Assessing Multilingual Children

This book presents a comprehensive set of tools for assessing the linguistic abilities of bilingual children. It aims to disentangle effects of bilingualism from those of Specific Language Impairment (SLI), making use of both models of bilingualism and models of language impairment.

This textbook is a comprehensive introduction to the assessment of students in K-12 schools who use two or more languages in their daily life: English Language Learners (ELLs), or Emergent Bilinguals. The book includes a thorough examination of the policy, history and assessment/measurement issues that educators should understand in order to best advocate for their students. The author presents a decision-making framework called PUMI (Purpose, Use, Method, Instrument) that practitioners can use to better inform assessment decisions for bilingual children. The book will be an invaluable resource in teacher preparation programs, but will also help policy-makers and educators make better decisions to support their students.

Solutions for the Assessment of Bilinguals presents innovative solutions for the evaluation of language abilities and proficiency in multilingual speakers – and by extension, the evaluation of their cognitive and academic abilities. This volume brings together researchers working in a variety of bilingual settings to discuss critical matters central to the assessment of bilingual children and adults. The studies include typically developing bilingual children, bilingual children who may be at risk for language impairments, bilingual and multilingual children and adults found in classrooms, and second-language learners in childhood and adulthood. The contributions propose a variety of ways of assessing performance and abilities in the face of the multiple issues that complicate the best interpretation of test performance.

With growing mass migration across the globe, researchers, practitioners, educators and policy makers are increasingly faced with rising numbers of multilingual children and adults. This volume raises key issues surrounding the evaluation of language abilities and proficiency in multilingual speakers, taking into account the facts concerning the processes of learning, speaking and understanding two languages. Issues in the Assessment of Bilinguals brings together researchers working on bilingual and multilingual children and adults in a variety of multilingual settings: typically developing bilingual children, bilingual and multilingual children and adults found in classrooms, and bilingual children growing up in sociolinguistically fluid bilingual communities – making this an essential volume which raises key issues for anyone assessing performance.

Ever since its publication in 1995, this book has offered a means for teachers to consider why some bilingual pupils in their classrooms are not making learning progress or are academically underachieving. This new second edition has been revised and updated in the light of the new government legislation and guidance, most significantly the revised Code of Practice for Special Educational Needs. It continues to look at ways of asking questions about the pupil, of collecting evidence of both learning and language development and of offering support within the classroom. It contains a model and photocopiable proformas for use within schools, which should help to establish clear systems of identification of those bilingual pupils who may have special learning needs and to distinguish these from the need for language support.

Comprehension of texts and understanding of questions is a cornerstone of successful human communication. Whilst reading comprehension has been thoroughly investigated in the last decade, there is surprisingly little research on children’s comprehension of picture stories, particularly for bilinguals. This can be partially explained by the lack of cross-culturally robust, cross-linguistic instruments targeting early narration. This book presents an inference-based model of narrative comprehension and a tool that grew out of a large-scale European project on multilingualism. Covering a range of language settings, the book uses the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives to answer the question which narrative comprehension skills (bilingual) children can be expected to master at a certain age, and explores how such comprehension is affected (or not affected) by linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. Linking theory to method, the book will appeal to researchers in linguistics and psychology and graduate students interested in narrative, multilingualism, and language acquisition.

"This program focuses on core principles and procedures that guide valid language assessments with develoing bilingual children."--From guide.

Bilingual children are often referred for assessment to determine if educational or mental health supports are necessary for academic, social-emotional, or personal success. This book explores the interplay between factors impacting English language learners and considers implications for assessment. It advocates for an integrated assessment of bilingual children that considers multiple influences, such as previous education, immigration, acculturation, poverty, trauma, and even structural differences between the child's first and second languages. In line with advances in science, several chapters explore the brain-based relationships between personal experience and language learning.