The Effect of Maternal Language on Bilingual Children's Vocabulary and Emergent Literacy Development During Head Start and Kindergarten
Open accessAbstract
This investigation examined the impact of maternal language and children's gender on bilingual children's vocabulary and emergent literacy development during 2 years in Head Start and kindergarten. Seventy-two mothers and their children who attended English immersion programs participated. Questionnaires administered annually over a 3-year period revealed that mothers increased their usage of English to their children. In addition, more mothers of sons reported using "More or All English" with their children than mothers of daughters. Growth curve modeling indicated that increased usage of English did not impact children's English vocabulary or emergent literacy development. However, increased usage of English slowed the growth of children's Spanish vocabulary. Despite differences in mother-to-child language usage, gender did not impact growth in either language. These findings provide evidence that maternal usage of Spanish does not negatively affect children's developing English vocabulary or emergent literacy abilities. Maternal usage of Spanish appears necessary to maximize children's developing Spanish vocabulary.
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No significant negative impact was observed of higher use of Dutch at home on children's Turkish performance.
“Furthermore, no significant negative impact was observed of higher use of Dutch at home on children's Turkish performance (analysis not shown here) - which parallels findings from investigations with Spanish-English preschool children (Hammer, Davison, Lawrence, & Miccio, 2009; Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2011).”
From Linguistic interdependence of receptive vocabulary skills in emergent bilingual preschool children: Exploring a factor-dependent approach (2019) · cites this paper as Hammer, Davison, Lawrence, & Miccio, 2009
The Dutch–Turkish result is the citing authors’ own analysis; Hammer et al. is cited for a parallel finding in Spanish–English children. But the Discussion (‘The Impact of Maternal Use of English on Children’s Outcomes’) reports that increased maternal English use slowed children’s Spanish vocabulary growth. The Results (‘Correlations’) likewise report a negative association between English use at home and Spanish vocabulary knowledge. (LLM, conf=0.90)
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Hoff, E. (2013) · Developmental Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0027238 · Cited by 976 · see citing works
The language and literacy development of young dual language learners: A critical review
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- Authors
- Hammer, C. S., Davison, M. D., Lawrence, F. R., & Miccio, A. W.
- Affiliations
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Temple University (US)
- Venue
- Scientific Studies of Reading
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2009-03-23
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 99-121
- ISSN
- 1088-8438 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-799X
- PMC
- PMC3627728
- OpenAlex
- W2056799610
- Cited by
- 245
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 24 · 2019: 17 · 2018: 41 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 16 · 2013: 7 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 8.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Scientific Studies of Reading (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Education
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD039496)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Linguistics and Language › Multilingual Education and Policy
- Keywords
- maternal language input, bilingual children, Spanish-English bilingualism, vocabulary development, emergent literacy, gender differences, English immersion program, Head Start
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