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Research Reports

Elementary ELLs

Ensuring Academic Success for English Learners

Author: Laurie Olson, UC Linguistic Minority Research Institute

Summary: This report highlights nine elements of a strong program, based on three decades of research. Recommended best practices include accessible preschool programs, support for newcomers of all ages, and a focus on English language development.

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Tags: Books and Other Reading Materials; Curriculum; Differentiated Instruction; Intervention; Language Proficiency; Motivation; Parent Involvement and Outreach / PTA; Reading;

Target Population: Preschool, Elementary, Middle, High School

Research Questions the Report Poses: What strategies or programs can educators adopt to create schools in which ELLs learn and thrive?

Findings:
A comprehensive system of schooling for ELLS includes the following nine elements:

  • High quality and accessible preschool education
  • Supports for newcomers to meet needs of transition
  • A comprehensive program of English Language development
  • A program providing full access to challenging curriculum
  • High quality instruction and materials
  • Inclusive and affirming school climate
  • Valid, comprehensive, and useful assessments
  • Strong family and community partnerships
  • Schools structured to meet the particular needs of English learners.

Policy Recommendations:

  • Invest in building a qualified educator workforce;
  • Build a meaningful accountability system for English learners;
  • Assure that educators have the materials they need to deliver high quality English Language Development;
  • Demonstrate new models of successful schools for English learners

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:

University of California

Linguistic Minority Research Institute

4722 South Hall

Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3220

Olsen, L. (2006). Ensuring Academic Success for English Learners. University of California: Linguistic Minority Research Institute.

Getting Ready for Reading: Early Phoneme Awareness and Phonics Teaching Improves Reading and Spelling in Inner-city Second Language Learners

Author: M. Stuart

Summary: Previous studies demonstrate that phoneme awareness training, particularly when combined with letter–sound teaching, results in improved reading and spelling development. This study builds upon those findings by including children learning English as a second language, who have typically been excluded from previous studies.

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Tags: Instructional Programs; Phonics; Phonological Awareness;

Target Population: Preschool, Elementary

Research Questions the Report Poses:

  • Is it possible to accelerate phonemic awareness and skills in ELL children by using a specified whole class teaching procedure ("Phonics Handbook") for 12 weeks during the first year of formal schooling?
  • If so, does this acceleration lead to more successful development of reading and spelling skills at the end of the second year at school?

Findings:

  • Early, structured, focused and rapid teaching of phoneme segmentation and blending skills and of grapheme–phoneme correspondences does accelerate development of these skills and acquisition of this knowledge in 5–year–olds, including ELLs.
  • Acquiring these skills and developing reading and writing abilities early (at beginning of formal schooling, if not before) gives students a long–term advantage in school.
  • Most children can very rapidly acquire the concepts and knowledge taught, and can do so without the necessity for small–group teaching.
  • Because the materials used here were designed by a teacher for teachers to use, the positive results demonstrate that teachers need very little training or support to use these materials to good effect.

Policy Recommendations:
None given

Stuart, M. (1999). Getting ready for reading: early phoneme awareness and phonics teaching improves reading and spelling in inner–city second language learners. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 69, 587-605.

Measures of Change: The Demography and Literacy of Adolescent English Learners

Author: Jeanne Batalova, Michael Fix, and Julie Murray / Migration Policy Institute

Summary: This report from the Migration Policy Institute examines the increasing population of ELLs. It does this by examining the ELL population and developing a profile of ELL students, examining literacy achievement on both national and state math and reading assessments, and examining state identification, testing, and accommodation policies in the following states: California, Illinois, Colorado, and North Carolina.

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Tags: Language Proficiency; Latino ELL Students; Motivation; Reading; Transfer of Literacy Skills; Vocabulary; Writing;

Target Population: Elementary, Middle, High School

Research Questions the Report Poses:

  • Who are immigrant students and students who do not speak English well?
  • Where are they from, and what is their family background (social, economic, linguistic, etc.)?
  • How well do they do in school?
  • Do their literacy levels prepare them to take part in higher education and a skilled workforce?"

Findings:

  • ELL populations are growing faster than general student populations
  • The growth of ELL populations in different states varies widely
  • Students in California are more likely to be "linguistically isolated" than students across the country or in the other three states studied
  • 57% of ELLs across the country were born in the United States
  • 70% of ELLs in grades 6-12 speak Spanish
  • NAEP data examined for 8th grade ELLs shows that only 4% and 6% of ELLs scored proficient in reading and math, respectively
  • ELLs performed radically different on state math and reading assessments from state to state
  • There is a wide achievement gap between ELL and non-ELL students on the 8th grade NAEP as well as state standardized tests
  • Former ELL students and non-ELL students scored roughly the same on NAEP and state assessments

Policy Recommendations:

  • "Reexamine whether Census data accurately capture the [ELL] population"
  • "Examine how varying state exclusion rates for ELL students affect NAEP results"
  • "Explore the literacy trajectories of former [ELL] students"
  • "Document how states vary in their testing and monitoring practices for ELL students who parents opt out of language instruction services"
  • "Leverage the research opportunities that multi-state English proficiency tests offer for analyzing ELL outcomes"

To order a hard copy of the report, contact:
http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/index.php

Batalova, J., Fix, M., and Murray, J. (2007). Measures of Change: The Demography and Literacy of Adolescent English Learners. Migration Policy Institute, Carnegie Corporation of New York: New York, NY.

Successful Bilingual Schools: Six Effective Programs in California

Author: Norm Gold. San Diego Office of Education.

Summary: The purpose of this study was to identify schools with successful bilingual education programs, and to document their success. It is not a comparative study, and was not intended to support or refute competing claims about the relative effectiveness of bilingual education compared to other approaches. Instead, the goal was to illustrate that bilingual schools are capable of providing opportunities for students to achieve and sustain high levels of academic excellence even when faced with challenges such as poverty and a lack of students' English proficiency upon entering school. The report contains six case studies. Each describes the bilingual program of a successful elementary school in California. Located in San Diego, Los Angeles and Ventura counties, all schools enrolled large numbers of Spanish–speaking English learners. The case studies were prepared over a two–year period. Achievement data was taken from state and local databases, and information was gathered from telephone interviews with principals and brief site visits. The studies describe each school and summarize demographic and achievement data. General analysis identified key implementation strategies and notable instructional and organizational features, including elements of leadership, the climate of accountability, teacher qualifications and professional development. Each school profile was compared to a summary of key organizational and instructional features identified by the research as contributing to school success.

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Tags: Bilingual Instruction; Differentiated Instruction; Language of Instruction; Placement;

Target Population: Elementary School

Research Questions the Report Poses:

  • What are the key elements of successful bilingual schools?
  • How do these six high–achieving bilingual schools implement those strategies?

Findings:
Among the features of effective schools and effective programs for English learner found in these six schools were:

  • The bilingual programs were a school-wide effort.
  • Teachers collaborated and team–taught, particularly for ELD instruction.
  • Staff demonstrated extensive language and cultural competence.
  • Staff displayed overall support for language and cultural diversity.
  • Staff demonstrated a focus on the individual student and differentiated instruction.
  • The school culture emphasized consistent monitoring of students' progress and teaching to rigorous academic standards.
  • Staff articulated rigorous expectations of staff and students.
  • Consistent leadership supported and benefited programs and instruction.
  • Staff demonstrated a focus on consistent, coherent program design.

Policy Recommendations:

  • Rather than debate the best approach for all English learners, we should improve schools by employing the most effective practices, whether using only English or with some form of bilingual instruction.
  • Staff should identify areas of strength already in place at their own school, and then decide which paradigm features schools might improve their school.
  • Additional research should be conducted, making use of the tools developed by the five–year Proposition 227 study to identify other successful schools with large proportions of English learners. Additional documentation of successful schools can counterbalance the impact of state and federal accountability systems that more often emphasize the schools that fail to perform to standards.

Gold, N. (2006) Successful Bilingual Schools: Six Effective Programs in California. San Diego, CA: San Diego County Office of Education.

Summer Reading Loss

Author: Mraz, M. and Rasinski, T.V.

Summary: Children who do not practice their reading skills during the summer often return to school in the fall reading at a lower level than when they left for summer vacation. In Summer Reading Loss, Maryann Mraz and Timothy Rasinski point out that children from low-income families are particularly at risk for summer reading loss, which serves to widen the achievement gap between these children and children from middle-class families. In this article, the authors provide a brief review of existing research on summer reading loss, and they discuss what schools and families can do to combat this problem.

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Tags: Books and Other Reading Materials; Libraries; Parent Involvement and Outreach / PTA; Reading; Struggling Readers;

Target Population: Elementary

Research Questions the Report Poses:

  • How does summer loss affect students' reading achievement?
  • Why does summer reading loss occur?
  • What can be done to curb summer reading loss?
  • What elements contribute to family literacy participation?

Findings:

  • While reading and academic gains during the school year are comparable among student groups, studies and tests show that reading loss is much more significant in low-income students, which ultimately contributes to a widening achievement gap as they progress into higher grades.
  • Summer reading loss seems to have its greatest impact on low-achieving students and at-risk students-those who can least afford to fall further behind.
  • Access to reading materials is a vital element in enhancing the reading development of children, but low-income students experience several barriers to reading at home.
  • It is not enough to simply tell parents that it is important to read to children. Parents, particularly lower socioeconomic-status parents, need concrete, specific programs, suggestions on how to participate in family literacy, and support.

Policy Recommendations:

  • Parent workshops just before summer break.
  • Schools should coordinate with the local public library for their summer reading program.
  • Required summer reading list of 3-5 proven favorites for children, with adequate access to them for all students.
  • Reading Millionaires Program
  • TV programs and movies based on books can encourage reading; Parents can turn down the volume and turn on the captions so kids have to read.
  • Use daily routines as reading activities such as cooking, web surfing, reading directions in a manual, etc.

Mraz, M. and Rasinski, T.V. (2007). Summer reading loss. The Reading Teacher, 60(8). International Reading Association. 784-789.

Teaching Literacy in English to K-5 English Learners

Author: What Works Clearinghouse; U.S. Department of Education

Summary: "Teaching Literacy in English to K-5 English Learners" discusses the importance of teaching English learners to read in English while they are developing oral proficiency, and how this helps them increase vocabulary, speak in English, and learn other subject-matter content. Specifically, it recommends and explains successful practices in 5 different areas based on solid research: assessment, small-group instruction, vocabulary instruction, academic English development, and cooperative learning.

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Tags: Comprehension; Instructional Programs; Language Proficiency; Reading; Transfer of Literacy Skills; Vocabulary;

Target Population: Elementary School

Research Questions the Report Poses: What are the best methods to teach literacy to elementary school English language learners?

Findings:

  • English learners can learn to how to read in English at about the same rate as native speakers. This was not known five or ten years ago.
  • English language development and comprehension needs to be improved, by introducing academic English as early as kindergarten or pre-K.
  • The importance of richer vocabulary instruction than most that found in conventional reading books is critical.
  • It is very productive for kids to work with their peers, and with a structured procedure, as early as kindergarten, working in groups of either two or four, assuring they know what to do.
  • The most effective professional development is for grade-level teams to meet in small groups, discuss articles, and immediate determine how they apply to their own schools and programs specifically.
  • The approach suggested here appears to work with all current models about language instruction.
  • There is no need to delay beginning reading instruction, as long as the instruction reflects current research findings.

Policy Recommendations:

  • Conduct formative assessments to screen for reading problems and monitor progress.
  • Provide intensive, small group reading interventions for English learners at risk for reading problems.
  • Provide extensive and varied vocabulary instruction throughout the day.
  • Develop academic English competence beginning in the primary grades.
  • Schedule regular peer-assisted learning opportunities, including structured language practice.

Teaching Literacy in English to K-5 English Learners. U.S. Department of Education: Doing What Works. Washington, D.C.