Developing strategies for speakers of African American English (Maher et al., 2021)

<b>Purpose: </b>Many studies have found a correlation between overall usage rates of nonmainstream forms and reading scores, but less is known about which dialect differences are most predictive. Here, we consider different methods of characterizing African American English use from existing assessments and examine which methods best predict literacy achievement.<b>Method: </b>Kindergarten and first-grade students who speak African American English received two assessments of dialect use and two assessments of decoding at the beginning and end of the school year. Item-level analyses of the dialect-use assessments were used to compute measures of dialect usage: (a) an overall feature rate measure based on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation–Screening Test, (b) a subscore analysis of the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation–Screening Test based on items that pattern together, (c) an alternative assessment where children repeat and translate sentences, and (d) “repertoire” measures based on a categorical distinction of whether a child used a particular feature of mainstream American English.<b>Results:</b> Models using feature rate measures provided better data–model fit than those with repertoire measures, and baseline performance on a sentence repetition task was a positive predictor of reading score at the end of the school year. For phonological subscores, change from the beginning to end of the school year predicted reading at the end of the school year, whereas baseline scores were most predictive for grammatical subscores.<b>Conclusions:</b> The addition of a sentence imitation task is useful for understanding a child’s dialect and anticipating potential areas for support in early literacy. We observed some support for the idea that morphological dialect differences (i.e., irregular verb morphology) have a particularly close tie to later literacy, but future work will be necessary to confirm this finding.<br><b>Supplemental Material S1. </b>A summary table of fixed effects and lme4 model specification for each model reported in the text; models with factor score predictors are also included.<br><b>Supplemental Material S2. </b>Correlations between each pair of dialect measures at both baseline and post. <br>Maher, Z. K., Erskine, M. E., Byrd, A. S., Harring, J. R., &amp; Edwards, J. R. (2021). African American English and Early Literacy: A Comparison of Approaches to Quantifying Nonmainstream Dialect.<i> Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 52</i>(1), 118–130. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-19-00115<br><b>Publisher Note:</b> This article is part of the Forum: Serving African American English Speakers in Schools Through Interprofessional Education &amp; Practice.<br>

<b>目的：</b>多项研究已发现非主流语言形式的总体使用率与阅读成绩之间存在相关性，但对于哪些方言差异具有最强预测性的了解仍较为有限。本研究从现有评估中探讨描述非裔美国人英语（African American English）使用情况的不同方法，并考察哪种方法能最佳预测读写能力表现。<b>方法：</b>讲非裔美国人英语的幼儿园及一年级学生在学年开始和结束时接受了两项方言使用评估和两项解码能力（decoding）评估。通过对方言使用评估的项目层面分析（item-level analyses）计算方言使用测量指标：（a）基于语言变异诊断评估-筛查测试（Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation–Screening Test）的总体特征使用率测量；（b）基于同类项目的语言变异诊断评估-筛查测试子分数分析；（c）要求儿童复述并翻译句子的替代评估；（d）基于儿童是否使用主流美国英语特定特征的分类区分的"语库"（repertoire）测量。<b>结果：</b>使用特征使用率测量的模型相比使用语库测量的模型具有更优的数据-模型拟合度（data–model fit）；句子复述任务（sentence repetition task）的基线表现是学年结束时阅读成绩的正向预测因子。对于语音子分数（phonological subscores），学年始末的变化可预测学年结束时的阅读成绩；而对于语法子分数（grammatical subscores），基线分数的预测性最强。<b>结论：</b>添加句子模仿任务（sentence imitation task）有助于理解儿童的方言特征并预测早期读写能力支持的潜在领域。我们观察到一些证据支持形态方言差异（morphological dialect differences）（即不规则动词形态（irregular verb morphology））与后期读写能力存在特别密切关联的观点，但未来研究仍需进一步验证这一发现。<br><b>补充材料S1：</b>本文报告的各模型固定效应及lme4模型规格的汇总表；还包含使用因子得分预测变量的模型。<br><b>补充材料S2：</b>基线及后期各方言测量指标间的两两相关性。 <br>Maher, Z. K., Erskine, M. E., Byrd, A. S., Harring, J. R., & Edwards, J. R. (2021). African American English and Early Literacy: A Comparison of Approaches to Quantifying Nonmainstream Dialect.<i> Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 52</i>(1), 118–130. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_LSHSS-19-00115<br><b>出版说明：</b>本文为“论坛：通过跨专业教育与实践服务学校中的非裔美国人英语使用者”专题的一部分。