The field of preschool education is “moving in the right direction” in developing effective tools to assess preliteracy for bilingual youngsters, a researcher said during a forum last week hosted by Princeton University.
Sandra Barrueco, an assistant professor of psychology at the Catholic University of America, in Washington, recently reviewed 19 preliteracy assessments for their validity and reliability with children who speak Spanish at home. She deemed three quarters of the measures to be suitable, and noted that in a couple of cases, the Spanish versions are better than the English versions. Her findings are published in a book, Assessing Young Latino Children Within and Across Two Languages: Approaches and Measures, which is expected to be published by the Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. Inc., in Baltimore, in November.
I wrote about her presentation and others about preschoolers from immigrant families in a story posted at www.edweek.org this morning.