EFFECTS OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION ON READING ACHIEVEMENT (HISPANIC STUDENTS, ELEMENTARY, MAINTENANCE)
Abstract
The purpose of this longitudinal study was to determine whether bilingual education has an effect on the reading achievement of Hispanic students. The grade equivalent test scores of 92 Hispanic students on the Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, and Word Study Skills sections of the Stanford Achievement Test from grades 1-6 provided the data for testing the hypotheses of this study. The subjects were selected from five different elementary schools in a small-sized school district in the state of Indiana. They were divided into two groups--those who were enrolled in the bilingual education program and those who enrolled in the regular English-only (monolingual) program. Five major hypotheses and five related hypotheses were developed and tested with MANOVA analyses to determine the relationship between the dependent variable, reading achievement (defined as test scores on the Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, and Word Study Skills sections of the Stanford Achievement Tests), and the independent variables of treatment, gender, school, and grade. Two major findings emerged from this study. First, students enrolled in the bilingual education program did not score significantly higher on Reading Achievement; however, they did score significantly higher on reading performance in Word Study Skills than students enrolled in the monolingual program. This was not consistent for any one grade or at any one school. Second, females scored higher than males on the Word Study Skills but not on the Vocabulary measure of reading achievement. There was no difference on the Reading Comprehension measure. Although the results of this study are not conclusive, they do suggest that for purposes of achievement in reading, while Hispanic students are not unqualifiably advantaged by being enrolled in a bilingual education program, they are not unquestionably disadvantaged either.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
Curricula|Teaching
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