Natalia M Rojas
Biographic Data
| ID | 5804265 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Natalia M Rojas |
| GIVEN NAMES | Natalia M |
| FAMILY NAME | Rojas |
| SIGNATURE | ROJAS N M |
| AFFILIATIONS | New York University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9530-2997 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
An exploration of languaging interactions of young Spanish-English emergent bilinguals to build social-emotional learning skills during free-play
Children’s language skills and social-emotional learning (SEL) are intricately intertwined. Early childhood education (ECE) programs are a critical context for children’s language and SEL skills. Yet, it is not understood how emergent bilingual learners, or children who are learning two languages simultaneously or sequentially, are languaging in support of their SEL skills. Within an English-instruction classroom, free-play may be a unique opport…
Tensions Between Education Policies and Standards and Educators’ Multilingual Practices
Through two case studies from India and the United States, we explore how educational policies and standards focused on multilingualism are interpreted and enacted within early childhood education classrooms. Recent education policies in both contexts are aimed at fostering culturally responsive and linguistically inclusive pedagogy for greater academic success for students whose home language(s) differs from the language of instruction. However,…
“We Do Speak Spanish … But I Do Have More Expectations for English Language Skills”
Early childhood education (ECE) teachers’ language ideologies, or their beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge toward the use of a language, play an important role in determining the quality of their classroom practices. Yet, we know very little about ECE teachers’ language ideologies within mainstream English-instruction classrooms and how they are linked to their teaching practices. This mixed-method study aims to describe ECE teachers’ classroom la…
Support, Stress and Postpartum Depression Among Chinese Immigrant Women
Enhancing immigrant families’ mental health through the promotion of structural and community-based support
Immigrant communities in the United States are diverse and have many assets. Yet, they often experience stressors that can undermine the mental health of residents. To fully promote mental health and well-being among immigrant communities, it is important to emphasize population-level policies and practices that may serve to mitigate stress and prevent mental health disorders. In this paper, we describe the stressors and stress experienced by imm…
Teacher’s Use of English and Spanish Interactive Strategies during Wordless Shared Book Reading
Little attention has been paid to describing the ways early childhood education (ECE) teachers implement interactive strategies and the use of Spanish and English, in real time, to support Spanish–English emergent bilingual children’s contributions to shared book reading interactions. Video recordings from 19 ECE classrooms during shared book reading were used to conduct sequential analysis to examine the different types of interactive strategies…
Preschool Children’s Engagement and School Readiness Skills
Research Findings: The study examined the relationship between Spanish-speaking DLL children’s engagement within the preschool classroom with teachers, peers, and tasks and their school readiness skills compared to monolingual English-speaking peers. Results suggested that DLL children had lower language skills and phonological awareness by the end of the preschool year. However, children’s positive engagement with teachers mediated the relations…
Problem behaviors at the classroom-level and teacher-child interaction quality in Head Start programs
Measuring Preschool Teachers’ Social-emotional Practices
Research Findings: Evidence suggests that teachers are effective at improving the social and emotional readiness of low-income children. However, few measures are available to assess teachers’ use of specific social-emotional practices within their classrooms. This paper compares an observational measure of teachers’ social-emotional practices, the Adapted Teacher Style Rating Scale (TSRS), to an instrument of general classroom climate within a r…
Early Childhood Education Teacher's Beliefs about a Match in Home Language Proficiency with Emergent Bilingual Learners
Supporting immigrant caregivers during the Covid‐19 pandemic
Digital messaging programs have the potential to be a powerful, low‐cost, technological tool to support multiple facets of caregivers' knowledge, and implementation of developmentally appropriate caregiver‐child activities among diverse immigrant populations. However, involving caregivers and community stakeholders in the cultural and linguistic tailoring of interventions to optimize utilization and engagement may be critical to ensuring messagin…
Patterns of preschool teachers’ use of discourse strategies with individual Spanish-speaking dual language learners
Person-oriented approaches can be used to identify how teachers may draw upon a combination of strategies when interacting with individual children. For nearly 1 third of children under the age of 8 who come from a household where a language other than English is spoken, it is crucial to identify patterns of teachers’ use of discourse strategies that are hypothesized as being particularly important in supporting their unique developmental strengt…
Silent expectations
Preschool teacher-child relationships and children's expressive vocabulary skills
The association of peer behavioral regulation with motor-cognitive readiness skills in preschool
Exploring Diurnal Cortisol Rhythms of Kindergarten Teachers in Kosovo and Ukraine
Teachers’ stress is a dynamic combination of the individual teacher's characteristics and characteristics of the classroom and school environment. To date, there are limited studies on teachers’ stress in the context of lower‐middle‐income countries ( LMIC s), where working conditions as well as general political and economic circumstances might pose a considerable threat for teachers’ well‐being. This study explores whether certain combinations …
Measuring early learning and development across cultures
Relatively little research has addressed whether conceptual frameworks of early learning generalize across different national contexts. This article reports on a cross-country measurement invariance analysis of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA). The IDELA is a direct assessment tool for 3- to 6-year-old children, intended to measure Early Literacy, Early Numeracy, Motor, and Social-Emotional development. Its gene…
Measuring early learning and development across cultures
Relatively little research has addressed whether conceptual frameworks of early learning generalize across different national contexts. This article reports on a cross-country measurement invariance analysis of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA). The IDELA is a direct assessment tool for 3- to 6-year-old children, intended to measure Early Literacy, Early Numeracy, Motor, and Social-Emotional development. Its gene…
Preschool teacher-child relationships and children's expressive vocabulary skills
Silent expectations
Exploring Diurnal Cortisol Rhythms of Kindergarten Teachers in Kosovo and Ukraine
Teachers’ stress is a dynamic combination of the individual teacher's characteristics and characteristics of the classroom and school environment. To date, there are limited studies on teachers’ stress in the context of lower‐middle‐income countries ( LMIC s), where working conditions as well as general political and economic circumstances might pose a considerable threat for teachers’ well‐being. This study explores whether certain combinations …
The association of peer behavioral regulation with motor-cognitive readiness skills in preschool
Exploring Diurnal Cortisol Rhythms of Kindergarten Teachers in Kosovo and Ukraine
Teachers’ stress is a dynamic combination of the individual teacher's characteristics and characteristics of the classroom and school environment. To date, there are limited studies on teachers’ stress in the context of lower‐middle‐income countries ( LMIC s), where working conditions as well as general political and economic circumstances might pose a considerable threat for teachers’ well‐being. This study explores whether certain combinations …
Measuring early learning and development across cultures
Relatively little research has addressed whether conceptual frameworks of early learning generalize across different national contexts. This article reports on a cross-country measurement invariance analysis of the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (IDELA). The IDELA is a direct assessment tool for 3- to 6-year-old children, intended to measure Early Literacy, Early Numeracy, Motor, and Social-Emotional development. Its gene…
Patterns of preschool teachers’ use of discourse strategies with individual Spanish-speaking dual language learners
Person-oriented approaches can be used to identify how teachers may draw upon a combination of strategies when interacting with individual children. For nearly 1 third of children under the age of 8 who come from a household where a language other than English is spoken, it is crucial to identify patterns of teachers’ use of discourse strategies that are hypothesized as being particularly important in supporting their unique developmental strengt…
Silent expectations
Preschool teacher-child relationships and children's expressive vocabulary skills
Measuring Preschool Teachers’ Social-emotional Practices
Research Findings: Evidence suggests that teachers are effective at improving the social and emotional readiness of low-income children. However, few measures are available to assess teachers’ use of specific social-emotional practices within their classrooms. This paper compares an observational measure of teachers’ social-emotional practices, the Adapted Teacher Style Rating Scale (TSRS), to an instrument of general classroom climate within a r…
Early Childhood Education Teacher's Beliefs about a Match in Home Language Proficiency with Emergent Bilingual Learners
Supporting immigrant caregivers during the Covid‐19 pandemic
Digital messaging programs have the potential to be a powerful, low‐cost, technological tool to support multiple facets of caregivers' knowledge, and implementation of developmentally appropriate caregiver‐child activities among diverse immigrant populations. However, involving caregivers and community stakeholders in the cultural and linguistic tailoring of interventions to optimize utilization and engagement may be critical to ensuring messagin…
Preschool Children’s Engagement and School Readiness Skills
Research Findings: The study examined the relationship between Spanish-speaking DLL children’s engagement within the preschool classroom with teachers, peers, and tasks and their school readiness skills compared to monolingual English-speaking peers. Results suggested that DLL children had lower language skills and phonological awareness by the end of the preschool year. However, children’s positive engagement with teachers mediated the relations…
Problem behaviors at the classroom-level and teacher-child interaction quality in Head Start programs
Enhancing immigrant families’ mental health through the promotion of structural and community-based support
Immigrant communities in the United States are diverse and have many assets. Yet, they often experience stressors that can undermine the mental health of residents. To fully promote mental health and well-being among immigrant communities, it is important to emphasize population-level policies and practices that may serve to mitigate stress and prevent mental health disorders. In this paper, we describe the stressors and stress experienced by imm…
Teacher’s Use of English and Spanish Interactive Strategies during Wordless Shared Book Reading
Little attention has been paid to describing the ways early childhood education (ECE) teachers implement interactive strategies and the use of Spanish and English, in real time, to support Spanish–English emergent bilingual children’s contributions to shared book reading interactions. Video recordings from 19 ECE classrooms during shared book reading were used to conduct sequential analysis to examine the different types of interactive strategies…
Tensions Between Education Policies and Standards and Educators’ Multilingual Practices
Through two case studies from India and the United States, we explore how educational policies and standards focused on multilingualism are interpreted and enacted within early childhood education classrooms. Recent education policies in both contexts are aimed at fostering culturally responsive and linguistically inclusive pedagogy for greater academic success for students whose home language(s) differs from the language of instruction. However,…
“We Do Speak Spanish … But I Do Have More Expectations for English Language Skills”
Early childhood education (ECE) teachers’ language ideologies, or their beliefs, attitudes, and knowledge toward the use of a language, play an important role in determining the quality of their classroom practices. Yet, we know very little about ECE teachers’ language ideologies within mainstream English-instruction classrooms and how they are linked to their teaching practices. This mixed-method study aims to describe ECE teachers’ classroom la…
Support, Stress and Postpartum Depression Among Chinese Immigrant Women
An exploration of languaging interactions of young Spanish-English emergent bilinguals to build social-emotional learning skills during free-play
Children’s language skills and social-emotional learning (SEL) are intricately intertwined. Early childhood education (ECE) programs are a critical context for children’s language and SEL skills. Yet, it is not understood how emergent bilingual learners, or children who are learning two languages simultaneously or sequentially, are languaging in support of their SEL skills. Within an English-instruction classroom, free-play may be a unique opport…
Psychology (16 works) · Developmental psychology (11 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (10 works) · Mathematics education (8 works) · Linguistics (5 works) · Medicine (5 works) · Pedagogy (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (5 works) · Bilingual education (4 works)