Tri Means Three. A Comparative Study of Bilingual and Trilingual Methods in Third Grade Reading Achievement Scores in Texas School Districts.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare reading scores of students and school systems using the Trilingual process (public charter district) to students and school systems using the Dual Language, Bilingual, and ESL process (public school district). Participants were low socioeconomic status Grade 3 Hispanic/Latinx students. Focused in this research study were data points for low socio-economic status Grade 3 Hispanic/Latinx students in the area of Reading within Texas schools. The limited Trilingualism, or Tri-method, is generally defined to compare effective instructional practices. The data points (End of Year) includes reading data from the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) Reading measure (Texas Education Agency, 2020). Compared in this research study will be a summary based on the state curriculum standards, which are the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). The research findings will describe the scores between two school systems, one using the Dual language program, Bilingual program, and ESL program and one using the Trilingual program. In this investigation, the researcher uses an archival case study method to compare participants’ STAAR Reading test scores. This researcher also investigates the instructional methods of the Dual Language program, the Bilingual program, and the Trilingual program (Meyers, Gamst,& Guarino, 2017)