Recasts Used with Preschoolers Learning English as their Second Language

This study examined linguistic recasts provided by 16 early childhood educators to preschool children learning English as a second language (EL2). Recasts are semantic and syntactic revisions of children’s utterances. The educator–child interactions were filmed during book reading and play dough activities with small groups of four children, one of whom was EL2. The EL2 children were rated by their educators as having less well-developed expressive language skills than their unilingual peers. However, despite this finding, educators provided similar rates of recasts to both groups of children. Eight EL2 children with the lowest expressive language skills demonstrated fewer uptakes of their educator’s recasts in comparison to EL2 children with higher expressive language skills. The implications of this study include increasing the rate of recasts and reducing their complexity to provide language-learning opportunities for all preschool children, especially for those learning English as a second language.