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1 October 2026

16 Pages

Early Language Proficiencies in Both Spanish and English Predict Later Academic Achievement in English Language Arts and Mathematics of Latino Children of Immigrants

and
1
School of Education, Hunter College, New York, NY 10065, USA
2
Baker Center for Children & Families, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02120, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Educ. Sci.2026, 16(10), 1626;https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci16101626
This article belongs to the Special Issue Supporting Multilingual Students in Schools: Perspectives, Challenges, and Opportunities, 2nd Edition
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Abstract

Given the growing linguistic diversity in U.S. schools, there is a need to better understand how early dual language abilities contribute to later academic achievement. This study investigates English and Spanish oral language proficiencies at kindergarten as predictors of academic performance in third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades among second-generation Latino children of immigrants (N = 228). Children’s early English and Spanish abilities were directly assessed using the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery–Revised, and achievement outcomes were obtained from state standardized exams (MCAS) administered in English for English Language Arts (ELA) and Mathematics. A series of multiple regression models controlling for poverty, gender, and maternal education documented that English proficiency at kindergarten predicted ELA and Math performance across all four grade levels. Importantly, early Spanish proficiency uniquely contributed to later achievement above and beyond English, predicting ELA across all four grade levels and Math outcomes in third, fourth, and fifth grades. Overall, models explained moderate proportions of variance in academic performance (R2 = 0.20–0.35). Both English and Spanish proficiencies at school entry meaningfully predict long-term academic outcomes, drawing attention to the educational value of supporting the development of children’s dual language abilities. These findings support evidence-based practices and policies that leverage emergent bilingual children’s full linguistic repertoire to promote equitable academic success.

1. Introduction

Today’s schools have experienced an unprecedented increase in the numbers of emergent bilingual children. Recent reports have confirmed that one in three children under age 6 in the United States is growing up in a household where at least one parent speaks a language other than English at home (Habben & Park, 2026). An extensive amount of research has demonstrated the important role of English proficiency in predicting the long-term academic achievement of emergent bilingual students (Halle et al., 2012; Reardon & Galindo, 2009; Slama, 2012). However, there remains a critical need for additional research on the role of children’s home languages and later academic performance (Toppelberg et al., 2017; Duarte, 2020; Joshi, 2025). Theoretical work suggests strong associations between home language proficiency and school success. Theories related to linguistic transfer and dual language abilities indicate that children who fully develop both their home language and English are more likely to have positive academic outcomes, yet, there is further need for more empirical work to document these relationships (Collins et al., 2011; Heineke & Vera, 2022; Toppelberg et al., 2017; Sun et al., 2018). The current linguistic diversity in U.S. schools has not been sufficiently met with evidence-based educational practices that best support emergent bilingual children. Understanding how early English and Spanish abilities influence emergent bilingual children’s later achievement is critical for informing policies and practices that promote equitable educational opportunities (Irwin et al., 2022).
Support for home language development that emergent bilinguals receive at school in the early grades may be associated with later academic outcomes. Research has evidenced links between children’s language competence and school success, but these relations have yet to be fully examined in dual language children with the contribution of both home and school languages (Toppelberg & Collins, 2025). Several longitudinal studies have shown that children’s early language English and Spanish proficiency predicts later decoding and reading comprehension skills and is also associated with academic performance in English (Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2017). English and Spanish oral language proficiencies in kindergarten have been found to also predict reading comprehension within and across languages in first, second and third grades (Luft Baker et al., 2023; Miller et al., 2006; Proctor et al., 2006). A recent study using latent class growth analysis demonstrated that children with higher mean English and Spanish reading skills in kindergarten continued with higher English reading scores and faster growth rates through fifth grade (Shen, 2025). English and Spanish decoding skills are also established to be highly correlated and predictive of later reading comprehension across both languages (Nakamoto et al., 2008). Proficiency in the language spoken at home allows for rich, responsive interactions that support children’s cognitive, emotional regulation, as well as positive social relationships. When emergent bilingual children are in other environments in which their home language is spoken, it helps them build upon these communication skills. Research shows that emergent bilingual children can apply what they know in their home language to acquire English. However, the role of early dual language proficiencies on later academic achievement has yet to be fully explored within the context of poverty and other sociodemographic factors prevalent among many children of immigrants (Collins & Toppelberg, 2021).
Academic achievement in Latino children of immigrants, often measured through standardized assessments, has improved over the last several decades (Karakus et al., 2023). Latino children have historically scored below their peers on reading and math assessments, with growing gaps in later school years (Reardon & Galindo, 2009; Samson & Collins, 2012). Thus, identifying factors that support their long-term academic development during the early school years is imperative (Gandara & Contreras, 2009; Rumberger et al., 2009). Performance on high-stakes standardized tests has been given a prevalent role in determining academic achievement and is used as a measure of success for many schools. There are well-warranted concerns and critiques of standardized testing when used as a singular measure of student achievement. Nevertheless, they do offer insight into students’ academic performance with scores that are easily comparable to other subgroups and populations. Such reports have indicated that the majority of Latino students in fourth and eighth grades are not proficient in reading and mathematics (National Center for Education Statistics, 2024) and persistent achievement gaps remain.
To a considerable extent, the low achievement of Latino children of immigrants reflects the negative impact of factors associated with poverty and other socioeconomic variables (G. J. Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Hernandez et al., 2007). Poverty is one of the strongest predictors of low academic achievement (Fram et al., 2007; Shay et al., 2024). Socioeconomic status (SES), including parental education, impacts students’ potential for school success (Beals & Porter, 2000). As many Latino bilingual children of immigrants come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds they are, on average, at higher academic risk (Reardon & Galindo, 2009). Furthermore, the effect of gender on academic achievement has been documented, with girls typically outperforming boys (Sáenz et al., 2023; Steinmann & Strietholt, 2026; D. P. Thomas et al., 2024). Beyond the effects of poverty and gender, however, factors leading to lower academic outcomes in Latino children are not fully understood. An additional potential factor affecting academic performance is the high variability in levels of dual language proficiency (Spanish/English) of Latino children of immigrants (Toppelberg & Collins, 2025). In order to meet the linguistic demands of diverse environments, children must have the language abilities necessary to perform academically and to function in schools. Home language support in the early grades may leverage existing oral language skills and lead to literacy skill development and improved long-term outcomes (Espinosa & García, 2012; García & Kleifgen, 2018). Bilingual children who are proficient in both languages have better academic outcomes than children with lower proficiency in one or both languages (Collins, 2014). On the other hand, children with low language abilities are more likely to be poor readers in elementary school and at risk for long-term underachievement (Kieffer, 2010, 2012; Proctor et al., 2005; Reese et al., 2000).
Dual language proficiency has been recognized as an important predictor of other types of school functioning, including engagement, motivation, social behavior (inter/intrapersonal, and affective interactions) essential for navigating school. Previous work has evidenced that Spanish and English proficiencies account for over one-third of the variance in school engagement in kindergarten (Collins et al., 2011). This has led to current research questions that have yet to be investigated such as how early dual language proficiencies relate to children’s academic outcomes in later school years. Oral language skills are key to the acquisition of knowledge and learning (Reed & Lee, 2020). Children’s oral language skills (e.g., vocabulary knowledge, phonological processing, syntax, and listening comprehension) are closely associated with later academic success. These linguistic competences and discourse skills acquired before schooling provide the basis for understanding increasingly complex texts and classroom instruction. Because these foundational skills can develop in either language, assessing both English and Spanish offers a more comprehensive representation of children’s linguistic resources than assessing English alone. Therefore, these discrete linguistic domains in both languages of the dual language child require unique consideration.
Many studies have found strong links between language proficiency and academic performance among monolingual samples (Snow & Matthews, 2016), with language development consistently linked to later academic achievement in mathematics and English Language Arts (R. J. Duncan et al., 2020). These studies have evidenced direct relationship between early language skills and later academic achievement, yet only considered English. There is a lack of research on bilingual children and the role of their dual language proficiencies on their later academic achievement. Furthermore, there have yet to be studies that consider the impact of early dual language abilities, at school entry, on children’s long-term academic achievement. Emergent bilingual children who are able to leverage their full linguistic repertoire are better able to make progress in learning new concepts and content which is not language specific and may be learned and recalled across languages (García et al., 2025).
Dual language proficiency is often connected to academic, cognitive and social benefits (Genesee et al., 2004). Empirical research supports the positive academic, cognitive, and developmental outcomes associated with bilingualism (Bialystok & Martin, 2004). A meta-analysis of findings related to cognitive correlates of bilingualism (Adesope et al., 2010) evidenced that children’s dual language proficiencies are associated with greater metalinguistic and metacognitive skills (Bialystok, 2001), stronger symbolic representation, and abstract reasoning skills (McLeay, 2003), and better learning strategies (Wilson et al., 2013). These processes could, in turn, support classroom learning and task management and academic achievement. Latino children of immigrants who are proficient in both English and Spanish have higher academic achievement than Latino children who are only English proficient (Fernandez & Nielsen, 1986; Lindholm-Leary, 2001). The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM, 2017) report reviewing the science on bilingualism, dual language education, and the best educational approaches for English learners indicates advantages for bilinguals in academic areas such as literacy and math. These advantages may result from bilinguals having been shown to have greater working memory, selective inhibition, attention-switching skills, and mental flexibility than their monolingual peers.
Considering the evidence linking the dual language abilities to academic skills, it is important to test this relationship by directly measuring both English and Spanish oral language proficiency when children begin school and evaluating how they perform on academic achievement tests throughout their later school years.

The Present Study

This study was conducted using a longitudinal sample of 228 Spanish-speaking Latino children attending urban public schools in a large city in the Northeast United States. The variables analyzed as part of the present study were collected as part of the Childhood Bilingualism and Developmental Psychopathology study funded by the National Institutes of Health addressing multiple aims encompassing dual language development. The present study investigates Latino children of immigrants’ academic achievement in English Language Arts and Mathematics at third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades as predicted by their early English and Spanish language proficiencies in kindergarten. Emergent bilingual children’s proficiency in their home and school languages at school entry may be supportive of long-term academic outcomes. These relationships are particularly important for children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds who are at higher risk of academic struggles and challenges related to high-stakes standardized tests, which are often a key indicator of school success (G. J. Duncan et al., 2007). We aim to better understand the relation between early language abilities and later academic outcomes with the following research questions:
  • RQ1. After considering sociodemographic factors, do children’s Spanish and English language proficiencies at kindergarten predict academic outcomes in third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades?
  • RQ2. Does Spanish language proficiency explain unique variance beyond that explained by English language proficiency?
We hypothesize that children with higher early language proficiencies in kindergarten will have higher ELA and math academic outcomes in later school years. Furthermore, we hypothesize that children’s Spanish and English language proficiencies will uniquely account for substantial variance in academic outcomes above and beyond the contribution of sociodemographic factors.

2. Methods

This study investigates the relations between Spanish and English language proficiencies in the early school years and children’s performance on standardized academic tests in later elementary grades. Second-generation Latino immigrant children were recruited at kindergarten entry from urban public schools in a large school district in the Northeast United States.

2.1. Participants

Children were selected for this study using the eligibility criteria described below, resulting in a sample whose demographic characteristics closely reflected those of Spanish-speaking immigrant families residing in urban areas of the Northeastern United States. All participants were screened according to the following criteria. Children had to be born in the continental United States and have at least one parent born in Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, or another Latin American country. Puerto Rican families were included because they share many characteristics with other Latino immigrant families and account for a significant portion of the Latino population in the Northeast. Participants were also required to have lived in primarily Spanish-speaking households with little to no exposure to English before the age of three. Children diagnosed with developmental disorders or severe sensory-motor or neurological impairments were excluded from the study.

2.2. Procedures

Following approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB), participating school districts, and school principals, student enrollment records were reviewed to identify potentially eligible participants. Families were then contacted through recruitment letters describing the study and inviting participation. Bilingual and bicultural research assistants followed up with caregivers by telephone to verify eligibility and determine interest in participating.
Our final sample consisted of 228 participants. During recruitment, 188 individuals were deemed ineligible based on the study’s inclusion criteria, primarily because they did not meet the language exposure requirements; furthermore, an additional 97 eligible individuals declined to participate. Data were collected for each year children were in school from 2003 to 2015. Children were individually assessed in kindergarten (mean age of 6 years and 1 month) for language abilities, in offices outside of the classroom on separate days, counterbalanced so that half of the children were tested in English first and the other half were tested in Spanish first. Standardized procedures outlined in the assessment manuals were followed by trained research assistants who were native speakers of both Spanish and English. Trained bilingual research assistants also conducted interviews with parents in their homes to gather information about family background and history. Most interviews were completed with mothers, who in most cases chose to participate in Spanish.

2.3. Measures

Spanish and English oral language abilities were directly assessed using the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPB-R) at kindergarten. Individual children’s scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) exams administered in English in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades were provided by the school district.
Dual Language Proficiency. Children’s oral language proficiencies in each language were directly assessed using the English and Spanish versions of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Batteries-Revised (WLPB-R): (Woodcock, 1991; Woodcock & Muñoz-Sandoval, 1995). The WLPB-R measures performance on specific linguistic skill domains and is considered a strong standardized measure of oral language proficiency in English and Spanish. An oral language cluster score derived from four individually measured test scores (Memory for Sentences, Picture Vocabulary, Listening Comprehension, and Verbal Analogies) is used in the present analyses. Memory for Sentences is a mixed expressive-receptive measure of syntactic and semantic competence, where the child is asked to repeat words, phrases and then whole sentences that increase in length. Picture Vocabulary is a measure of expressive semantics (vocabulary) that requires naming the pictures of items. Listening Comprehension is a receptive measure of syntactic and semantic competence, where the child listens to increasingly complex sentences or passages and is asked to provide the word that is missing at the end of the sentence or the passage. Verbal Analogies is a receptive measure of semantics, where the child is asked to provide a brief verbal answer to a missing item in a sentence that carries a logical relationship. The WLPB-R demonstrates strong psychometric properties with reliability coefficients for both forms alphas from 0.84 to 0.92 across all age ranges (Woodcock & Muñoz-Sandoval, 1995).
Academic Outcomes. Children’s academic achievement was measured at third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grades using test scores from The Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS). The MCAS is required for all students in the state, includes Reading (Grade 3), English Language Arts (Grades 4, 5, 6), and Math (Grades 3, 4, 5, 6), and is administered in English each Spring (Massachusetts Department of Education, 2008). The MCAS has been the primary measure of academic achievement in Massachusetts for more than three decades and is aligned with Massachusetts learning standards. The MCAS ELA and Math tests are both divided into two sessions. All MCAS test sessions are untimed; however, test sessions have been designed to be completed within 150 min for each ELA session and 90–120 min for each Math session. The MCAS ELA test measures reading and comprehension, written expression and understanding of language, grammar, and vocabulary in context with selected-response and constructed-response questions. The MCAS Math test measures conceptual understanding and skills, problem solving, and grade-specific domains such as operations and algebraic thinking, number and operations in base ten, number and operations in fractions, and measurement and data and geometry with multiple-choice, short-answer, and open-response questions that require showing work.
Sociodemographic Covariates. Poverty, Child Gender, and Maternal Education data were collected when the children were in kindergarten, through surveys administered during the parent interviews at home. Questions adapted from the Methods for the Epidemiology of Child and Adolescent Mental Disorders (MECA) study (Goodman et al., 1998) were used to determine the primary caregiver’s socioeconomic status (poverty and maternal education) and child gender. A child was considered to be living in poverty when his or her household was a recipient of at least one government program which tied its eligibility to income threshold levels (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000); these programs included WIC, Food Stamps, Head Start, Section 8 housing assistance, and Welfare. The highest level of schooling the parents completed (elementary only, partial high school, complete high school, etc.) was recorded using ordinal scores ranging from 0 (no formal education) to 12 (MA/PhD) reflecting both education level attained and years of education.

2.4. Analytic Strategy

We examined the academic outcomes of children at third through sixth grades predicted by their English and Spanish language proficiencies at kindergarten. Using IBM SPSS version 31, we first conducted bivariate correlations to investigate the association between Spanish and English proficiencies and later academic performance. Our analyses included a series of multiple regression models controlling for the sociodemographic variables of poverty, gender, and maternal education to investigate the role of each predictor in consideration of the full model. In each regression model we sequentially included the predictors, starting first with the sociodemographic control variables, then entering children’s English oral language proficiency and lastly children’s Spanish oral language proficiency, testing the contribution and prediction of each variable above and beyond previous variables entered in the model.
Regarding missingness, analyses of each variable were conducted to check whether missing status was associated with other study variables. For the predictor variables collected in kindergarten, including language proficiency and control variables, coverage was higher than 99%. For the academic outcome variables collected in third through sixth grades, coverage was 80%–63%, respectively, with the missing data mostly due to attrition from children leaving the school district. Children with missing and complete data were compared using independent-samples t-tests and did not differ significantly on any of the study variables. Based on these comparisons and examination of the missing-data patterns, there was no systematic association between the propensity for missingness and the observed study variables. To increase statistical power and improve the quality and efficiency of parameter estimates, multiple imputation was conducted in SPSS using 20 imputed datasets. For each variable with missing data, the imputation model incorporated the observed study variables as well as relevant auxiliary variables that were theoretically or empirically related to the variables being imputed and/or to the missingness patterns, consistent with recommendations for the treatment of missing data (Enders, 2013; Graham, 2009).
At the time of recruitment, children were dispersed across 15 schools in 39 kindergarten classrooms with various program types. There was an average of four participants in each kindergarten classroom. We analyzed the possible effects of children nested in classrooms and schools and to ensure that the regression assumption of independent residuals would be met. An intra-class correlation (ICC) was calculated by dividing the between-clusters variation by the total amount of variation in the outcome variables. The variation in outcome variables explained by classroom and school-level membership was less than 10% of the total variance, which is considered small by many methodologists working with nested data, and thus unlikely to significantly affect standard errors in predictive analyses (Lee, 2000). Given little meaningful nesting, we used traditional regression-based analysis techniques (Raudenbush & Bryk, 2002).

3. Results

The preliminary analyses of all study variables were conducted with measures of central tendency and variability and were determined to be suitable for further analyses. Results indicate that 86% percent of the children were living in poverty. The sample was evenly split with 50% girls and boys. Maternal education indicated that 70% of mothers had completed secondary school. The majority of mothers were born in the Dominican Republic (52%) and Puerto Rico (21%) and used only Spanish (55%) or mostly Spanish (24%) when speaking to the child. Almost all children (94%) had at least some books at home and had some sort of early childhood care outside the home before kindergarten (75%). Children attended early childhood care settings including Head Start (45%), preschools (18%), home-based daycares (13%), or did not have care outside the home prior to kindergarten (25%). Parents’ birthplace, home literacy, and early childhood care participation are presented to describe the sample and were not included in the multiple regression models. Descriptive findings (Table 1) include group sizes (N), minimum and maximum scores, means (M), and standard deviations (SD) for each of the independent variable subgroups including demographic, language proficiency, and MCAS raw score means.
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of all study variables.
Language proficiency mean scores at kindergarten for both Spanish (M = 67, SD = 21) and English (M = 70, SD = 19) were well below the normed mean standard score (SS) of 100. Below-average performance for dual language children on measures of oral academic language proficiency is typical when using standardized measures with monolingual norms and has been reported in studies of similar populations using the same measures (Oller & Eilers, 2002; Páez et al., 2007).
Bivariate correlations were conducted between all study predictors and outcome variables (see Table 2). We found significant, moderate correlations (r = 0.142–295; p ≤ 0.05, two-tailed) between the sociodemographic variables and academic outcome variables. Moderate and strong associations (r = 0.177–454; p ≤ 0.05, two-tailed) were found between all kindergarten language proficiency scores for English and Spanish and MCAS ELA and Math scores at 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grades.
Table 2. Bivariate Pearson Correlations of Study Predictor and Outcome Variables.
In a few of the controlled regression analyses, sociodemographic variables of poverty, gender, and maternal education were significant predictors of children’s achievement on measures of English Language Arts and Math. Poverty was negatively related to children’s ELA scores at 4th–6th grades, and children’s Math scores at 3rd and 4th grades. Gender had a minimal effect on children’s later academic performance on ELA and Math scores. Maternal education predicted children’s ELA scores at 3rd–5th grades, and children’s Math scores at 4th and 5th grades. Overall, the control variables accounted for low amounts of variance in the regression models (R2s’ 0.05–0.14).
English proficiency consistently predicted ELA MCAS scores at 3rd (β = 0.38; p < 0.001), 4th (β = 0.39; p < 0.001), 5th (β = 0.37; p < 0.001), and 6th (β = 0.29; p < 0.001) grades. After considering English, Spanish proficiency at kindergarten also predicted English MCAS scores at 3rd (β = 0.19; p < 0.001), 4th (β = 0.29; p < 0.001), 5th (β = 0.28; p < 0.001), and 6th (β = 0.25; p < 0.001) grades. Overall, the predictors of these models accounted for moderate percentages (R2s = 0.20–0.35) of variability in every ELA achievement outcome measure (see Table 3).
Table 3. Multiple Regression Models Predicting MCAS ELA in Grades 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Similar results were demonstrated for English proficiency predicting children’s later performance on Math MCAS scores at 3rd (β = 0.33; p < 0.001), 4th (β = 0.28; p < 0.001), 5th (β = 0.24; p < 0.001), and 6th (β = 0.20; p < 0.01) grades. After considering English, Spanish proficiency at kindergarten predicted Math MCAS scores at 3rd (β = 0.12; p < 0.01), 4th (β = 0.16; p < 0.05), and 5th (β = 0.28; p < 0.001) grades. The only exception was that Spanish did not predict Math MCAS scores in the sixth grade. Overall, the predictors of these models significantly accounted for moderate percentages (R2s = 0.09–0.21) of variability in every Math achievement outcome measure (see Table 4).
Table 4. Multiple Regression Models Predicting MCAS Math in Grades 3, 4, 5, and 6.
Each of the regression models showed consistent and direct associations between children’s early English and Spanish proficiency at kindergarten and their performance on later academic standardized measures. These associations were evidenced after controlling for the relevant sociodemographic factors shown to be related to children’s academic achievement. Children’s abilities in both their home and school languages as they enter school are lasting predictors of their academic performance in ELA and Math in the later school years.

4. Discussion

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the variation in dual language proficiency of Latino children of immigrants in their first year of school (kindergarten) in relation to their later academic achievement. Our findings underscore the importance of home and school language proficiency as key predictors of achievement for emergent bilingual children. There was a consistent positive relationship between children’s English and Spanish proficiency at kindergarten and their scores in both ELA and Math at 3rd–6th grades. This indicates that the higher the level of English or Spanish proficiency when children begin school, the higher their scores in both English and Math will be later in elementary school. As expected, the findings support previous research demonstrating the important role that English language proficiency plays in academic success (Halle et al., 2012; Reardon & Galindo, 2009). Moreover, they also demonstrate that emergent bilinguals’ language proficiency in Spanish, their home language, substantially predicts their later academic achievement, independently from and in addition to the contribution of English proficiency. The study documents that these early English and Spanish language abilities uniquely predict third, fourth, fifth and sixth grades performance in English Language Arts and Math assessments, even after controlling for relevant sociodemographic variables previously found to be predictive of academic achievement. Children with higher proficiencies in English and Spanish were likely to have higher levels of academic outcomes.
Children’s English oral language proficiency in kindergarten consistently predicted later academic performance in ELA and Math at each grade level considered. English proficiency significantly predicted ELA outcomes from third through sixth grades, with standardized coefficients ranging from β = 0.29 to 0.39. Similar magnitudes were observed for Math outcomes (β = 0.20 to 0.33). These findings align with an extensive literature identifying oral language as foundational for literacy development and later academic achievement. Early oral proficiency likely supports reading comprehension, vocabulary growth, academic discourse skills, and the ability to access increasingly complex curricular content.
The strength and stability of English proficiency as a predictor across consecutive grade levels underscores the long-term academic implications of school-entry language skills. These findings support developmental theories suggesting that early language competence begins a cumulative processes with initial advantages in vocabulary and processing skills facilitating greater academic engagement and learning opportunities over time (NASEM, 2017).

4.1. Unique Contribution of Spanish Proficiency

A key finding of this study evidences that Spanish proficiency at kindergarten uniquely predicts later academic achievement above and beyond English proficiency and sociodemographic factors. Spanish proficiency significantly predicted ELA outcomes across all grades examined (β = 0.19 to 0.29) and predicted Math outcomes at third, fourth, and fifth grades (β = 0.12 to 0.28), though not at sixth grade. These findings provide empirical support for interdependence and cross-linguistic transfer theories, which propose that proficiency in the home language facilitates the development of academic skills across languages. Spanish oral language skills may contribute to increased conceptual knowledge, morphosyntactic knowledge, vocabulary depth, and metalinguistic awareness, which supports academic learning in English. Importantly, Spanish proficiency accounted for unique variance in academic outcomes even after English proficiency was entered into the regression models. This suggests that home language competence is not merely a proxy for general language ability but represents a distinct developmental capacity. These findings challenge deficit-oriented perspectives that prioritize rapid English acquisition at the expense of home language maintenance. Instead, they support additive bilingual models that promote dual language development (Toppelberg et al., 2017).
The finding that both English and Spanish proficiency predicted achievement in Math further underscores the language demands inherent in mathematical thinking and learning, which requires comprehension of word problems, understanding of specialized vocabulary, and engagement in abstract reasoning expressed linguistically. Oral language proficiency, both in English and in Spanish, may contribute to conceptual understanding related to looking for patterns and relationships, making connections, and reasoning that extends beyond literacy-based tasks. Our study extends findings from a previous study which found, in a sample of 270 Latino dual language learners, that oral language skills contribute to mathematics performance over a shorter timeframe from the beginning to the end of a school year (Foster, 2016).

4.2. Sociodemographic Factors

Contrary to prior research, poverty and maternal education were less consistently associated with academic outcomes, and when predicting the amount of variance explained by these sociodemographic variables, the score was relatively low (R2 = 0.07–0.14). Poverty was negatively associated with ELA outcomes in later grades and with early Math outcomes, while maternal education predicted several ELA and Math outcomes. As children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds have been shown to be at higher academic risk based on end-of-year standardized testing (Winke & Zhang, 2019), our findings demonstrate that language proficiency may be an even more important predictor.
Interestingly, in our models, gender showed minimal effects, which contrasts extensive research demonstrating girls at an academic advantage. Notably, language proficiency substantially increased the explained variance in academic outcomes (R2 = 0.09–0.35), highlighting that early language skills account for meaningful differences in academic trajectories beyond structural sociodemographic risks.

4.3. Implications

Our findings have the potential to inform educational practices and support interventions targeted at specific skills associated with successful academic outcomes. This suggests that supporting the development of dual language proficiency at school and in early childhood is beneficial to children’s academic achievement (W. P. Thomas & Collier, 1995) and generally concur with prior work (NASEM, 2017). The present study offers new information which adds to the rationale and justification of educational programs that support dual language development and curricula aimed at promoting academic achievement and school success over longer term trajectories. This study directly responds to the calls to contribute to greater understanding of our increasingly diverse student populations in the U.S. and around the globe. A number of scholars (García-Coll et al., 1996; NASEM, 2017) have urged the field of education to consider multiple factors and processes that affect outcomes among linguistically and culturally diverse students. A major report (NASEM, 2017) emphasizes a need for more longitudinal studies to investigate how academic achievement is related to variations in children of immigrants’ levels of home and school language proficiency.
The present study contributes to our understanding of children of immigrants in a number of ways. Findings from the present study have the potential to inform educational practices and interventions that support dual language development. While most studies have focused on immigrant adolescents and adults, research on younger children is lacking, making it difficult to piece together their developmental trajectories. The current study analyzes early language abilities to collectively predict children’s later academic skills. Understanding dual language development of Latino children of immigrants is an essential first step in implementing appropriate services for children who, although growing rapidly in numbers, continue to be widely understudied and underserved. An increase in support of dual language proficiency of young Latino children of immigrants at school entry may result in higher school readiness and achievement.
Additional longitudinal studies that investigate academic trajectories and how the home language and English relate to school-based outcomes while accounting for relevant control variables are needed. The present study benefits from a longitudinal design spanning kindergarten through sixth grade, the use of standardized assessments, and rigorous eligibility criteria that produced a relatively homogeneous sample of second-generation Latino children from Spanish-speaking homes. The study findings have important implications for educational practice and policy. Given that the majority of the children in our sample was living in poverty, these findings are particularly striking, suggesting that language development may be modifiable and a potentially protective factor within economically marginalized contexts. Language-focused interventions may represent a leverage point for reducing achievement gaps among children from immigrant, low-income backgrounds.
Our findings underscore the importance of assessing and supporting oral language development in both languages at school entry. Early screening and intervention for children with lower performing dual language profiles may yield long-term academic benefits.

4.4. Limitations and Future Directions

Several limitations of this study should be noted. Attrition mainly due to the high mobility of immigrant families reduced outcome data coverage to 63% by sixth grade, though our analyses indicated no systematic differences between children with complete and missing data. We strengthened our analyses by using multiple imputation to account for missing data. Growth modelling was not conducted with the outcome variables in the present analyses as it was not the most appropriate method for the current study’s research questions. Longitudinal path analysis would shed light on individual patterns of change over time in early language proficiency which may impact later achievement and should be considered in future studies. Additionally, the lack of bilingual language assessments with bilingual norms may underestimate bilingual competence. Research incorporating dynamic and bilingual norm-referenced assessments would provide more relative estimates of language competence among dual language learners. Likewise, there are many serious concerns regarding the appropriateness of end-of-the-year standardized testing as a central measure of student achievement. Additionally, the present study focused exclusively on oral language proficiency and did not include measures of instructional context or classroom language practices, which may mediate observed associations. Nevertheless, it does allow insight into student academic performance and provide comparisons across time, groups, and districts which have not been measured in certain subgroups of students, such as emergent bilinguals, from many years (Gort et al., 2008). Lastly, the present study reports on Latino children of immigrants from an urban district in the Northeast U.S., which limits generalizability to other Latino subgroups or geographic contexts. Our findings reinforce calls for culturally and linguistically appropriate assessment tools among emergent bilingual children and recognize variations across heteroglossic populations.
Future research should explore mechanisms underlying the observed cross-linguistic effects, including potential mediators such as executive functioning, literacy development, and instructional experiences. Longitudinal path analysis would shed light on individual patterns of change over time and could further demonstrate how changes in early language proficiency impact later achievement. Further investigation into how support for home languages in early childhood education, bilingual instructional models and classroom practices affect outcomes would also help provide additional evidence of how educational contexts can leverage early language advantages.

5. Conclusions

This study has the potential to inform educational policy and instruction for emergent bilingual children in schools. Findings from this study may further deepen our understanding of factors related to their academic achievement and help guide interventions and educational supports for Latino children of immigrants for school success. Our findings demonstrate that early bilingual oral language proficiency, both in English and in Spanish, plays a significant and lasting role in shaping academic achievement among Latino children of immigrants from Spanish-speaking homes. These findings underscore the importance of assessing emergent bilinguals’ language skills in English and home language to be able to recognize strengths and progress in their full linguistic repertoire. Schools should foster multilingual learning opportunities for children to leverage all their language abilities, which can be achieved by using children’s home languages in classrooms as much as possible through multi-media and multi-modal resources and translanguaging teaching strategies. This study documents that English proficiency at school entry predicts children’s later ELA and Math performance, and that Spanish proficiency provides additional, unique predictive contribution to their academic performance across multiple grades. These results challenge deficit perspectives of emergent bilingual learners and demonstrate that home language proficiency is a critical academic asset. Supporting dual language competence in the early years is not merely culturally affirming—it is academically consequential.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, B.A.C. and C.O.T.; Methodology, B.A.C. and C.O.T.; Formal analysis, B.A.C. and C.O.T. Investigation, B.A.C. and C.O.T.; Writing—original draft, B.A.C. and C.O.T.; Writing—review & editing, B.A.C. and C.O.T.; Project administration, B.A.C. and C.O.T.; Funding acquisition, B.A.C. and C.O.T. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was jointly funded by National Institute of Mental Health, grant number K01MH01947 and Research Foundation of The City University of New York, grant number PSC-CUNY Research Award: ENHC-46-66.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by (1) Harvard Med School/Judge Baker Children’s Center, Child Bilingualism and Developmental Psychopathology (protocol code: Pro00010727 and date of approval: 26 October 2015); (2) Hunter College, Academic Achievement of Bilingual Latino Children of Immigrants 9 (protocol code: #2015-0706 and continuing review approved on 14 June 2016); (3) Boston Public schools Office of Data and Accountability (approved 24 June 2013).

Data Availability Statement

The datasets presented in this article are not publicly available due to confidentiality and privacy considerations.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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