ERIC Number: EJ745072
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Dec
Pages: 17
Abstractor: Author
Reference Count: 41
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0300-4430
Tracking the Status of Language Development in Language-Minority Kindergartners
Nitsiou, Chrisa
Early Child Development and Care, v176 n8 p817-833 Dec 2006
As our world becomes increasingly multicultural in nature, multilingual skills constitute an everyday phenomenon in schools. Since most of the second-language research has focused on school-age students, more research had to be conducted with language-minority students at the kindergarten level in order for psychologists and educators to develop effective and efficient systems for evaluating and tracking the developmental status of young language-minority children. The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential usefulness of a standardized continuous progress measure, the Picture Naming Individual Growth and Development Indicator, to longitudinally assess language development in 23 language-minority children, as well as in 13 native English-speaking children. Results indicated that we could use the Picture Naming Individual Growth and Development Indicator to detect differences in first-language and second-language development in language-minority children, as well as to detect differences between the two groups of children in their expressive English-language skills. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)
Descriptors: Bilingualism, Language Minorities, Kindergarten, Language Acquisition, Psychologists, Teachers, Individual Development, Native Speakers, English, Comparative Analysis, Second Language Learning, Young Children, Evaluation, Language Skills, Sino Tibetan Languages, English (Second Language), Validity
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street, Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/default.html.
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Kindergarten
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: N/A

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