The purpose of this study was to investigate Spanish-speaking multilingual learner (MLL) students' long-term academic outcomes after participation in an early childhood education (ECE) program with English instruction. The study included 359 Spanish-speaking MLLs who qualified for Free and Reduced Lunch from Grade 1 to Grade 6. Participants…

Background or Context: Dual language education aims to foster the development of bilingualism, biliteracy, sociocultural competence, and academic skills in all school subjects. Early correlational research suggests that participation in dual language education is associated with higher achievement. Recent studies leveraged more comprehensive sets…

Reading acquisition involves connections between the spoken language and the writing system. The English-language writing system holds an inconsistent alphabetic system, thus encouraging readers to develop representations between the grapheme and the word. Reading in English as a Foreign language supposes a challenge, especially when the reader's…

Purpose: This study investigated the reading profiles of middle school Spanish-speaking emergent bilinguals (EBs) with significantly below grade level reading comprehension and whether these profiles varied in their reading comprehension performance over time. Method: Latent profile analyses were used to classify Grade 6 and 7 Hispanic EBs (n =…

This annual report provides information for the 2012-13 school year on grade-level retention and student performance in the Texas public school system. Student retention and promotion data are reported with data on the performance of students in Grades 3-8 on the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) reading and mathematics…

AISD's Spanish English language learner students' (ELLs) 6th-grade TAKS reading passing rates declined from 2008 to 2011, possibly due to the increased number of Spanish ELLs who exited language programs prior to 6th grade and increasing state academic achievement standards in Spring 2010.

The Houston Independent School District offers two primary bilingual programs for Spanish-speaking English-language learners (ELLs). In both programs, students may transition into a pre-exit phase of bilingual education so long as they meet certain performance criteria. In this Pre-Exit phase, predominantly English-language instruction is used in…

The Houston Independent School District offered five different bilingual programs for language minority students during the 2012-2013 school year. In the Pre-Exit phase of bilingual education, students transition to a predominantly English-language instruction program in core subject areas. This report summarizes the performance of students who…

How well students perform on standardized tests can affect their educational paths and the rest of their lives. In addition, students' performances on state assessments will affect their schools due to the No Child Left Behind Act. For English language learners (ELLs), the success on tests may be diminished due to their inability to completely…

One way to improve struggling schools' access to effective teachers is to use selective transfer incentives. Such incentives offer bonuses for the highest-performing teachers to move into schools serving the most disadvantaged students. In this report, we provide evidence from a randomized experiment that tested whether such a policy intervention…

This article reports findings from a qualitative study of Spanish-English code-switching--or "Spanglish"--among bilingual Latina/Latino sixth graders at a middle school in East Los Angeles. Analysis of the data revealed significant parallels between the skills embedded in students' everyday use of "Spanglish" and the skills…

This report is an evaluation of "Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies," an instructional program for use in elementary school classrooms to improve student proficiency in reading and math. It was developed for use with students with diverse academic needs, including English language learners. Although other programs emphasize peer-to-peer…

"Peer Tutoring and Response Groups" aims to improve the language and achievement of English language learners by pairing or grouping students to work on a task. The students may be grouped by age or ability (English-only, bilingual, or limited English proficient) or the groups may be mixed. Both peer tutoring pairs and peer response…