Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies ETDs

Publication Date

Spring 5-25-1960

Abstract

It is felt that the bilingual population in the southwest is of significantly large enough proportions to warrant specialized emphasis on its education problems. These children need to become better comprehensive readers, not merely word-callers. Teachers frequently assume that if their pupils recognize the words of selection, comprehension is assured. Unfortunately, this is not true in many instances. There are many aspects of English language which might cause bilingual children some difficulty. A few of these might be the analogy, synonym, homonym, multiple meaning, antonym, and the idiomatic expression. This study is designed to reveal the extent which bilingual children have difficulty in understanding analogies in the English language.

The purpose of this study is to determine the efficiency of Indian and Spanish speaking children in understanding analogies in the English language. The procedure followed was: (1) to prepare to elementary tests of analogies of equal difficulty which were found in standard reading texts up to and including fourth grade reader level; (2) to administer these analogy tests to a selected sample of fourth grade children in the Albuquerque Public Schools to establish norms for comparison; (3) to compare the performance of fourth and sixth grade Indian and Spanish-American children in selected schools in New Mexico; (4) to determine the extent to which Indian and Spanish-American children as bilingual groups do not understand analogies in the English language; (5) to formulate recommendations for teaching of reading in the elementary school based on the performance of bilingual children.

Keywords

Bilingual, Elementary Education, Analogy, Analogy Testing

Document Type

Thesis

Language

English

Degree Name

Language, Literacy and Sociocultural Studies

Level of Degree

Masters

Department Name

Language, Literacy, and Sociocultural Studies

First Committee Member (Chair)

Miles V. Zintz

Second Committee Member

L. Helen Walters

Third Committee Member

Paul V. Petty

Fourth Committee Member

Jack Taylor

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