Drawing upon Darvin and Norton's framework of investment, this article explores the multiple factors underlying parents' commitment to bilingual education. I use open-ended responses on a survey to report on the motivations and experiences of parents who have enrolled their child in a French-English dual language immersion program. Findings…

Dual-language immersion is an educational practice in which "literacy and content instruction" is provided in two languages at school (Howard et al., 2007, p.1). The students in these programs have been the center of many studies including student literacy development (Genesee & Jared, 2008), academic achievement (Lindholm-Leary,…

This article explores the interactional co-construction of identities among two first-grade students learning Spanish as a third language in a Spanish-English dual language classroom. Drawing on ethnographic and interactional data, the article focuses on a single interaction between these two "Spanish learners" and two of their…

In this study, we examined the bilingual language development among Korean American first-graders in two southern California cities and explored the opportunities for language use available to them in various spaces: at school (one dual language immersion school and one traditional English-only public school), at home, and in the community. Data…

This article examines the reported language ideologies and family language policies of the parents of Cantonese-English bilinguals in the U.S. in relation to their children's achievement scores in Cantonese and English. We explore the relationships first by language of instruction. Results show children in bilingual classrooms scored higher than…

This longitudinal study examined the role of oral proficiency on English reading comprehension, as measured with elicited narratives using a wordless picture book, "Frog Where are You?". The sample consisted 102 English language learners, including both Spanish and Cantonese speakers. Narrative samples were collected in the winter of…

This study of 1,338 Spanish-speaking 1st graders examined contextual effects of bilingual programs on reading comprehension and the effect of language of instruction within these contexts. The study included 128 classrooms in 32 schools located in border Texas and in urban Texas and California. These classrooms used either English immersion or…

This dissertation study describes and interprets the dialogue between Latino parents and their children during home literature conversations. The participating students were enrolled in my first and second grade classroom in East Los Angeles, California. I was guided by the following research questions in this qualitative teacher research study:…

A study assessed the effectiveness of the Success for All Program for grade-one English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners in bilingual or ESL programs in three California elementary schools. The reading instruction program provides both native (in this case, Spanish) language support as well as English language instruction and materials. The…

This lesson plan for the first grade uses information on transportation, with sub-themes of communities and careers, to provide history/social science education for limited-English-proficient (LEP) students in San Diego, California. Activities and materials from the State scholastic science kit are also used, as are songs, poems, music, and games.…

A study of three elementary school programs (bilingual multicultural; integrated English as a second language (ESL); nonintegrated ESL) for non-English-proficient Hispanic children compared grade point averages in math, reading, and language achievement test scores of first and sixth graders. Bilingual multicultural students were superior on most…