Bilingual Infant/Toddler Environments: Supporting Language & Learning in Our Youngest Children

This guide aims to bridge research and practice in infant/toddler language acquisition to provide Head Start staff with practical information for consideration on how to best support language development in infancy. In the Voices from the Field section, the authors analyse information from a staff questionnaire on languages of the teaching staff and the children and families in their care, parents' expressed preferences of language for their child's classroom and assessment and curricular practices. Included in this analysis are considerations such as the shared governance mandate which gives parents a role in policy.

The document sets the task of answering the following questions:

• Question 1: Since the families of infants and toddlers in our programme speak Spanish, do we need to use English in our programme, or can we do the whole programme in Spanish?
• Question 2: How do infants develop a first language?
• Question 3: What role do environments play in first language acquisition?
• Question 4: Does exposure to more than one language in infancy lead to children becoming confused or delayed?
• Question 5: How can we respond to parents' preferences for language use in our infant toddler classrooms?

In answering the questions, the authors attempt to set a direction for best language practices in classrooms in which infants come from Spanish-speaking families while educating staff on the fundamentals of language acquisition based on research. The document uses research-based evidence to explain mono- and bi-lingual language development parallels. It gives training on speaking with parents about their preferences for their children. Finally, it includes sections on additional research-to-practice considerations, references, and an appendix, including questionnaire samples.