. Chapter topics include responding to authentic/inauthentic child language, keeping records of children's spontaneous language and relating the words to…

To ascertain what type of environment exists in elementary classrooms in the United States to stimulate oral language, questionnaires were mailed to 500 classroom teachers. Data from the 412 respondents indicated that 83% believed their college courses in language arts had not prepared them to encourage the development of children's language, and…