Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1998. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-136). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2009. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.

Children who speak limited English are at particular jeopardy of school failure because of multiple risk factors. In the later grades, these children have difficult y making progress towards state standards in English reading and English writing. Research with bilingual children indicates that children transfer phonological awareness and writing skills across languages. However, the research on cross-linguistic transfer of early writing is sparse when compared to the phonological awareness research base. This study is important because it aims to address the gap in the literature by exploring ELLs' pathway from Spanish (L1) to English (L2) written language and moderators of this pathway. Using a sample of 110 preschool English-language learners, the children's early writing performance was compared to national norms in 2007 and 2008 using a standardized instrument that prompts them to write letters and words from dictation. The data was analyzed using commonality regression analysis and canonical correlation to examine 1) shared and unique variance of performance on the English dictation measure accounted for by English and Spanish phonological awareness 2) shared and unique variance of performance on the Spanish dictation measure accounted for by English and Spanish phonological awareness and 3) interrelationships between early writing and phonological awareness in English and Spanish. Although it was expected that the student's performance on the English dictation task would be below average when compared to national norms, the students' performance was low average. The results from commonality regression and canonical correlation analysis indicated that the greatest unique contribution to English and Spanish dictation in 2008 was Spanish dictation in 2007. Finally, the results from the canonical correlation regression indicated that the Spanish literacy skills made a greater contribution to the phonological awareness and dictation synthetic variable than did the parallel English literacy skills.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Mississippi State University. Department of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Foreign language immersion programs, wherein the regular school curriculum is taught through the foreign language, have become increasingly widespread in recent years. Although there have been a plethora of studies reporting on second language immersion programs involving school-age programs, there is a dearth of information describing such programs for preschoolers. The purpose of this study was to observe and describe an immersion program for three-year-olds, particularly with respect to specific features of early stages of the language acquisition process. The primary area of interest was to determine the existence of and features of a silent period for these children. Secondary goals included analyzing the kinds of speech that emerged in the early stages of language acquisition, to whom it was directed, and the circumstances under which it was produced; discovering when and how the children manifest bilingual awareness; and ascertaining what strategies were used by them for comprehension. Using a qualitative case study approach, eight monolingual three-year-olds attending a Spanish-language immersion school were observed using participant observation methodology for a total of 98.35 hours between September 6, 1994 and March 17, 1995. Classroom observation was supplemented by questionnaires completed by the children's parents, and by interviews of parents. The data generated revealed that although there is wide variation in the amount of speech produced by the children and when it was produced, there was no silent period for most children. These results are inconsistent with the literature which generally assumes that such a period exists. The study also revealed that although language mixing occurred, it appeared to be a function of language dominance and did not reflect mixing in the input. Children used a variety of strategies to make sense of the Spanish surrounding them, the most important of which was attending to context clues. Finally, all the children manifested bilingual awareness at the same time they began to produce Spanish utterances.