The Fresno (California) Unified School District has one of the highest poverty levels in the nation. The district is made up of approximately 84% Hispanic students, and 70% of their parents speak only Spanish in the home. Many students have difficulty passing the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE), which is required to receive a…

This study contributes to the literature on cross-linguistic literacy relationships for English language learners, and in particular, the Spanish-influenced spelling patterns of Spanish-English bilinguals. English spelling, reading, and vocabulary assessments were administered to 220 students in four TWI programs over a three-year period, from…

This study investigates the effects of weekly heritage language (HL) classes on first language (L1) proficiency in speakers who arrived in the second language (L2)-dominant setting before the onset of puberty. Two groups of L1 Spanish--L2 Swedish bilingual high school students living in Sweden participated in the study. One group currently…

This study explores the language ideologies of young children in a Spanish/English dual language programme in the USA. Recent studies of language ideologies in education have centred primarily on adults or older students, but this study focuses on young children from varied language backgrounds. By analysing discussions centred on children's…

Autonomy in language learning does not simply equate with independence, as language learning is a social activity that requires interaction with others. This also applies just as much to distance language learners, who need to reconcile independent language learning and interdependence with others. This article draws on findings from 43 mid-course…

Research Findings: This study investigated the relationship of the Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program to mothers' involvement in education at home and school, student school readiness in kindergarten, and student academic outcomes at 3rd grade. HIPPY serves a mostly minority, low-income family population and…

Foreign Language Elementary Summer Camp is a fantastic way to spend part of the summer. For the past ten years in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the authors have offered a variety of foreign language elementary camps that meet daily for three hours for three to four weeks during July. Currently, they offer camps for Chinese, English Language Learners…

Reach Out and Read is an evidence-based nonprofit organization that promotes early literacy and school readiness in pediatric exam rooms throughout the United States by giving new books to children and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud. The program began in 1989 at what was then called Boston City Hospital, and is now known…

This longitudinal study examined the effects of a paired bilingual program and an English-only reading program on English reading outcomes for Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) in first, second, and third grades. Participants were 214 ELs enrolled in first grade in 12 high-poverty, low-achieving schools at the beginning of the study. Results…

This study is about how one middle school principal in Arizona uses Spanish throughout her day with students and their immigrant parents. Ordinarily, the use of Spanish to communicate with Spanish speaking students and their parents might not seem noteworthy, yet, in the State of Arizona several policies and laws have been enacted in recent years…

The meaning of a novel word can be acquired by extracting it from linguistic context. Here we simulated word learning of new words associated to concrete and abstract concepts in a variant of the human simulation paradigm that provided linguistic context information in order to characterize the brain systems involved. Native speakers of Spanish…

This paper investigates the relationship between the ability to detect changes in prosody and reading performance in Spanish. Participants were children aged 6-8 years who completed tasks involving reading words, reading pseudowords, stressing pseudowords, and reproducing pseudoword stress patterns. Results showed that the capacity to reproduce…

In this paper, I examine the prosodic nature of unstressed function words in Spanish. I defend the hypothesis that these words, like all other words in the language, have a syllable that is lexically designated as stressed. I suggest that the essential property of these words is that they are subject to a rule of prosodic merger with following…

If the young people are to become effective participants in a democratic society, then social studies must be an essential part of the curriculum in the early childhood/elementary years. In a world that demands independent and cooperative problem solving to address complex social, economic, ethical, and personal concerns, the social studies are as…