Dialect and mathematics performance in African American children who use AAE: Insights from explanatory IRT and error analysis.

Little is known about mismatches between the language of mathematics testing instruments and the rich linguistic repertoires that African American children develop at home and in the community, in part because research paradigms with African American English (AAE) dialect speakers face complex challenges in measurement, historical exclusion, and other social, economic, cultural, and linguistic confounds. The current study aims to provide a proof of concept and novel explanatory item response design that uses error analysis to investigate the relationship between AAE child language and children's mathematics assessment outcomes. Here, we illustrate 2 and 3 grade children's qualitative patterns of performance on arithmetic tasks in relation to their AAE dialect use and elaborate a unified framework for examining child and item level linguistic characteristics.

The Growth of Complex Syntax in School-Age African American Children Who Speak African American English.

Purpose: Syntax provides critical support for both academic success and linguistic growth, yet it has not been a focus of language research in school-age African American children. This study examines complex syntax performance of African American children in second through fifth grades.

Method: The current study explores the syntactic performances of African American children ( = 513) in Grades 2-5 on the Test of Language Development-Intermediate who speak African American English.

Active Direction: A new observational measure of African American parenting.

A new observational measure of a culturally salient, supportive African American parenting style, Active Direction, was developed. Ratings were compared to standard qualitative ratings and across two ethnic groups. Active Direction represents the provision of structure to interactions in the form of corrective direction with clear and concise feedback that is assessed for supportiveness rather than simple content or tone.

Exploring boundary conditions of the listening comprehension-reading comprehension discrepancy index.

Conversations about the nature of dyslexia and how dyslexia impacts reading and listening comprehension get to the heart of classification and identification models of dyslexia. Recently, this conversation has been expanded to include efforts to estimate the prevalence of dyslexia in the population through the introduction of a discrepancy index of listening comprehension and reading comprehension. This discrepancy index was proposed to serve as a proxy for dyslexia when estimating its prevalence in the population.

The Relation Between Dialect Density and the Codevelopment of Writing and Reading in African American Children.

The purpose of this longitudinal study was to examine the influence of spoken dialect density on writing and on the codevelopment of reading and writing in African American English-speaking (AAE) children from first through fifth grades. The sample included 869 students, ranging in age from 5.8 to 12.

Developing a Longitudinal Scale for Language: Linking Across Developmentally Different Versions of the Same Test.

Purpose Many language tests use different versions that are not statistically linked or do not have a developmental scaled score. The current article illustrates the problems of scores that are not linked or equated, followed by a statistical model to derive a developmental scaled score. Method Using an accelerated cohort design of 890 students in Grades 1-5, a confirmatory factor model was fit to 6 subtests of the Test of Language Development-Primary and Intermediate: Fourth Edition ( Hammill & Newcomer, 2008a , 2008b ).

The Impact of Dialect Density on the Growth of Language and Reading in African American Children.

Purpose: The goal of the current study was to examine the impact of dialect density on the growth of oral language and reading skills in a sample of African American English (AAE)-speaking children reared in urban communities.

Method: Eight hundred thirty-five African American children in first through fifth grades participated. Using an accelerated cohort design, univariate and bivariate growth models were employed to examine dialect density, oral language and reading, and the relationships between these variables.

Measuring arithmetic: A psychometric approach to understanding formatting effects and domain specificity.

Using multitrait, multimethod data, and confirmatory factor analysis, the current study examined the effects of arithmetic item formatting and the possibility that across formats, abilities other than arithmetic may contribute to children's answers. Measurement hypotheses were guided by several leading theories of arithmetic cognition. With a sample of 1314 3rd grade students (age M=103.

Impact of dialect use on a basic component of learning to read.

Can some black-white differences in reading achievement be traced to differences in language background? Many African American children speak a dialect that differs from the mainstream dialect emphasized in school. We examined how use of alternative dialects affects decoding, an important component of early reading and marker of reading development. Behavioral data show that use of the alternative pronunciations of words in different dialects affects reading aloud in developing readers, with larger effects for children who use more African American English (AAE).

Structural and dialectal characteristics of the fictional and personal narratives of school-age African American children.

Purpose: To report preliminary comparisons of developing structural and dialectal characteristics associated with fictional and personal narratives in school-age African American children.

Method: Forty-three children, Grades 2-5, generated a fictional narrative and a personal narrative in response to a wordless-book elicitation task and a story-prompt task, respectively. Narratives produced in these 2 contexts were characterized for macrostructure, microstructure, and dialect density.

Performance of African American preschool and kindergarten students on the expressive vocabulary test.

Purpose: To examine the validity of the Expressive Vocabulary Test (EVT; K. Williams, 1997) for assessing the expressive vocabulary skills of African American students.

Method/results: One hundred sixty-five African American preschool and kindergarten students were administered the EVT.

Oral language expectations for African American children in grades 1 through 5.

Reference profiles for characterizing the language abilities of elementary-grade African American students are important for assessment and instructional planning. H. K.

A language screening protocol for use with young African American children in urban settings.

Language screenings represent an important tool for early identification of language impairments in young children between 3 and 5 years of age. This investigation examined the utility of a well-established set of assessment measures for screening young African American children. One hundred and ninety-six children participated in the screening.

Variable production of African American English across oracy and literacy contexts.

Unlabelled: Many African American students produce African American English (AAE) features that are contrastive to Standard American English (SAE). The AAE-speaking child who is able to dialect shift, that is, to speak SAE across literacy contexts, likely will perform better academically than the student who is not able to dialect shift.

Method: This investigation examined the AAE productions of 50 typically developing African American third graders across three language contexts-picture description, oral reading of SAE text, and writing.

Standardized assessment of phonological awareness skills in low-income African American first graders.

Accurate identification of students with poor phonological awareness skills is important to providing appropriate reading instruction. This is particularly true for segments of the population, such as African American students, who have a history of reading failure. The purpose of this study was to examine the performance of a group of African American first-grade students from low-income families on a standardized test of phonological awareness.

Performance of elementary-grade African American students on the Gray Oral Reading Tests.

Purpose: African American students perform disproportionately more poorly on standardized reading assessments than their majority peers. Poor reading performances may be related to test biases inherent in standardized reading instruments. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the appropriateness of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Third Edition (GORT-3; Wiederholt & Bryant, 1992) for assessing the reading abilities of elementary-grade African American students.

Grade-related changes in the production of African American English.

This investigation examined grade as a source of systematic variation in the African American English (AAE) produced by students in preschool through fifth grades. Participants were 400 typically developing African American boys and girls residing in low- or middle-income homes in an urban-fringe community or midsize central city in the metropolitan Detroit area. Between preschoolers and kindergartners, and between first through fifth graders, there were no significant differences in the amounts of dialect produced during a picture description language elicitation context.

Phonological features of child African American English.

The production of phonological features of African American English (AAE) was examined for 64 typically developing African American children in the 2nd through the 5th grade. Students read aloud passages written in Standard American English. Sixty of the students read the passages using AAE, and 8 different phonological features were represented in their readings.

Early Positive Predictors of Later Reading Comprehension for African American Students: A Preliminary Investigation.

Purpose: This investigation examined the performance of 50 African American children on a reading comprehension test.

Method: Longitudinal data were compared for two groups of students who were preschoolers or kindergartners at Time 1 and elementary-grade students at Time 2. Outcomes were examined for positive predictive relationships based on their oral language and cognitive skills as preschoolers and kindergartners at Time 1.

Performances of At-Risk, African American Preschoolers on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III.

This study examined the performance of 59 at-risk, African American preschoolers on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III (PPVT-III, Dunn & Dunn, 1997). The subjects were considered at-risk based on low-income status and/or social status variables such as family density and teenage parents. A mean standard score of 91 and a standard deviation of 11 were achieved by these children.