This paper draws from a broader research project and reports on literacy program supports and instructional strategies in two-way immersion (TWI) classrooms (Grades 3-5) where the partner language is Spanish. The study examined TWI classrooms in which students from multiple demographics were performing at or above the state average on reading…

Previous research on bilingual mathematics education has proposed that as children "language mathematics" they use multiple sources of meaning. In this paper, we focus on lexical inventions--bilingual children's made up words that are not formally defined or used but follow the phonology and morphology of a language--as a source of…

This quantitative, longitudinal matched pairs study determined whether elementary Spanish immersion students performed better on reading end-of-grade exams in Grades 3-5 than their non-immersion traditional peers in the same grades. African American and Hispanic students from two Spanish immersion schools in a suburban North Carolina district were…

This research uses a descriptive quantitative statistical design to examine campus-level results from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR). The focus is on describing the achievement disparities between campuses that implemented Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE) programs and those implementing Dual Language (DL)…

Success in mathematics contributes to children's future career and lifelong financial security. There have been reports that dual-language education conveys academic advantages in mathematics achievement, although there is debate. This study aimed to investigate whether dual-language education benefits children's mathematics achievement and…

This paper draws from a broader research project and reports on a qualitative case study that investigated instructional practices in grades 3-5 Two-Way Immersion (TWI) classrooms where the partner language is Spanish. Using Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) as the theoretical framework, the purpose of this study was to examine the degree to…

This quantitative causal-comparative study investigated the growth performance scores of English learners in grades three through five in reading, mathematics, and science in four English language educational programs: English as Second Language (ESL), Transitional Bilingual Education (TBE), Dual-Language Immersion (DLI), and No Services. I used…

This article reports on a study that investigated achievement in math of third and fourth grade dual language immersion (DLI) students, building on research that has demonstrated the academic achievement of students who receive content instruction predominantly in the target language. Our study expands the scope and methodology of prior research…

Language immersion programs are becoming more available as a form of school choice in both private and public education in the United States and beyond. While there is research on the benefits of immersion education regarding overall intelligence, there is still much skepticism as to why parents would place their child in an immersion program vs.…

This paper is a critical ethnography of the schooling experiences of 5 recent immigrants attending dual immersion classes in an elementary school located near El Paso, Texas where the separation of languages is a policy, and language is said to be used as a resource to motivate learning when working cooperatively (Adelman Reyes, 2007; Collier…

In this study, we present quantitative findings on the effects of English-Spanish dual language immersion on student achievement in science and mathematics in grades 3, 4, and 5. The research aims to present empirical evidence documenting the impact of dual language immersion, reveal analytical techniques utilizing nonparametric measure of similar…

As classrooms across the U.S. are becoming increasingly more multilingual and multicultural, there is a need for research that provides insight into literacy instruction that builds on students' linguistic knowledge. The qualitative study of a fourth-grade dual-language classroom examined the ways that peer mediation in Spanish and English…

Two-way immersion (TWI) programs teach English Learners (ELs) and native English speakers in the same classroom using both languages in an immersion approach. Studies suggest that TWI programs result in greater student integration, thus providing a promising alternative for Spanish speaking ELs, who are frequently concentrated in high poverty,…

Whereas most research on child second language acquisition has focused on the oral production of children, studies are needed to illuminate patterns of literacy development in a second language. This paper aims to shed some light on this process, focusing on the English writing development of a native Spanish speaker, and on the Spanish writing…

A study examined the strategies used by a fourth-grade teacher in a two-way bilingual immersion program (English/Spanish) that contributed to students' development of academic language in Spanish. Analysis of a science lesson highlighted the use of an appropriate Spanish-language textbook and the teacher's use of visual elements, repetition,…