The purpose of this investigation was to design and test an information-eliciting question instrument in order to determine whether the structures in the verbal responses of young Mexican-American, bilingual children entering school would reveal the covert mental operations, concepts and oral language skills elicited. The basic objective was to make an in-depth study of such problems as the relationship between language and thought (how the bilingual child uses his thought as content for his language and how he uses his language to structure his thought), language interference (mixing and code-switching), and fluency. The study was therefore limited to 6 Ss (3 kindergartners and 3 first graders, including 3 boys and 3 girls, ages 6-7). The instrument consisted of 112 (56 parallel) questions in both English and Spanish. The results suggest that the instrument: (1) accounts for the language and thought components it elicited; (2) offers a different approach to the study of bilingualism in children entering school; and (3) reveals the match or mismatch between the language and thought processes already acquired by the Ss and those required for academic success with school-related tasks. In addition, the results dispel the view that a young bilingual child's initial ability or inability to experience academic success in school is primarily a language problem. (Author/CFM)