Assignment

Introduction

In the dramatic play area, Mrs. Sims observes two students acting out the rituals of puja that they observe in their homes. Puja is a Hindu religious ritual that many people perform every morning. She watches as the children place the toy fruit and flowers in a small corner of the room and begin chanting in Sanskrit and ringing a bell. This teacher, who practices Christianity, is confused by what the children are doing. She has no idea what the children are saying, and she is not sure why they have stacked all the food or are ringing the bell. Soon after other children take a seat alongside their classmates and happily join in the chanting and ringing. Mrs. Sims gets nervous that the children will "get out of hand," so she tells them to find something else to pretend.

How do you think the children felt when she interrupted their play? What message did she send to them about what things are okay to pretend and what things are not? How could Mrs. Sims use this as an opportunity for the children to learn something about Hindu culture?

This example represents some of the teaching opportunities educators face when they are teaching children from culturally diverse backgrounds. It highlights issues related to ethnic traditions (i.e., the children acting out the ritual), language (i.e., chanting in Sanskrit), and how Mrs. Sims might learn how to facilitate children's group play around ethnic traditions—that is, how she can help teach children to celebrate their classmates' games and pretend scenarios.

In this chapter, we define a type of multicultural education we call culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction, which has been described by several other researchers (Gay, 2000; Ladson-Billings, 1994; York, 2003). Next, we describe how educators can achieve culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction through thoughtful use of language in the classroom, especially those language interactions used to teach dual-language learners (DLLs). Then we describe how to conduct a fair and meaningful assessment for culturally diverse children. Finally, we end with a discussion of how educators can make instructional accommodations for culturally diverse learners.

3.1 What Is Multicultural Education?

Although education scholars, teachers, school administrators, and policy makers disagree on exactly how to define multicultural education, they would probably all agree that multicultural education challenges and rejects racism, classism, sexism, and other forms of oppression in society by emphasizing social justice and democracy and by promoting the concepts of human rights, equitable distribution of power, and equal participation in decision making (York, 2003).

York (2003) explains that the philosophy for multicultural education has its roots in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s; however, it wasn't until the 1980s that education scholars in the early childhood field began to articulate what such a philosophy meant for teaching young children. A few key multicultural education books focused on early childhood were published in that decade, and these books were the first to clearly articulate the need for multicultural education during the preschool period and to demand it. These books are listed in the Spotlight on Research feature, "History-Making Books in Early Childhood Multicultural Education." Among these, the publication that began to translate the scholarly ideas into classroom practice was Anti-Bias Curriculum: Tools for Empowering Young Children, developed by Louise Derman-Sparks and the Anti-Bias Curriculum Task Force in 1989. The Derman-Sparks book was influential with early childhood educators because it translated the theory and research on multicultural education into curriculum and daily activity suggestions that teachers could use in the classroom. An updated version, published in 2010, expands upon the original, covering topics that range from gender and racial identity to issues of fairness as it relates to economic class, family structure, and disability. We will talk more about what can be gleaned from this book later in the chapter.

Multicultural education contributes to children's success by preparing them for interactions in a globalized world. Children in upcoming generations will live in a world that is ethnically, racially, linguistically, and culturally diverse. In order to successfully compete in such a global market, all children must be knowledgeable about and motivated and comfortable interacting with people from other cultures. Multicultural education can prepare children for the global market by providing them with the knowledge, and sometimes even the language skills, that they will need to interact with diverse people from around the world. Training teachers to deliver multicultural education is also important because it teaches them how to develop meaningful instructional relationships with diverse children and families. In fact, as Ladson-Billings (1994) explains, "If teachers are to be effective, they will need to be prepared to teach children who are not white."

Benefits of Exposing All Children to Multicultural Education

Being exposed to multicultural education is important to all children. For those in cultural and linguistic minorities, this pedagogical model forces educators to acknowledge and affirm their cultures, and helps ensure that they are provided equitable access to education resources and opportunities. Such a pedagogical framework has the potential to empower students and parents, making school interactions more enjoyable for them and building a stronger sense of connection among minority children, their families, and the school.

Multicultural education is also important to European American children, especially in predominantly European American, non-diverse, isolated geographic regions. In their book What If All the Kids Are White? Derman-Sparks, Ramsey, and Edwards (2011) eloquently articulate the need for multicultural instruction for children who are not culturally or linguistically in minority groups themselves. Multicultural education helps all children in the following ways:

Teaching them to embrace cultural differences. When children grow up in environments where their culture is dominant, they may develop the tendency to believe that everyone shares the same views as them or they may become uncomfortable dealing with and talking about differences. As adults they might say things like, "I am colorblind," or "I just wasn't raised to see differences between people." These statements deny cultural differences, and reflect an unspoken view that everyone is (or should be) like them. If children are exposed to cultural differences early in life, differences are seen as important and necessary characteristics of individual children and their families. Children grow up learning to accept people's different perspectives and experiences, and they grow up with the expectation that such differences between people will need to be mediated through discussions and compromises between people who are different.

Teaching them to be tolerant and unbiased. A denial of social injustice plagues our society, and often people are afraid to acknowledge that injustice because they do not know how to begin to address it. Multicultural education, specifically one that focuses on anti-bias, begins to empower even young children with the tools they need to address inequalities and injustices because such an instructional framework intentionally focuses on issues such as fairness and equality.

Preventing them from being culturally isolated. There are some parts of the United States in which children live in communities where nearly everyone is from their same racial or ethnic group. Living in such an environment gives people a sense of false homogeneity (sameness) about the world because they grow up thinking that everyone is like them. Multicultural education connects to the diversity of the world by giving them knowledge and experience with other cultures. It allows them to learn to appreciate the similarities across human nature as well as the differences that are due to our cultural traditions and upbringing.

When early childhood educators adhere to a multicultural education framework, they are helping students embrace cultural differences, actively speak out against bias, and avoid being culturally isolated. Teachers who use this framework can have a tremendous effect—not only on individual children, but also on society as a whole—because they will be teaching an upcoming generation to be culturally sensitive and to strive for social justice, which can diminish the amount of sexism, racism, homophobia, and classism within our society.

Culturally Relevant, Anti-Bias Instruction as an Approach to Multicultural Education

York (2003) explains that a variety of approaches to multicultural education exist and each approach provides a slightly different perspective; however, they all aim to challenge oppression and encourage social justice and equality. The view to which we subscribe attempts to simplify these various approaches into what we refer to as culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction, and it focuses heavily on teaching educators to be culturally relevant while at the same time teaching them how to help children understand and actively speak out against biases in society. Culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction is not synonymous with direct instruction (or teacher-led instruction); in fact, many culturally relevant instructional strategies focus on play, group learning activities, and collaborative classroom discussions.

Based on the views of Gay (2000) and Ladson-Billings (1994), we define culturally relevant instruction as teaching that incorporates the cultural knowledge, experiences, and diverse learning/communication styles of culturally and linguistically diverse students. We intentionally link the terms culturally relevant and anti-bias because the instruction of ethnic/racial minorities cannot be achieved without an anti-bias focus. Anti-bias instruction focuses on the social justice inequalities and prejudices in our social structures and our cultural stereotypes. Examples of social justice inequalities include discrimination, institutional racism, and unequal distribution of health and social services.

The updated Anti-Bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves (Derman-Sparks & Edwards, 2010) describes four instructional goals teachers should have for their students. Table 3.1 outlines these goals. Although Derman-Sparks and Edwards describe these instructional goals only in terms of anti-bias education, their first two goals fit nicely within the realm of cultural relevance, while the last two speak to anti-bias issues in particular.

Table 3.1: Four Instructional Goals of Culturally Relevant, Anti-Bias Instruction

Overall, our approach to a culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction focuses on the following:

Acknowledging that the United States is comprised of a variety of sub-cultures that have each contributed in some way to the overall fabric of its culture. This is congruent with Goals 1 and 2 because acknowledging the contributions of subcultures will promote a sense of pride by allowing children to see how their own cultural group has contributed to American culture, while at the same time teaching them to recognize the diversity that exists within our country.

Teaching children how to appreciate diversity by helping them foster and maintain healthy and productive relationships with children from different cultures, which is congruent with Goal 2.

Incorporating education practices and materials that reflect the cultural beliefs, values, and practices of ethnic/racial and language minorities, which will help foster Goal 1;

Empowering families to actively participate in their child's education and using classroom activities that bridge the learning activities in the home and school (e.g., building the home-school connection), which aligns with Goal 1.

Incorporating children's home language into the classroom in a systematic and intentional way to build children's abilities to maintain their home language as well as build their English skills, which aligns with Goal 1.

Helping children become anti-biased by teaching them to recognize and speak out against unjust behavior, which matches Goals 3 and 4.

What Culturally Relevant, Anti-Bias Instruction Looks Like in the Classroom

In the early childhood classroom, culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction is exemplified by teachers being intentional about incorporating children's cultural knowledge and traditions into instructional practices and teaching children to take action against the social structures and forces that perpetuate inequality. In these classrooms, teachers understand that activating children's prior cultural knowledge should be the first step in promoting children's learning because doing so facilitates their understanding of new content (Zepeda, Castro, & Cronin, 2011).

Furthermore, teachers must realize the importance of academic achievement as well as the importance of maintaining cultural identity and heritage for children's social-emotional development. In these classrooms, children have an active voice in rule making and decision making. Teachers focus on teaching children the skills of problem solving, critical thinking, and working cooperatively. These classrooms are filled with culturally sensitive materials, such as dolls with different skin colors, books that display characters from a variety of ethnic and cultural backgrounds, clothes in the dramatic play area that represent different cultures, and electronic media tools that represent minorities in non-stereotypical ways.

York (2003) devotes two chapters to the use of culturally relevant, anti-bias materials and activities, and her work can be used as a reference to obtain ideas for instruction. In addition, there are also various instructional sites on the Internet that teachers can access to get ideas about classroom activities and materials that have been used in public school pre-K classrooms. Once you learn and adopt the goals of the culturally relevant, anti-bias multicultural curriculum, you will begin to develop your own ideas for the classroom—ideas that are specifically suited to the needs and strengths of the students and families in your classrooms.

Persona Dolls as an Example of a Culturally Relevant, Anti-Bias Classroom Prop

To reiterate, there is no scripted culturally relevant, anti-bias classroom curriculum with a predefined set of classroom activities that must be followed in a specific sequence. Nevertheless, one innovative instructional prop that has been used in culturally relevant, anti-bias multicultural education approaches are persona dolls. These can help educators teach tolerance, empathy, problem solving, and conflict resolution.

Persona dolls are different from other types of dolls because they are not to be played with in a "house" area like other baby dolls that children can dress and feed. Instead, these dolls take on a personality in the class, almost as if they are puppets, and each doll comes with a book that details their life story and challenges that they must overcome. Teachers might introduce these dolls to children during small group time, share the dolls' stories with the children, and then engage children in a conversation about what they think the dolls might do. Teachers routinely use these dolls to talk about difficult situations children and families face, like witnessing war events, having a parent in jail, being made fun of for having two lesbian moms, or negotiating inaccessible areas with a disability.

Persona dolls are used by teachers all over the world, including in the United Kingdom and Australia, as well as in the United States. To learn more about how persona dolls are given distinct characters, look up the nine AMAZE Persona dolls; to find specific ideas for how to incorporate them into your classroom, check the Teaching for Change website or Trisha Whitney's (1999) Kids Like Us: Using Persona Dolls in the Classroom.

3.2 The Foundations of a Culturally Relevant, Anti-Bias Instruction

Culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction encompasses all aspects of development—cognitive, social-emotional, and physical. It is grounded in the science of child development and evidence-based early childhood practice. Below we describe in detail three foundations of early childhood education, and we discuss how culture, and sometimes bias, may influence these foundations.

Foundation 1: The Science of Brain Development

From birth through age 8, children are making drastic strides in their brain development, especially in biologically based, "hardwired" skills of vision, language, and higher-order thinking. These hardwired skills develop quickly during the first years of life, during what has been often called sensitive periods (or critical periods) of development. A sensitive period is a window of time when specific brain regions are growing rapidly due to heightened plasticity (Huttenlocher, Cymermen, & Levine, 2002).

Figure 3.1: Sensitive Periods in Early Brain Development

According to this graph, which period is the most sensitive for language development?

As you can see in Figure 3.1, the most sensitive time period for vision is through the toddler years. Although the sensitive time period for higher-order thinking skills—such as planning, problem-solving, self-regulation, and creativity—spans from birth to adolescence, a sharp rise in brain development for receptive and expressive language takes place between birth and age 5. This research tells us that early childhood is a critical period in development. For this reason, educators should strive to expose children to educational experiences that will stimulate brain development during these sensitive periods.

For example, the language-related areas of a child's brain have the greatest potential for strengthening their capacity during the years of early childhood. The early childhood educator, along with children's primary caregivers, holds the vital role of providing children's developing brains with the quality and quantity of linguistic stimulation that will take advantage of the neural plasticity that characterizes these early years. This is a particularly critical endeavor for children who receive very little language stimulation in the home.

The experiences that children have during their first few years of life are critical to their later development because the hardware of the brain is dependent upon these experiences to build potential brain capacity. This is what child development scholars describe as the interaction between nature and nurture (Garcia Coll, Bearer, & Lerner, 2004). It is important to understand that biological or physical characteristics are molded by environmental forces. So how can early childhood teachers provide rich environmental experiences that will nurture children's brain development?

Foundation 2: Evidence-Based Early Education Practices

At the heart of culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction are intentional teaching and active participatory learning. Intentional teaching is acting with knowledge and purpose to organize learning opportunities to meet children's developmental and learning goals in a way that purposefully scaffolds, challenges, and extends children's learning (Epstein, 2007; Pianta, 2003). Intentional teaching is central to what the early childhood field defines as developmentally appropriate practice, and teachers and researchers both agree that intentional teaching that operates from a developmentally appropriate framework is ideal for all children. The best way to define intentional teaching is to compare a scenario showing intentional teaching to one that does not.

NOT an Example of Intentional Teaching: Preschoolers are bustling around the classroom, enjoying the last 5 minutes of their free-play time. Without warning, Miss Jones says, "Come over here for circle time!" The preschoolers scramble, dropping their activities and toys and leaving them where dropped. The children are confused because there was no transition from activity to activity—no 5-minute warning, no clean up song. They head over to the rug to sit for circle time and they each take a seat. Ming and Xiangjin, best friends who are constantly talking to each other in Mandarin, sit down next to each other, happily holding hands. Miss Jones says, "Ming, you sit here," and motions for her to sit next to Ralph, who is sitting on the other side of the rug. Miss Jones reaches behind to the book shelf and randomly selects a book. She begins to read Happy Belly, Happy Smile by Rachel Isadora, but when she gets to the second page she stops and says, "I don't like these pictures." Then she puts that book down and reaches for another one.

Example of Intentional Teaching: Preschoolers are bustling around the classroom, enjoying the last 5 minutes of their free-play time. Miss Jones announces, "You have 5 more minutes, friends! Then we will have circle time." The preschoolers continue to play, and when time is up, Miss Jones breaks into song: "Clean up, clean up. Everybody, everywhere. Clean up, clean up . . ." Children begin to transition quickly from playing to putting their toys away. At the end of the singing, Miss Jones says, "Please have a seat on the rug for circle time," and all the children head over to take a seat. She notices that, like usual, Ming and Xiangjin are smiling, walking hand-in-hand, and chatting in Mandarin. The two girls sit next to each other on the rug, and the other children take seats of their choosing as well. Miss Jones reaches behind her on the book shelf to grab Happy Belly, Happy Smile, by Rachel Isadora, which she has read the night before. From inside the book, she takes out her planning notes, where she has jotted down the vocabulary words she wants to introduce and the questions she wants to ask the children. She reads the entire book and then begins a discussion with the children about their thoughts on the book.

Can you describe why one of these examples illustrates intentional teaching and the other does not? Notice how, in the first example, the teacher provided no transition from activity to activity, which left the children uneasy and confused about what to do next. She also did not organize a lesson plan around a particular book; instead, she grabbed a book off the shelf and then stopped reading it because she wasn't satisfied with the illustrations.

The worst mistake Miss Jones made, especially in the realm of being culturally relevant, was that she purposely broke up the emotional support relationship between Ming and Xiangjin without providing an explanation or reason to the children. Ethnically matched peer relationships are important to young children, especially in classrooms that are not ethnically diverse and when the friendship pair shares a common language (Girouard, Stack, & O'Neill-Gilbert, 2011; Howes, Wishard Guerra, Fuligni, Zucker, Lee, Obregon, & Spivak, 2011; Kyratzis, 2010). The second example, on the other hand, demonstrates what culturally relevant, intentional teaching can look like in an early childhood classroom.

In addition to using intentional teaching, educators must support active participatory learning (Epstein, 2007) within their classrooms by allowing children to share control and responsibility for shaping their learning experiences. Active participatory learning is especially important for anti-bias instruction because children need to have a sense of control and responsibility in order to be able to speak out against unfairness and prejudice. The ultimate goal for anti-bias instruction is for children to internalize the message that unfairness is wrong and that they can act against it. If the classroom environment is teacher-dominated, one in which only the teacher can determine what is right or wrong and where the teacher always resolves problems, then the children will never learn to believe that they have the voice and power within themselves to speak out and take action.

The ability to share control and take responsibility is not just learned when there is unfairness in the classroom; it is learned throughout the school day, from allowing children to make choices about what activities they engage in, to share their experiences and feelings in a nonjudgmental environment, and to be scaffolded in resolving minor, everyday disputes among peers over toys and turn-taking.

With regard to curriculum, Head Start has thoughtfully and clearly translated what early childhood scholars know about developmental domains into the Head Start Child Development and Early Learning Framework. Although this framework was developed by the Office of Head Start to provide guidance to their early childhood programs, it is useful to all types of early childhood programs because it embodies what we know as a field about evidence-based practices.

Table 3.2 summarizes the framework. It highlights the key areas of school readiness that are necessary for academic subjects, and it also highlights developmental areas of school readiness that are needed to foster a sense of well-being, a positive self-concept, and a sense of cultural identity. For example, the social and emotional domain includes self-concept and self-efficacy; the social studies knowledge and skills domain includes family and community, history and events, and people and the environment. In addition, there is a domain that is specifically targeted toward DLLs, the English language development domain.

Foundation 3: Positive, Nurturing Relationships With Teachers

Research about early childhood education clearly highlights how important positive relationships are to children's growth and learning. Children thrive in classroom settings that are nurturing, enjoyable, and cognitively stimulating. A teacher aims for this by making sure that both she and the other students accept and honor each child's unique strengths and contributions. Some researchers (Byrnes, 1987; York, 2003) describe how children have certain "human rights" within a classroom environment, and York suggests that teachers display the pledge in the Spotlight on Research feature, "Children's Rights in the Classroom," which we have adapted to fit the language and literacy skills of the average preschooler.

When a child has a close relationship with his teacher, that child has better school readiness, behaves better, and has better relationships with his peers (Palermo, Hanish, Martin, Fabes, & Reiser, 2007). However, teachers need to be aware that gender and racial biases they are not aware of might inhibit them from developing these needed close relationships with some of their students. For instance, research shows that teachers are more likely to report having close relationships with girls than with boys and with children who are European American than an ethnic minority (Ewing & Taylor, 2009); such a bias may be an artifact of the early childhood workforce, given that the majority of teachers are European American women. In addition, Black children may be at an even greater disadvantage than their peers; many studies have found that teachers have closer relationships with White and Hispanic students than they do with African American students (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Hughes, Gleason, & Zhang, 2005; Saft & Pianta, 2001).

Whether teachers and children share the same ethnicity can affect their relationship. Research has shown that teachers and students who do not share the same ethnicity are less likely to form a secure attachment relationship, and this is especially true when there is a conflicted relationship (Howes & Shivers, 2006). They are more likely to rate children from a different background as having more problem behaviors, indicating that teachers rate children from their own ethnic group more positively (Chang et al., 2007). Conversely, teacher-child ethnic match is associated with a closer relationship, especially for Hispanic children and teachers (Saft & Pianta, 2001).

Furthermore, children in ethnic and linguistic minorities exhibit more advanced play behavior when they are enrolled in diverse classrooms in which they have at least one peer that shares their cultural heritage (Howes, Sanders, & Lee, 2008). In addition, teachers report being uncertain about the strategies needed to support the language development of children with limited English skills (Diamond & Powell, 2010). Therefore, research demonstrates that children's ethnicity and cultural heritage does affect their relationships with their teachers and classmates, and teachers need to be aware of this and trained in how to respond appropriately.

Given that the ethnic match between teachers and students and the diversity of the classroom affect the quality of relationships, what can teachers do to ensure children are treated fairly? First, teachers must be honest with themselves about their perceptions, both positive and negative, of the children within their class. Unfortunately, teachers' perceptions of children are formed early in the school year and do not change much throughout the school year (Doumen, Koomen, Buyse, Wouters, & Verschueren, 2012). The best thing teachers can do is be sure that they begin the school year with an open mind. Think about the impressions you form of your students on the first day that they walk into class. How can you guard against developing a negative perception of your students? Even more important, think about how you can rebuild your relationship with a student of whom you have developed a negative perception.

Linda Espinosa, in Getting it Right for Young Children from Diverse Backgrounds, describes how she created a "discipline plan of action" when she was an elementary school principal that ultimately resulted in rebuilding relationships with students who had been previously perceived as "problem" students. The Real World Dilemma feature, "Using Positive Relationships to Foster Good Behavior," explains the approach Espinosa took when she tried to build a better relationship with a student that a teacher had negatively labeled. Her approach included spending set-aside one-on-one time with the student, and using this time not to punish the student or talk about discipline issues, but instead to build a personal connection with the child.

A personal connection can be built by talking about what interests the child, talking about the child's feelings and family life, or interacting with the child during an activity that he or she enjoys. Teachers can adopt such an approach for themselves by setting aside time throughout the day to interact with children who are different from them and children with whom they have a strained relationship.

3.3 Key Instructional Practices and Considerations for Dual Language Learners

In addition to using scientific and evidence-based classroom practices of culturally relevant, anti-bias instruction, teachers with DLL students must also consider their language acquisition needs. The DLLs in their classroom may be acquiring their second language sequentially or simultaneously; there may be one or several DLL students in the classroom, and they may be at different stages of acquiring the second language; and they may have different home languages, with which the teacher may not be familiar. Moreover, some programs use English-only instruction and others use dual-language instruction. Different instructional adaptations may be needed for each of these possibilities. In addition, teachers must also consider how other students can scaffold their DLL peers and how they, the teachers, can best relate to parents who are not fluent English speakers.

Simultaneous vs. Sequential Development of Dual Language Skills

Children learn a second language either simultaneously or sequentially (McLaughlin, 1984, 1995). Children who simultaneously learn a second language are learning two languages at the same time, and their development is similar to that of monolingual children's in terms of their vocabulary, grammar, and early literacy skills. Children who develop a second language sequentially typically start to learn this language after age 3. The rate of vocabulary acquisition may be different in the two languages; therefore, it is important to assess children in both languages. Usually, children use one language more often; this is their dominant language. However, the dominant language can change throughout the course of development.

When children learn a second language sequentially, there is a distinct progression in their skills that is due to both features of the child and features of the language-learning environment. Table 3.3 provides detailed examples of instructional strategies teachers can use to help DLL children adjust to a monolingual classroom. Table 3.4 describes the four stages for sequential dual language development outlined by Tabors and Snow (1994) and offers additional tips for helping students adjust to a monolingual classroom at each stage. However, every attempt should be made to place DLLs in bilingual education classrooms.

Table 3.3: Stages of Sequential Language Learners' Adjustment Within Monolingual Classrooms

English-Only vs. Dual Language Instruction

There are two common approaches that education programs and school systems typically take toward instruction for DLLs: English-only instructional strategies and dual language strategies. The difference is important because the language of instruction that teachers use has implications not only for children's academic and language skills, but also for how the teachers perceive their relationships with children. For example, Chang et al. (2007) found that Spanish-speaking teachers interact with Spanish-speaking children more in the class, and these teachers rated their relationship with these children as better than the English-speaking teachers did. In fact, the English-speaking teachers indicated that their relationship with the Spanish-speaking children was conflicted. This evidence is important to understand because it shows that teachers have a preference for children who speak the teacher's native language.

The primary type of English-only instruction is the English immersion program, in which children are instructed entirely in English because the goal is to facilitate acquisition of English; in these types of programs, English is used almost exclusively and all classroom print is in English.

Most states do not have a systematic program of bilingual education (Espinosa, 2010). In fact, the majority of DLLs are educated in English immersion programs in which the child is dropped into a classroom, usually with a monolingual teacher who has little experience with teaching DLLs and a group of peers who are mainly English-speaking monolinguals.

There are several types of language immersion programs, and the research indicates that some programs are more effective than others. Individual children may have some pull-out instruction, meaning they participate in one-on-one learning sessions with a teacher or a language specialist in which they get instruction in their home language.

The English immersion program is not the best method for children because they tend to lose their home language skills and they feel isolated from their families. In addition, these programs inadvertently send the message that English is more valued, or academic, than the home languages.

On the other hand, research has shown that dual language immersion programs are better for children because they support skills in both languages (Barnett, Yarosz, Thomas, Jung, & Blanco, 2007; Winsler et al., 1999). A high-quality dual language program will focus on 50-50 instruction in the home language and English, with the morning dedicated to English, for example, and the afternoon dedicated to the home language, such as Spanish or Chinese (Rodriguez et al., 1995; Winsler, 1999), or the program can alternate the language of instruction each week and have children move from the Spanish/Chinese-language room to the English-language room.

Dual language education programs come in two primary forms: one-way immersion and two-way immersion. In all dual language programs, instruction is divided between English and the home language. In one-way DLL immersion programs, most of the children are dual language learners. The goal of a one-way immersion program is to use the home language as a bridge to English acquisition, and help the DLLs become bilingual. In a two-way DLL immersion program, there are children who are native English speakers and children who are dual language learners. The goal for two-way immersion is for all children to become bilingual.

The language of instruction for children has important implications for how children's skills are assessed and evaluated. It is important to take children's language backgrounds into consideration when evaluating their skills. The next section describes how to conduct a culturally relevant, anti-bias assessment.

Table 3.4: Instructional Strategies for Educators Who Teach DLLs

3.4 Culturally Relevant, Anti-Bias Assessment

Before talking about how to properly use assessments, it is important to first describe the purpose of assessment. Assessment is the systematic gathering of information in order to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction or to monitor progress (Snow & Van Hemel, 2008). It provides early childhood professionals with information on how well children are learning, it provides teachers with information about how effective their instructional practices are, and it provides program administrators with information about how effectively their programs are being implemented.

Assessments can be used for program monitoring, professional evaluations, and to track children's development progress. Various types of assessments are available to professionals working in the early childhood field, and they will be described in detail. For all types of assessment, validity and reliability are essential. Validity is how well the test measures what it is supposed to measure, and reliability is whether the test produces similar results, no matter who is administering it or when it is being administered.

Types of Child Assessments

First and foremost, according to the 1999 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA, PL 105-17), tests and other evaluation materials must be selected and administered so that they do not discriminate in terms of race or culture. These tests should be administered in the child's native language, unless it is clearly not feasible to do so. This element of IDEA was enacted because educators realized that children who speak another language or dialect at home had been penalized on standardized tests.

Kaderavek (2011) suggests that a combination of types of assessments be used. The norm-referenced test can determine whether the child has a developmental delay; the criterion-referenced test can assess how well the child is learning the skills in class; and the dynamic assessment can determine whether a language difference is affecting the assessments of ability and skills.

Norm-referenced assessments are used to compare a child's abilities to those of the child's peers. They provide a statistical snapshot. Examples include the Woodcock-Johnson Achievement Battery and the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Results are converted to standardized scores that can then be used to refer students for special educational services or gifted and talented programs.

These types of assessments are also used at the state and national level to document school performance. There are clear, specific guidelines for how the test should be administered, and administration must be done by trained staff who specialize in conducting assessments.

Criterion-referenced assessments are used to compare a child's performance with an age-appropriate standard or skill. These assessments are usually organized according to the age-appropriate developmental sequence of particular skills. Examples include the Child Observation Record and assessments based on the state's Early Learning Standards. These types of assessments can be developed and readily used by teachers, although the guidelines for how these assessments should be administered are not always well defined. These assessments can be used in observation and in relation to classroom criteria, but the results cannot be used to refer children for special education services.

Dynamic assessment, or "dynamic testing," measures children's learning potential. Several researchers endorse it as an ideal way to assess ethnic minority children, particularly those who speak other languages, because it allows the examiner to determine children's ability to learn rather than simply how much they know at a specific time (Elliot, 2003; Ensing, van der Aalsvoort, & van Geert, 2012; Gilliam & McFadden, 1994; Tzuriel, 2000).

Dynamic assessment uses the test-teach-retest approach. First, children are tested to get a baseline score. Then the examiner directly teaches the child the skill, which is known as the mediated learning phase, and this is followed by a retest (Ukrainetz, Harpell, Walsh, & Coyle, 2000). During the mediated learning phase, children are assessed for learning behaviors, such as attention span, planning, self-regulation, motivation, and response to intervention. The primary purpose of the mediated learning phase is to help children understand the purpose of the test because some children might not understand the purpose of test-taking is to at least "try" to answer as many questions as possible, even if that means guessing (Hwa-Froelich & Vigil, 2004). If the child receives positive scores in the mediated learning phase and improved scores on the retest, then the examiner can infer that the low baseline score was probably due to cultural differences related to language or exposure to the test concepts.

Typically, dynamic assessments are conducted by trained professionals who might be administering sections of a norm-referenced test. However, such assessments may also be amenable for teachers to use in Response to Intervention (RTI), which will be discussed in Section 3.5.

Assessing Language Skills in DLLs

When assessing a child who is a DLL, there are several additional considerations. Family members must be active informants and partners during this assessment process because the families play an important role in providing information about the child's home language abilities, as well as their family and cultural traditions related to verbal expression. The "Cultural Reflection: Merging Parents' and Teachers' Views" feature box provides an example of why it is important to consult parents when assessing the language skills of their children.

In addition, when attempting to assess for language dominance, you must be aware of the developmental stages of second language acquisition. Recall from Table 3.4 the stages of language development DLL children go through when they are sequentially learning a second language. It is important to note the child's stage in order to choose the correct assessment and interpret the results correctly. In addition, Ortiz and Kushner (1997) suggest that language tests focusing on phonology and syntax should be avoided when assessing DLL children because these tests are more likely to identify them as learning disabled.

Table 3.5, based on guidance from Espinosa (2008), outlines three main purposes of assessing DLLs and provides a variety of suggestions for how to measure their language dominance, proficiency, and outcomes. For example, to assess the dominant language of a DLL child, a teacher could use both a parent/family survey and systematic and repeated observation of the child conversing with other adults and peers across several time points.

Table 3.5: Matrix for Language/Literacy Assessment of DLL Young Children

To accurately assess DLLs' language proficiency, children should be assessed in both English and the home language. It is advised that DLLs be tested in both languages, especially if they are learning the second language sequentially, because these children typically have smaller English language vocabularies than monolingual children (Espinosa & Lopez, 2007). If DLLs are tested only in English, the results underestimate their language abilities because they may know certain words for things at home in their home language and other words for things that commonly appear in the school environment only in English. When testing for language proficiency, it is common for norm-referenced assessments to be used as well as systematic teacher ratings and observations or language samples.

A final reason why DLL children might be assessed is to determine their potential language outcomes. For these purposes, criterion-referenced assessments closely tied to the curriculum are ideal for collecting information about a child's language growth over the course of a school year or a specified period of time. The use of criterion-referenced tests at certain intervals throughout the school year is aligned with the goals of frequent progress monitoring, which will be described in the discussion of RTI in Section 3.5. To assess long-term language outcomes, such as outcome data for the end of the school year, norm-referenced tests can also be used; these tests are especially useful in determining children's outcomes in English versus their home language.

Language Sampling: How Teachers Can Assess Children's Narratives and Conversations

Table 3.5 mentions language sampling as an example of an assessment procedure for determining language outcomes. Language sampling measures can, and should, be used with all children, including monolinguals. Teachers can be instrumental in the process of collecting language samples for assessments because they spend a greater amount of time interacting with children than other professionals who might conduct such assessments, such as school psychologists or speech-language pathologists. In addition, teachers are ideal informants for language sampling because they have the opportunity to witness children interacting across a variety of contexts. Teachers need to know how to conduct reliable and valid language sampling.

In language sampling, systematic measures of children's oral language abilities are collected by examining a selection of the narratives they create using wordless picture books, story retellings, group conversations with peers, and one-on-one conversations with adults. Language sampling is a very well-utilized approach to collecting information about children's language and literacy development. In fact, most of what educators and researchers know about how children communicate has been learned through research using language sampling (Chaney, 1998; Miller, 2009; Paris & Hoffman, 2004; Paris & Paris, 2003). Language sampling is an especially useful tool for ethnic and language minority children because it is known to be sensitive to both children's strengths and developmental needs (Curenton, 2004; Curenton & Craig, 2011; Curenton & Justice, 2004; Gardner-Neblett, Pungello, & Iruka, 2012; Schwartz & Shaul, 2013).

Ideally, a combination of language samples—story generation/creation, story retelling, and conversation— should be collected from a child in order to get a complete picture of his or her oral language and early literacy skills. One type of sample is story generation/creation; there is a line of studies that uses a popular wordless picture book, Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969), with various groups of language and ethnic minority children (Allen, Crago, & Pesco, 2006; Curenton, 2004; Ma'rof, Redzuan, Anderson, & Ma'rof, 2012; Treffers-Daller, 2011). In this type of language sampling, the teacher exposes the child to the wordless picture book and simply allows the child to create a story using the pictures, transcribing what the child has said on each page. Afterward, the teacher can use the three level story pyramid framework to examine the complexity of the child's story: first examining grammatical coherence (the bottom level of the pyramid), then story structure (the middle level), and finally psychological causation (the top of the pyramid). This framework allows for a culturally sensitive approach to narrative assessment because educators are able to consider cultural storytelling style in conjunction with the language features of narratives, such as the total number of words, the number of different words, and the average number of words in a child's sentence (or utterance).

The data from this language sampling technique can be used to help teachers understand whether children are able to use the pictures in a book to create a logical story with a character(s) who has thoughts/feelings/desires and who is trying to work out a plot (or problem to be solved).

Another language sampling strategy is the collection of a child's story retelling (emergent reading), in which a child "retells" the teacher the story from a familiar, age-appropriate book. This is an ideal language sampling technique for teachers to use because it can easily be tied to a classroom book reading. The ability to retell a story is critical to children's future success in school, and it has huge implications for children's later reading comprehension abilities (Catts, Fey, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2002; Dickinson & McCabe, 2001; Griffin, Hemphill, Camp, & Wolf, 2004). To collect a language sample that includes a story retelling, the teacher chooses a book that all the children know well, reads that book in class, and then sits down with individual children and asks them each to retell the story.

Studies have shown that children are capable of retelling familiar stories using their prior knowledge of the book (see Curenton, Craig, & Flanigan, 2008; Curenton & Kennedy, 2013). In fact, Curenton and Kennedy (2013) have created an emergent reading rubric that can be used to score children's story retelling (emergent reading) of the popular Ezra Jack Keats (1962) book, The Snowy Day. Table 3.6 details the scoring for this rubric. In addition, the story pyramid framework could be used to evaluate a story retelling (Curenton & Lucas, 2007). The data from a story retelling not only demonstrates whether children are able to recreate a logical story with characters and a plot, but it also provides information about what children understand and remember about a story, their narrative comprehension.

Table 3.6: Emergent Reading Rubric for The Snowy Day (Keats, 1962)

The third way in which a teacher can collect a language sample is via the observation and transcription of a conversation between two peers, within a small group of peers, or one-on-one with an adult. In this type of language sampling, the teacher is primarily taking note of the following: (1) how much a child talks—is the conversation one-sided or is the child an active participant? (2) the primary language the child uses during the conversation—is it the home language or English? (3) how clearly the child communicates during the conversation—can the observer understand what the child is saying and are the utterances relevant to the conversation? and (4) whether the child is using developmentally appropriate pragmatic language skills—is he, for example, making eye contact, following eye gaze and pointing, and gesturing meaningfully? From this information, teachers can gain a better sense of the child's conversational skills, both with peers and adults, and they can begin to design both one-on-one teacher-child conversation activities as well as small-group, peer-to-peer conversations that will facilitate the child's skills.

3.5 How Early Education Programs Can Accommodate Culturally Diverse Students

After assessment, a variety of approaches and strategies are available to address the needs of culturally diverse students. Tiered instruction (such as Response to Intervention, which is described below) is especially helpful for ensuring academic success. In addition, Head Start adapts its instruction and environment in numerous ways for diverse children, including DLLs, and some pre-K programs in school districts offer a variety of options for DLL students.

Response to Intervention: Blending Teacher and Child Assessments

Response to Intervention (RTI) is an instructional approach that incorporates tiered instruction. Figure 3.2 depicts the three tiers of the RTI framework. Like RTI models in elementary school (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006), early childhood RTI models include school-wide instruction at Tier 1 that consists of an evidence-based, culturally sensitive core curriculum that addresses all the components of school readiness. The instruction at Tier 1 is targeted toward the skills of the average student, and the content and learning activities are those that all students should experience on a regular basis. Tier 2 of the RTI framework is targeted small group instruction, delivered to students who do not respond adequately to Tier 1 core curriculum. For those who do not respond at Tier 2, there are explicit differentiated interventions at Tier 3. These are intensive one-on-one interventions, in which children work with specialized professionals, such as reading specialists, counselors, or speech-language pathologists, to get the intervention they need; it is at this stage that children may be given formal assessments in order to determine their need for special education services.

Figure 3.2: Response to Intervention Tiers

RTI is an increasingly popular approach to teaching children language at an early age by providing a clear and systematic informational framework.

RTI approaches are increasingly being recommended for early childhood education because tiered instructional frameworks (Figure 3.2) can systematically ensure reading success for a diverse range of learners (Coleman, Buysse, & Neitzel, 2006; Coleman, Roth, & West, 2009). Perhaps the most welcome component of RTI in preschool is that it allows for early intervention, rather than waiting for children to demonstrate reading problems in elementary school. Early childhood educators are encouraged to adopt RTI instructional approaches to (a) ensure they are providing high-quality, empirically sound experiences as part of the core classroom instruction, (b) regularly monitor children's progress within their classrooms, and (c) provide timely intervention to children whose skills continue to lag behind normative expectations.

Progress monitoring is a key component of RTI that helps teachers determine whether children are gaining school readiness skills. Progress monitoring uses brief, criterion-referenced tests to track children's growth and learning (Fuchs & Fuchs, 2006), and this monitoring is used at all tiers of the RTI framework. In RTI frameworks, progress monitoring is used to evaluate student learning, and the information gathered from such assessments can be used for three purposes: (1) to evaluate the quality of the core curriculum, (2) to identify students in need of more targeted Tier 2 instruction or Tier 3 intervention, and (3) to help teachers understand how they need to modify their instruction.

In Tier 1, progress-monitoring tools are typically universal screenings administered to all students at regular intervals (e.g., beginning, middle, and end of year) to determine if students meet predetermined benchmarks for developmental skills; this data tells the teacher if the core curriculum is meeting the learning objectives for the program. In Tier 2, progress monitoring might include curriculum-related assessments that typically occur at the end of a learning unit. For those children who are not responding to Tier 2 instruction, a more formal assessment of their skills should be conducted. Fuchs and Fuchs (2006) explain that this assessment should be based on standardized, norm-referenced tests. Educators should also use progress monitoring to evaluate what changes they need to make to their curricula, materials, or instruction.

Collecting ongoing progress monitoring data can improve instruction: In a recent study with pre-K teachers, simply providing teachers with a technology-based assessment tool to monitor key language and literacy indicators significantly improved teaching quality, even without the provision of other, more comprehensive, types of professional development (Landry, Swank, Assel, & King, 2009).

How Head Start Accommodates DLLs and Other Diverse Learners

In Chapter 1, we discussed Head Start strategies for meeting the needs of children in poverty. Head Start has also identified some key steps and strategies to ensure that classrooms and programs meet the needs of culturally diverse learners, especially DLLs. Prior to accommodating a child based on her language, culture, or ability needs, the first step is to ascertain her language ability through observation of the child and communication with the child's parents. This observation also includes assessing the child's abilities in the environment where the child will be spending time, such as interacting with other children in the classroom.

The following are strategies to adapt various aspects of the instruction and environment in early childhood programs:

Instructional groupings or arrangements: For any given activity, there are a number of instructional arrangements from which to choose: large groups, small groups, cooperative learning groups, peer partners, one-to-one instruction, or independent tasks. Rather than always reading books in circles, it may benefit some children to have one-on-one reading—particularly DLL children, who may not feel comfortable communicating in a large group.

Lesson formats: The format of a lesson may be altered to meet the needs of a child by including more opportunities for whole class discussions, games, role-playing, activity-based lessons, experiential lessons, demonstrations, or thematic lesson organization. Children learn best from play, and this includes DLL children; thus, varied and multiple hands-on opportunities should be provided to DLL children to allow them to incorporate and consolidate new information.

Teaching strategies: A change in teaching strategies can influence a child's ability to participate. A teacher can change strategies by simplifying directions, adding visual information, using concrete materials or examples, sequencing learning tasks from easy to hard, offering more frequent opportunities to practice skills, changing the schedule of reinforcement, elaborating or shaping responses, verbally prompting, or directly physically assisting a child.

Curricular goals and learning outcomes: To match the needs of a child within the context of an activity, it may be appropriate to individualize the learning objectives. This can often be accomplished using the same activities and materials. If children are working on a classification concept by sorting blocks, one child may use the same blocks to work on a different objective, such as building a castle or counting.

Adaptations to the method for responding: Sometimes children understand a concept but need a way to demonstrate that knowledge. For example, you may allow a child to point or touch or, even better, to use their native language.

Environmental conditions: The physical environmental is an important aspect of any early childhood setting. Changes in lighting, noise level, visual and auditory input, arrangement of the room or the equipment, and accessibility of materials are important considerations. In some homes, children are kept away from adult "business," so they are not used to multiple voices. Some children have not been exposed to certain materials, such as Play-Doh® or Lego® blocks. Find ways to understand the lives of children and incorporate their cultures and languages in the classroom.

Level of personal assistance: A child's need for assistance may range from periodic spot checks to close continuous supervision. Assistance may vary from day to day and be provided by adults or peers. Monitor the level of assistance the DLL children in your class need. Don't assume they always need help, but be alert for periods during which they require more supervision or need different ways to communicate their knowledge.

Early Elementary Schools' Accommodations for DLLs

As early childhood programs begin to develop specific practices to accommodate young dual language learners, some strategies can be adapted from pre-K programs in the K-12 system. For example, the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) has an ethnically diverse DLL population that speaks Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, Amharic (the official language of Ethiopia), and French. Every parent enrolling a child in DCPS must complete a home language survey. If the survey indicates that the child might qualify for DLL services, then the district assesses the child's English proficiency in the four domains of Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing through an English language screener proficiency test. The levels of proficiency range from 1 to 5; descriptions of the levels are shown in Table 3.7. DCPS provides services to students in Levels 1 through 4 and exits students from support programs when they reach Level 5.

Table 3.7: English Language Proficiency Scoring for District of Columbia Public Schools

DCPS provides the following programs to children who qualify for DLL services (District of Columbia Public Schools, 2012):

Content-Based English as a Second Language (ESL) Programs. The academic content areas of English/language arts, social studies, science, and mathematics are used as the vehicle for language learning and to ensure that students master academic content and performance standards. Instruction is primarily in English, although native language support is provided when necessary and when possible. These classes are taught by ESL-certified teachers.

Dual Language Education Programs. Students . . . develop literacy skills in their native language while simultaneously learning a second language. Students must master standards in both languages. Instruction occurs in both of the languages supported by the program.

Secondary Newcomer Literacy Program. This program supports [DLL students] . . . with a limited formal education background and prepares them to become successful both in school and in the post-secondary world. Classes provide students with core academic and literacy skills and knowledge that address gaps in their prior education. This is a full-day intensive program that focuses on literacy development, language acquisition, and mastery of academic content. In addition, the program offers orientation on adapting to the life, culture, and educational system in the United States, as well as tutoring, parent workshops, and links to community resources.

Sheltered Content. The goal of Sheltered Content programs is for ELL students to develop English proficiency, content knowledge, and academic language skills such that they can enjoy success in mainstream classes with no ELL services. Sheltered classes are taught by either a dually certified teacher who holds licenses both in ESL and in the content being taught, or a content-certified teacher who has completed a minimum of 90 hours of professional development in ESL instruction.

A menu of programs such as this one, from a public K–12 school system, offers early childhood educators ideas for developing their own multifaceted approaches to preparing children and meeting the needs of the communities they serve.

Curenton, S.M., & Iruka, I.U. (2013).  Cultural competence in early childhood education  [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/