Date of Award

2019

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Committee Chair

Jennifer Putnam

Abstract

Demographics within U.S. public schools have seen a drastic change over the years from the ruling of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) which integrated schools to the current increase in English Language Learners (ELLs) within the classroom. The U.S. is known to be a melting pot, and the present-day classrooms are a clear example of this phenomenon; however, with the increase in demographics of the U.S. classrooms, ELLs are falling significantly behind their peers in reading achievement. Thus, this study examined the impact of traditional, dual-language, and full immersion settings on North Carolina third-grade ELLs’ proficiency in literacy as measured by third-grade reading end-of-grade (EOG) proficiency scores and North Carolina English Learner (EL) coordinator perceptions. Based on Cummins’s (1979) Linguistic Interdependence Hypothesis (LIH) theory and Gardner’s (2011) Multiple Intelligence (MI) theory, this comparative case study design examined the effect educational models had on ELLs’ reading achievement within a traditional classroom setting in comparison to a dual-language and a full immersion setting; Spanish two-way immersion and a full immersion. The results from this study concluded that the full immersion model had the greatest impact on the ELLs’ literacy proficiency per the reading EOG data obtained; however, close- and open-ended survey data showed EL Coordinators perceived the traditional classroom setting as an optimal learning environment for the subgroup.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

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