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Purpose: The purpose of this study was (a) to examine the underlying components or factor structure of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA; Peña, Gutiérrez- Clellen, Iglesias, Goldstein, & Bedore, 2014) sentence repetition task and (b) to examine the relationship between Spanish-English speaking children's sentence repetition and vocabulary performance. Method: Participants were 291 Spanish-English speaking children in kindergarten and 1st grade. Item analyses were used to evaluate the underlying factor structure for each language version of the sentence repetition tasks of the BESA. The tasks were then examined in relation to a measure of English receptive vocabulary. Results: Bifactor models, which include a single underlying general factor and multiple specific factors, provided the best overall model fit for both the Spanish and English versions of the task. There was no relation between children's overall Spanish sentence repetition performance and their English vocabulary. However, children's pronoun, noun phrase, and verb phrase item scores in Spanish significantly predicted their English vocabulary scores. For English sentence repetition, both children's overall performance and their specific performance on the noun phrase items were predictors of their English vocabulary scores. Followup analyses revealed that, for the purposes of clinical assessment, the BESA sentence repetition tasks can be considered essentially unidimensional, lending support to the current scoring structure of the test. Conclusions: Study findings suggest that sentence repetition tasks can provide insight into Spanish-English speaking children's vocabulary skills in addition to their morphosyntactic skills when used on a broad research scale. From a clinical assessment perspective, results indicate that the sentence repetition task has strong internal validity and support to the use of this measure in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effect of an intensive vocabulary intervention embedded in e-books on the vocabulary skills of young Spanish-English speaking English learners (ELs) from low-socioeconomic status backgrounds. Method: Children (N = 288) in kindergarten and 1st grade were randomly assigned to treatment and read-only conditions. All children received e-book readings approximately 3 times a week for 10-20 weeks using the same books. Children in the treatment condition received e-books supplemented with vocabulary instruction that included scaffolding through explanations in Spanish, repetition in English, checks for understanding, and highlighted morphology. Results: There was a main effect of the intervention on expressive labeling (g = 0.38) and vocabulary on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition (g = 0.14; Dunn & Dunn, 2007), with no significant moderation effect of initial Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test score. There was no significant difference between conditions on children's expressive definitions. Conclusion: Findings substantiate the effectiveness of computer-implemented embedded vocabulary intervention for increasing ELs' vocabulary knowledge. Implications: Computer-assisted vocabulary instruction with scaffolding through Spanish explanations, repetitions, and highlighted morphology is a promising approach to facilitate word learning for ELs in kindergarten and 1st grade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]