Native Language For School Success

This paper provides insights regarding family provisions for home (native) language use as it relates to the school's perception of young children's school achievement. Teachers of young mainland Puerto Rican children nominated higher and lower achieving learners in grades K-2. Standardized achievement tests confirmed teacher nominations. Thirty families were interviewed at home where it was found that parents of higher achieving children prefer a native language environment to a greater extent man families of lower achieving children. These findings lend support for native language instruction (at home and at school) as an avenue for strengtfiening the academic school achievement of young mainland Puerto Rican children. A discussion of these findings is provided as are suggestions for future research.