Does Assessor Masking Affect Kindergartners' Performance on Oral Language Measures? A COVID-19 Era Experiment With Children From Diverse Home Language Backgrounds.

Purpose: The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has prompted changes to child assessment procedures in schools such as the use of face masks by assessors. Research with adults suggests that face masks diminish performance on speech processing and comprehension tasks, yet little is known about how assessor masking affects child performance. Therefore, we asked whether assessor masking impacts children's performance on a widely used, individually administered oral language assessment and if impacts vary by child home language background.

The effect of the Preparing Pequeños small-group cognitive instruction program on academic and concurrent social and behavioral outcomes in young Spanish-speaking dual-language learners.

Academic achievement for young dual language learners (DLL) is a critically acknowledged problem of national significance that has been understudied. To address this shortage, this study evaluated the effectiveness of Preparing Pequeños, an integrated small-group instruction program designed to promote increased learning for Spanish speaking DLL in language, literacy, and math. The DLL in the randomized Preparing Pequeños intervention classrooms were compared to control DLL with comparable Spanish language delays and in which the school district's core curriculum was being implemented.