A Case Study: An Investigation on Influences Affecting the Reading Levels of Bilingual Students

Abstract

This study examines the reading of native Spanish-speaking Hispanic students, focusing on any influences or factors that might impede their ability to gain competence in their target language—English. It focuses on eight students from a middle school in Rochester, NY. Four students scoring in the lower half of the Pupil Evaluation Program (PEP) test and four students scoring in the upper half were selected for examination. Each student participated in a personal interview to determine whether there are any influences that impact them in the affective domain. The study reveals four primary concerns that may impact student success, including parent/school miscommunication about the bilingual program, code-mixing in the home, parental modeling and reading instruction, and the lack of adequate Spanish reading material available to the bilingual students. In addition, the author notes that using bilingual programs to transition multi-lingual students into an exclusively English environment seems counterproductive, given the emphasis on foreign language acquisition in secondary school.