A study of Spanish-speaking children in the first and third grade showed that English proficiency was least fostered by reading instruction in Spanish only, followed by bilingual instruction, with those students receiving instruction in English only becoming most proficient but still far less so than their English-speaking peers. Besides differences in general proficiency, there were differences in the areas of self concept, general ability, and reading. The gap between English-speaking and Spanish-speaking narrowed by the end of third grade. In the first grade, parents' English proficiency and language preference, and number of children in the family accounted for most of the variance. By third grade, previous school experience appeared to explain the variance. (Author/JB)