Selected Publications
Family Language & Literacy
Schick, A., Wuest, C., & Melzi, G. (2025). A new set of tools for capturing the language used by and with latine preschoolers: The index of sophisticated preschool vocabulary/Índice de vocabulario sofisticado pre-escolar. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 71, 26-34.
Halpin, E., Huancacuri, J., & Melzi, G. (2024). Exploring the Language Attitudes of Dual-Language Latine Preschoolers. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 46(3), 150-175.
Rojas, N. M., Melzi, G., & Schick, A. (2024). Teacher's Use of English and Spanish Interactive Strategies during Wordless Shared Book Reading: Relations to Emergent Bilingual Children's Responses. Education Sciences, 14(10).
Clark Whitney, E., & Melzi, G. (2023). Executive function and narrative language abilities in bilingual preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(1), 162–177. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-21-00190
Melzi, G., Prishker, N., Kawas, V., Huancacuri J. (2022). The Practices and Challenges of Raising Multilingual Children in the United States. In A. Stavans and U. Jessner (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Childhood Multilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Melzi, G., Schick, A. R., & Wuest, C. (2022). Stories beyond Books: Teacher Storytelling Supports Children’s Literacy Skills. Early Education and Development, 34(2), 485–505. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2021.2024749
Shiro, M. & Melzi, G. (2022). Desarrollo discursivo bilingüe/Bilingual discourse development. In I. Carranza, T. van Dijk, & Ferrero, C.L. (Eds). Handbook of Spanish Language Discourse Studies. London: Routledge.
Halpin, E., Prishker, N., & Melzi, G. (2021). The bilingual language diversity of Latino preschoolers: A latent profile analysis. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 52(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1044/2021_LSHSS-21-00015
Melzi, G., Schick, A. R., & Scarola, L. (2019). Literacy interventions that promote home-to-school links for ethnoculturally diverse families of young children. In A. B. Champagne, B. J. Mashburn, & D. L. Linan-Thompson (Eds.), Ethnocultural diversity and the home-to-school link (pp. 123–143). Springer.
Halpin, E., & Melzi, G. (2018). Code-switching in the narratives of dual-language Latino preschoolers. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 21(6), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050.2018.1553928
Melzi, G., & Caspe, M. (2017). Research approaches to literacy, narrative, and education. In A. K. King, Y. Lai, & S. May (Eds.), Research methods in language and education (Vol. 10, 3rd ed., pp. 17-1). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02249-9_17
Melzi, G., & Schick, A. R. (2017). Language and literacy in the school years. In J. Berko Gleason & N. Bernstein Ratner (Eds.), The development of language (9th ed.). Pearson Allyn & Bacon.
Escobar, K., Melzi, G., & Tamis-LeMonda, C. (2017). Mother and child narrative elaborations during book sharing in low-income Mexican-American dyads. Infant and Child Development, 26(6), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2029
Melzi, G., Schick, A., & Escobar, K. (2017). Early bilingualism through the looking glass: Latino preschool children's language and self-regulation skills. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 37, 93–109. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190517000083
Schick, A., Melzi, G., & Obregón, J. (2017). The bidirectional nature of narrative scaffolding: Latino caregivers’ elaboration while creating stories from a picture book. First Language, 37(3), 301–316. https://doi.org/10.1177/0142723716689692
Schick, A. R., & Melzi, G. (2015). Print-related practices in low-income Latino homes and preschoolers’ school-readiness outcomes. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 16(2), 171–198. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798415592009
McCabe, A., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., Bornstein, M. H., Brockmeyer Cates, C., Golinkoff, R., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Hoff, E., Kuchirko, Y., Melzi, G., Mendelsohn, A., Páez, M., Song, L., & Wishard Guerra, A. (2014). Multilingual children: Beyond myths and towards best practices. SRCD Policy Report, 27(4), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2379-3988.2013.tb00077.x
Melzi, G., Schick, A. R., & Bostwick, E. (2013). Érase Una Vez: Latino Family Narrative and Literacy Practices during The Preschool Years. In H. Kreider, M. Caspe, & D. B. Hiatt-Michael (Eds.), Promising practices for engaging families in literacy (pp. xx–xx). IAP Press. https://nyuscholars.nyu.edu/en/publications/erase-una-vez-latino-family-narrative-and-literacy-practices-duri
Melzi, G., Schick, A. R., & Bostwick, E. (2013). Latino children’s narrative competencies over the preschool years. Actualidades en Psicología, 27(115), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.15517/ap.v27i115.9276
Purcell‐Gates, V., Melzi, G., Najafi, B., & Orellana, M. F. (2011). Building literacy instruction from children’s sociocultural worlds. Child Development Perspectives, 5(1), 22–27.
Melzi, G., Schick, A. R., & Kennedy, J. L. (2011). Narrative elaboration and participation: Two dimensions of maternal elicitation style. Child Development, 82(4), 1282–1296.
Family STEM
Cosso, J., & Melzi, G. (2025). Numeracy engagement patterns of US Latine families. Journal of Cognition and Development, 26(1), 158–173.
Melzi, G., Montúfar Soria, P., & Mesalles, V. (2025). Latine caregiver math talk across contexts and its relation to child math outcomes. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 72, 133–142.
Swirbul, M., & Melzi, G. (2024). Family math engagement with young Latine children in the United States. Child Development Perspectives, 18(1), 3–9.
Caspe, M., Melzi, G., Mesalles, V., Prishker, N., & Alvarado, C. (2023). Latine caregivers’ approaches to engaging young children in mathematics. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2023.01.014
Haden, C. A., Melzi, G., & Callanan, M. (2023). Science in stories: Implications for Latine children's science learning through home-based language practices. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, Article 1096833. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1096833
Halpin, E., Prishker, N., & Melzi, G. (2023). The language diversity and science readiness skills of Latino preschoolers. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 54(1), 147–161. https://doi.org/10.1044/2022_LSHSS-22-00072
McWayne, C., & Melzi, G. (2023). Young children co-constructing science: The importance of their families and cultural communities. Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1002/sce.21823
Melzi, G., Mesalles, V., Caspe, M., & Prishker, N. (2022). Spatial language during a household task with bilingual Latine families. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 80, Article 101409. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2022.101409
Hornburg, C. B., Borriello, G. A., Kung, M., Lin, J., Litkowski, E., Cosso, J., Ellis, A., King, Y., Zippert, E., Cabrera, N., Davis-Kean, P., Eason, S. H., Hart, S. A., Iruka, I., LeFevre, J.-A., Simms, V., Susperreguy, M. I., Cahoon, A., Chan, W. W. L., Cheung, S. K., Coppola, M., De Smedt, B., Elliot, L., Estévez-Pérez, N., Gallagher-Mitchell, T., Gardner-Neblett, N., Gilmore, C., Leyva, D., Maloney, E. A., Manolitsis, G., Melzi, G., Mutaf-Yıldız, B., Nelson, G., Niklas, F., Pan, Y., Ramani, G. B., Skwarchuk, S.-L., Sonnenschein, S., & Purpura, D. J. (2021). Next directions in measurement of the home mathematics environment: An international and interdisciplinary perspective. Journal of Numerical Cognition, 7(2), 195–220. https://doi.org/10.5964/jnc.6143
Family-School Connections
McWayne, C. M., & Melzi, G. (2024). Immigrant children and families: Committing to cultural inclusion in early childhood education and care settings. The Educational Forum, 88(4), 492–517.
Schick, A. R., Wuest, C., Lim, R., & Melzi, G. (2023). Supporting preschool teachers’ use of culturally grounded practices: Factors that influence program fidelity. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/10901027.2023.2223143
McWayne, C., Melzi, G., Mistry, J. (2022). A home-to-school approach for promoting culturally inclusive family-school partnership research and practice. Educational Psychologist, 57, 283–251. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2022.2070752
Melzi, G., Schick, A., & Scarola, L. (2019). Intervention that promotes home-to-school links for ethnoculturally diverse families. In C. M. McWayne, F. Doucet, & S. M. Sheridan (Eds.), Research on family-school partnerships: Understanding ethnocultural diversity and the home-to-school link (pp. 119–135). New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14957-4_8
McWayne, C., Foster, B., & Melzi, G. (2018). Culturally embedded measurement of low-income Latino caregivers’ engagement in preschool: A tale of two forms of engagement. Early Education & Development, 2(4), 540–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2018.1442094
Melzi, G., Schick, A., & Scarola, L. (2018). Building bridges between home and school for Latinx families of preschool children. In J. K. Adair & F. Doucet (Eds.), Supporting young children of immigrants in PreK-3 [Special Issue]. Bank Street Occasional Papers Series, 39, 1–20. https://educate.bankstreet.edu/occasional-paper-series/vol2018/iss39/10
McWayne, C. M., Melzi, G., Limlingan, M. C., & Schick, A. (2016). Ecocultural patterns of family engagement among low-income Latino families of preschool children. Developmental Psychology, 52(7), 1088–1098. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0040343
McWayne, C. M., Melzi, G. (2014). Validation of a culture-contextualized measure of family engagement in the early learning of low-income Latino children. Journal of Family Psychology, 28(2), 260–266. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036167
McWayne, C., Melzi, G., Schick, A. R., Kennedy, J., & Mundt, K. (2013). Defining family engagement among Latino Head Start parents: A mixed-methods measurement development study. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 28, 593–607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.03.008
Latine Family Processes
Melzi, G., McWayne, C., Prishker, N., & Segovia, J. (2023). Por los niños: Latine caregivers’ reflections on parenting in the context of immigration. Journal of Latinos and education, 22(4), 1407-1426.
Ochoa, W., McWayne, C. M., & Melzi, G. (2023). Parenting while Latine: Bicultural socialization values and practices in support of preschool children’s well-being. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 32(12), 3999-4014.