Bilingual Phonological Awareness: Construct Validation in Grade 1 Spanish‐Speaking English Learners.

This study investigated the dimensionality of bilingual phonological awareness (PA) in English and Spanish by replicating a kindergarten model in Grade 1, and presents alternatives to modeling clustered data. English and Spanish tasks were analyzed from previously collected samples totaling 1,586 first grade Spanish‐speaking English learners. Four distinct approaches to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) models were examined: (a) uncentered student‐level data, (b) student‐level data centered at the classroom means, (c) classroom‐level data, and (d) multilevel CFA. Results indicated that while the multilevel CFA provided the most comprehensive view of the data, the multi‐level student‐level estimates were not appreciably different from estimates based on student‐level data centered at the classroom means, and multi‐level classroom‐level estimates were comparable to estimates based on the analysis of classroom means. Importantly, English and Spanish PA were statistically separable at the student‐level, but minimally distinct (r = .86) and slightly less correlated than what has been reported for kindergarten (r = .93). At the classroom level, the correlation was moderate (r = .51), and substantially reduced compared to kindergarten (r = .83). The distinction at the classroom‐level between kindergarten and Grade 1 implies that instruction differentiates the abilities across languages at the classroom‐level, but less so at the student‐level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]