ABSTRACT

At 24% of the total U.S. population, Latino children constitute the fastest growing segment of the school-age demographic, and Latinos are projected to continue to drive the overall national population growth (Child Trends Databank 2016). Roughly 75% of Latino children, regardless of nativity, are exposed to Spanish at home (Krogstad & Gonzalez-Barrera 2015). In this chapter, the focus is specifically on Latino children from Spanish-speaking homes, and thus Spanish-English bilingual children will be used to refer to this group.