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Meaning Construction in School Literacy Tasks: A Study of Bilingual Students

State University of New York at Albany

Lilia Bartolome

San Diego State University

Olga Vasquez

University of California, San Diego

Tamara Lucas

ARC Associates, Inc

This study examined the ways in which Mexican-American students construct meaning when reading school materials. It focused on the strategies they use when reading English and Spanish, the knowledge sources they call upon, and the ways in which these relate to understanding.

Twelve fifth-grade students, all who come from bilingual homes, were asked to read both Spanish and English stories and informational pieces. Interspersed questions, post reading probes, and oral and written recalls were designed to tap their text understanding over time, as well as what they recalled after reading each piece. Interviews and school records provided background information about the students’ personal and school histories both in the United States and in Mexico.

Transcripts, fieldnotes, and student writing samples were analyzed for patterns in the students’ approaches to the construction of meaning and in their differential uses of language and genre.

Findings indicate that: (a) beyond a necessary basic, but limited knowledge of English, the students’ abilities to use good meaning-making strategies made the major difference in how well they comprehended in both Spanish and English; (b) the students’ language competence in Spanish helped them understand and respond to questions in both languages; (c) the students’ familiarity with genre affected their ability to build meanings in both languages; and (d) the kinds of questions the students were asked affected their ability to communicate what they understood.

American Educational Research Journal, Vol. 27, No. 3, 427-471 (1990)
DOI: 10.3102/00028312027003427


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