The effects of metacognitive reading strategy training on the reading performance and student reading analysis strategies of third grade Spanish dominant students

Abstract

Spanish dominant children who attend school in the United States are faced with the challenge of obtaining an education in a second language. Bilingual education programs have been developed for these children which allow for a dual language instructional approach. This dual language approach advocates the use of the student's dominant language to enrich the acquisition of a second language. Cummins (1983), Garcia (1976), and Thonis (1983) have indicated that an instructional focus on the development of dominant language literacy will have a positive impact on second language literacy. However, some educators advocate the premature placement of Spanish dominant children in classrooms where all academic subjects are taught in the second language (English). Robledo & Cortez (1983) and Goldenberg (1987) have documented that this practice sometimes decreases the English reading performance of bilingual Spanish-English children. This condition may occur because cognitive/academic literacy (Cummins, 1983) has not yet been developed. This study attempted to determine if the Spanish and English reading performance of third grade Spanish dominant students would increase following the development of metacognitive reading strategy training in their dominant language. This experimental study was limited to 95 Spanish dominant children enrolled in the Aldine Independent School District. The ITBS English reading test and the La Prueba Spanish reading test were used as a pre and post measures. Improvement in the mean scores of the experimental group following metacognitive intervention indicated improvement in the reading analysis strategies and reading performance of the children. In addition to these measures, the Burk reading interview was used to measure changes in the students' reading strategy usage in Spanish. The results of the data analysis indicated that all children who participated in the study showed improvement in the area of Spanish and English reading performance...