Dive Brief:
- Sustained bilingual instruction could improve academic outcomes for English learners in the early grades for both reading and math, a new one-district study from Rice University finds.
- The study looked at 1st- and 2nd-graders in Texas' Pasadena Independent School District, which began switching from transitional bilingual instruction — where students gradually transition from their home language to English-only instruction — to a sustained bilingual model, where they continue to learn in both languages, in the 2023-24 school year. Around 35% of the Houston-area district’s 46,500 students are English learners.
- Students in the new dual-language programs scored 4 percentile points higher on both reading and math than their peers who stayed in transitional bilingual classes, the study by Rice University’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research found. While 2nd-graders in transitional courses scored higher in English proficiency, the researchers suggest this is likely due to the sustained bilingual program’s intentionally slower pace for English language learning.
Dive Insight:
Pasadena ISD approached the Kinder Institute to determine how well students in its new “one-way dual language” program were performing while learning in Spanish and English simultaneously, as compared with students in the legacy transitional program, said Rice researcher Tori Thomas.
Thomas gave the district credit for carefully planning the program, putting it into place for first-time English learners, and requesting the evaluation to ensure "their choice is based on evidence-based approaches.”
The sustained bilingual model has been growing around the country, Thomas said, adding that she hasn’t sensed political pressures having an impact on that growth. “When talking to the school district, they do talk about growing pains,” she said. “The first cohort is now finishing 3rd grade.”
For other districts interested in the approach, “there will likely be initial growing pains,” Thomas said. “They’ll have to revamp the curriculum. Teachers have to learn it.”
The study makes recommendations for other districts wanting to go this route, including:
- Tap into students’ home languages and view them as an asset.
- Keep track of student composition and placement over time to monitor whether changing demographics — rather than teaching and curricular quality — explain successes.
- Intentionally communicate to families, teachers and school leaders the benefits of sustained bilingual classrooms — and the linguistic and academic assets English learners bring to schools — to ensure "perceptions of performance are not shaped by selective enrollment patterns."
