DOI
https://doi.org/10.25772/D94S-NK24
Defense Date
2009
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Education
Department
Special Education
First Advisor
Yaoying Xu
Abstract
Previous research documents the importance of maintaining the home language to the acquisition of a second language. This study examined the effects of a shared reading experience in the child’s home language on the emergent literacy and language acquisition in English of preschool-age English Language Learners (ELLs). Parents of Spanish-speaking four-year-old Head Start students read storybooks in Spanish with their children concurrently with the use of the English language version of the books in the classroom. A single subject design with multiple baselines across subjects and settings was applied. The researcher documented changes in the frequency of utterances, the Mean Length of Utterance-word (MLU-w), and the frequency of spontaneous or child-initiated utterances in various settings within the Head Start classroom. The Results indicated that there might be a relation between a shared reading experience in the home language and second language acquisition. Additionally, there appeared to be a relation between the behaviors and the settings.
Rights
© The Author
Is Part Of
VCU University Archives
Is Part Of
VCU Theses and Dissertations
Date of Submission
August 2009