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situations with language attitudes of the community-at-large. They
believe that presently available language proficiency tests are too
narrow in scope and based on what psychologists, linguists, and
educators perceive about what children should do rather than what
children actually can do.
The assessment of language dominance is reviewed by Burt and
Dulay (1978) who stress the importance of distinguishing between
naturalistic and linguistically manipulative tasks. Measurements on
each of these tasks will result in different sets of linguistic in
formation. Pedraza and Pousada (1980) find that their ethnographic
techniques for determining language dominance revealed different
information than standardized language tests or self-report measurers.
They conclude that students labeled as alingual by measures used at
school were quite fluent in one or two languages in their home environ
ment. They emphasize that for bilinguals, labels indicating language
proficiency and dominance may be unstable descriptors that change over
time and within different social environments.
Rodriguez-Brown (1979) finds that educational treatment, instruction
in first and/or second language, is more important than language pro
ficiency. Language treatment during the instructional year plays a
significant role in reading achievement gains students evidence at the
end of the year. In this study, Spanish-speaking primary students who
entered school with different levels of English and Spanish proficiency
were given different educational treatments in reading instruction. The
students with moderate knowledge of English were provided instruction
in English and Spanish, while students who were still Spanish dominant,