Migration is a complex process associated with a range of social, economic, and political reasons. In the U.S., almost one-quarter of the total population of parents are immigrant parents of children ages 0-10. Immigrant parents transmit values from their culture of origin as well as their language to their children. Additionally, they may undergo a process of cultural and psychological change known as acculturation. Research has shown that acculturation can be linked to parenting styles and adolescents\' psychological well-being and behavioral problems. However, little is known about the associations among immigrant parents\' acculturation, their home language and literacy practices, and their bilingual children\'s language skills. This study explores the relationships among reasons for migration, parental acculturation, home language and literacy practices, and child expressive vocabulary in English and their heritage language (HL). A group of 190 Spanish-English (N = 66) and Chinese-English (N = 124) dual language learners (DLLs) (mean age = 48.98 months) and their Chinese and Mexican parents (mean age of migration = 18.57 and 21.38 years old respectively participated. Frequency counts revealed that Mexican American families migrated to the U.S. mostly for multiple reasons, including joining family members, getting married, and looking for better education or job opportunities, whereas most Chinese American families migrated for family reasons only. Path analysis models showed that, for both cultural groups, language input in Spanish and Chinese mediated the relationship between parents\' cultural orientations and DLLs\' HL expressive vocabulary. These findings emphasize that despite the heterogeneity of immigrant families and the variability in DLLs\' vocabulary skills in preschool, there exist some similarities across immigrant parents and bilingual children. A deeper understanding of acculturation practices and home language use can help educators better support children from diverse backgrounds and promote cultural awareness and sensitivity in the classroom.

Dual language learners (DLLs), especially those from immigrant families in the United States, risk losing their home language as they gradually shift to speaking English as they grow up. Given the potential benefits of bilingualism on children\'s cognitive, linguistic, and social-emotional development, it is crucial to maintain children\'s home language to foster bilingual development. The current literature suggests that parental beliefs toward bilingualism and the language and literacy environment are linked to children\'s language development. With the growing number of DLLs living in the United States, little is known about what parental beliefs about bilingualism of their children are integrated into these bilingual households and parents\' role in home language maintenance. The present study addresses the gap in the literature by investigating low-income immigrant families, specifically Chinese American and Mexican American families, and exploring the parental perceptions of children\'s bilingual language learning. Further, the present study examines the relations among parental perceptions of bilingualism, home language and literacy practices, and home language oral proficiency. Data were collected from a total of 41 Mexican American and 91 Chinese American low-income immigrant families with DLLs ages 50-88 months who had been recruited from Head Start programs and state-funded preschools in Northern California when the children were 3-4 years old. Information about shared reading frequency, home language exposure and usage, and parental perceptions of bilingualism was collected through parental interviews, and DLLs\' home language oral proficiency was individually assessed. No significant difference in home language oral proficiency was observed between the two groups. Principal Components Analysis on the parental perceptions of bilingualism measure revealed two components, \"Importance of Being Bilingual\" and \"English over Bilingualism.\" Stepwise regression analysis results show that \"Importance of Being Bilingual\" was associated with children\'s home language oral proficiency after controlling for culture, child age, the frequency of home language shared book reading, and child home language exposure and use. The results show that parents\' positive beliefs toward bilingualism are related to the children\'s use of that language and their children\'s language outcomes. Implications and suggestions for home language and literacy support for DLLs are discussed.

Children of migrant and seasonal farmworkers (MSFW) are among the most underprivileged, underserved groups in the United States. The current study examined how home and classroom language and literacy experiences uniquely and interactively contributed to MSFW children\'s emergent literacy skills in English and Spanish. Participants were 255 Spanish-English dual language learning children (M age = 49 mon; 98.3% Latino/Hispanic) and their parents and 47 teachers, drawn from the Migrant and Seasonal Head Start (MSHS) Study. Parents reported how often the target children engaged in language and literacy activities (i.e., teaching letters, words, or numbers, book-reading, singing, and storytelling) with their family members. Teachers reported how often the target children engaged in classroom language and literacy activities (e.g., book-reading, learning letters, retelling stories, etc.). Children\'s emergent literacy skills in English and Spanish were assessed by standard tests. After controlling for demographic variables, home and classroom language and literacy activities uniquely predicted children\'s emergent literacy skills in Spanish, but not in English. Additionally, home and classroom activities compensated one another in supporting children\'s English and Spanish emergent literacy development. That is, language and literacy activities in one context showed a stronger effect for children who experienced less frequent activities in the other context. Together, these findings shed light on ways to support MSFW children\'s emergent literacy skills and reveal the importance of integrating and connecting home and school learning experiences.

Due to core challenges in social communication experienced by many young children with autism, children on the spectrum who are also dual language learners (DLLs) may benefit from developmentally-appropriate language supports in school settings. The current study examined whether home language status moderated the effect of a play-based intervention, JASPER, delivered in the classroom, in children with autism. Fifty-nine preschool children with autism received JASPER over eight weeks. Children who received JASPER improved significantly more in their language skills from entry to exit than children in preschool as usual. Home language status moderated the effect of treatment on receptive language where children of diverse linguistic backgrounds made greater gains in receptive language.

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have impairments in their language-learning abilities that may influence interactions with environmental opportunities to learn two languages. This study explores relationships between proficiency in L1 and L2 and a set of environmental and personal variables within a group of school-age Spanish-English bilingual children with DLD and a group of typically-developing peers. Within each group, current usage in the home, length of L2 exposure, gender, maternal education, analytical reasoning, and number of L1 conversational partners were used to predict proficiency in each language. Results showed that home language environment, particularly home L2 usage, strongly predicted L1 proficiency but had less influence on the L2. Female gender predicted L1 skills in both groups, whereas analytical reasoning predicted both L1 and L2 but only for children with DLD. This study expands the limited literature on how children with DLD interact with their environment to learn two languages.

Studies show that children spend considerable time engaged in informal learning outside of educational settings. Informal educational settings such as museums can provide a variety of opportunities to engage children in STEM learning and scientific discovery, which can increase school readiness. Research has also determined an achievement gap in students from low socio-economic backgrounds and in students who are dual language learners. The literature shows that this gap begins even before children enter formal schooling. This systematic review serves two purposes: to explore the impact of informal STEM learning (ISL) on school readiness and to examine the relationship between ISL and children\'s social-emotional development, particularly in children who are dual language learners. Using PRISMA procedures, we identified 36 eligible studies in this systematic review. The findings illuminate the important role of parents and/or caregivers and the quality of design and interventions used at ISL sites, such as museums and zoos, on how ISL can impact school readiness for preschoolers. No research was found to specifically address the impact of ISL on school readiness for children who are dual language learners. The implications from the findings suggest that further research is needed on ISL for young children, particularly considering the dearth in research on young dual language learners. The implications further suggest that parents, ISL site designers, facilitators, and educators can benefit from learning about the impact of ISL on school readiness.

English language development is a critical component for young children\'s school readiness. In this study, we examined the effect of Read it again-Pre-K! (Justice and McGinty in Read it again!-Prek: a preschool curriculum supplement to promote language and literacy foundations, Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy, Columbus, 2013), a literacy curriculum designed to prepare young children\'s school readiness on the English literacy skills of Korean dual language learners in general education. Using a multiple probe design, eight 4- to 5-year-old Korean dual language learners (1 female, 7 males) received 1:1 online synchronous daily instruction over 2 months during the summer before entering their kindergarten programs. Through the intervention, all eight children demonstrated increases in the use of English vocabulary, story comprehension, and oral fluency. Post-intervention data on vocabulary and reading fluency through three standardized tests, Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and Expressive Vocabulary Test, showed improvement over baseline for most children. Discussion and implications for future research were provided.

This study investigated the relationship among home language use, parents\' beliefs about dual language development, and Spanish-speaking children\'s vocabulary knowledge. Parents (n = 162) completed a questionnaire about their home language use and beliefs about dual language development, and elementary-age children (N = 190)-Kindergarten (M age = 5.71, SD = .56), second grade (M age = 7.52, SD = .31), and fourth grade (M age = 9.35, SD = .45)-completed conceptually-scored vocabulary assessments. Principal component analyses revealed that Spanish-speaking parents\' beliefs about dual language development are heterogeneous. Further, parents\' beliefs can be characterized differently according to their children\'s English proficiency designations and grade levels. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that the Bilingual Facility parental belief factor was associated with home language use practices, which in turn were associated with children\'s vocabulary. However, this association only applied to limited English proficient students and their parents. These results underscore the importance of attending to Spanish-speaking parents\' beliefs, as they appear to relate to home language use practices and, importantly, they also relate to their children\'s vocabulary achievement.

Many infants and children around the world grow up exposed to two or more languages. Their success in learning each of their languages is a direct consequence of the quantity and quality of their everyday language experience, including at home, in daycare and preschools, and in the broader community context. Here, we discuss how research on early language learning can inform policies that promote successful bilingual development across the varied contexts in which infants and children live and learn. Throughout our discussions, we highlight that each individual child\'s experience is unique. In fact, it seems that there are as many ways to grow up bilingual as there are bilingual children. To promote successful bilingual development, we need policies that acknowledge this variability and support frequent exposure to high-quality experience in each of a child\'s languages.

Previous studies support the link of parental acculturation to their children\'s academic achievement, identity, and family relations. Prior research also suggests that parental language proficiency is associated with children\'s vocabulary knowledge. However, few studies have examined the links of parental acculturation to young children\'s oral language abilities. As preschool oral language skills have been shown to predict future academic achievement, it is critical to understand the relations between parental acculturation and bilingual abilities with young immigrant children. Furthermore, few studies have examined the links between parental acculturation and children\'s bilingual ability among different immigrant groups who live in the same areas to understand possible similarities and differences. To address these gaps, this study examines these relations in two of the largest and fastest-growing immigrant populations in the United States, Chinese American and Mexican American families. A total of 119 dual language learners (DLLs; 64 Chinese Americans and 55 Mexican Americans) enrolled in Head Start programs in Northern California were recruited. DLLs were assessed on oral language measures in both their heritage language (HL) and English. Parental interviews were conducted to obtain parental acculturation and language proficiency. Results showed no significant group differences between Chinese American and Mexican American parents on the majority of their acculturation dimensions. Furthermore, there were no significant group differences in the bilingual abilities between Chinese American and Mexican American DLLs. Cluster analysis identified four groups of DLLs based on their bilingual ability: high language ability in both English and HL, low language ability in both, English-dominant, and HL-dominant. Results suggest that parental acculturation levels are more similar than different among the four groups. On average, parents in all four groups had stronger ties to their heritage culture and HL than to the American culture. Results also showed links between parental cultural identities and children\'s language dominance. Parents of English-dominant children had significantly higher levels of American identity than the parents of children with high ability in both languages. Implications are discussed.