In this dissertation, the effects of bilingual immersion curriculum versus monolingual curriculum on achievement of students in a select elementary school were examined. The researcher explored mathematical and reading achievement as measured by formative kindergarten through third grade assessments in a southeastern elementary school. Hypotheses…

Extensive research has demonstrated the importance of struggling reader identification in monolingual children Compton et al. ("Journal of Educational Psychology," 102, 327-340, 2010). However, very few studies have explored identification of struggling readers in bilinguals. The aim of this study was to investigate (1) the overlap of…

This brief report summarizes the development and psychometric properties of German reading fluency passages as compared to English reading fluency passages for immersion language learners. Results indicated that scores from German language reading fluency passages alone were (a) somewhat less reliable than scores from English publisher-developed…

The purpose of this quantitative causal-comparative study was to raise awareness of the effects of soft school closures on student reading fluency in traditional, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-related, or Dual Language Immersion (DLI) schools. There is little research on which type of school, whether traditional,…

This study investigated an emergent interaction between word reading fluency and vocabulary knowledge in the prediction of reading comprehension among French immersion students in Grades 2 and 3. A group of 66 students were tested on measures of phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming, word reading accuracy, vocabulary, word reading…

Research on the development of reading skills in bilingual students suggests that reading skills develop interdependently across languages. The current study examined the effects of a French reading fluency intervention on the French and English reading skills of three Grade 3 students attending a French immersion program using a concurrent…

Students learning to read in more than one language, or emerging biliterates, are becoming increasingly common in schools. Early screening and identification of reading difficulties may lead to better outcomes for emerging biliterates as well as monolingual English students. Oral reading fluency (ORF) is one tool shown to be both a reliable…

There have been sweeping changes in foreign language education in the United States. As the world is experiencing unprecedented globalization, knowledge of a foreign language and familiarity with other cultures have become increasingly important. Public schools are now implementing dual immersion programs to better prepare students for the…

This study investigates second language acquisition of learners enrolled in a dual language/two-way bilingual immersion program. Two groups of third-grade students participated in this study. The first group was composed of Spanish-dominant participants learning English, and the second group was composed of English-dominant students learning…

Cross-language effects on reading skills are of particular interest in the context of foreign language immersion programs. Although there is an extensive literature on cross-language effects on reading in general, research focusing on immersion students and including different dimensions of reading acquisition such as reading fluency and reading…

This study examines bi-literacy development among 60 children enrolled in an Italian-English dual language (DL) program in Southern California. Using a variety of measures including (1) oral reading fluency (ORF), (2) accuracy scores, and (3) standardized test for the assessment of reading (STAR) test's estimates of reading ability for English,…

This study examined beginning English literacy-skill development and achievement among Spanish-speaking children enrolled in state-mandated English-only classrooms. The children possessed Spanish skill at or above age-appropriate level, yet minimal English skill, and came from a Spanish-speaking community adjacent to the U.S.-Mexico border. Under…

The present study examined the relationship between children's early literacy-related abilities and their reading achievement in late elementary school in the context of a Puerto Rican community in Massachusetts. The researcher examined four years of student achievement test data from the public elementary schools of Holyoke, Massachusetts. The…

In this study, we describe two studies used to select appropriate assessments to measure phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, and fluency in the Spanish language for students receiving literacy instruction in Spanish. We first describe two studies in which we use linear regression and correlations to examine the appropriateness of different…

Will participation in a Dual-Immersion program increase students English language literacy compared to their mainstream classroom peers? Literacy scores on the DIBELS and WIDA Access were assessed over two years for 144 students to see if English Language Learners (ELL) are having more success in English literacy acquisition than their mainstream…