Teaching and Working in Linguistically Diverse Early Childhood Education Programs: Three Studies in Head Start

Head Start is a federally funded early childhood intervention that provides free preschool to children whose families qualify with incomes at or below the Federal Poverty Guidelines. Eighty-five percent of all Head Start programs enroll English language learning (ELL) children, the majority of whom come from homes where Spanish is spoken (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2008). However, as a recent Report to Congress stated, little is known about the "content, duration and intensity of services" (DHHS, 2013, p. 94) being provided to ELL children in Head Start. In this thesis, I contribute to the growing body of research that looks at how Head Start programs support the language and literacy development of ELL children and how Head Start teachers can be better developed to provide this support.;I address this goal by presenting the results of three related studies in Head Start classes that enrolled a large proportion of Latino ELL children. I utilized both quantitative and qualitative data to: describe the nature and quality of the language and literacy learning environment in the classes; provide insight into the teachers' reports of their understanding of the process of English language learning among ELL children and of their language learning needs; and analyze the social organization of teaching in Head Start.;My analyses showed that small-group lessons supported high-quality language interactions, yet the most frequently implemented lessons were delivered in a whole group and did not. I also found that teachers reported addressing ELL children's social and emotional needs because they perceived them as closely related to their language learning needs. Yet, their understanding of the process of English language learning was that it happened quickly and naturally; they did not report that there were ways of enhancing instruction to support it. Finally, I found that some of the challenges Head Start teachers encountered in their work were more complicated than the mandated instructional routines they were given to work with. In this way, the technical culture of Head Start did not reduce teachers' uncertainty in their work, and in some ways it exacerbated it.