| dc.description.abstract | In recent years, the number of English learners (ELs) in U.S. public schools has rapidly grown, with Hispanic children accounting for more than half of Texas public school students, including pre-kindergarten and early childhood education. ELs continue to demonstrate lower reading achievement in comparison to their native English-speaking peers. Students with academic and/or linguistic achievement gaps, who do not receive early intervention, are at risk for reading failure and often continue to struggle with reading and academics. Providing evidence that research-based intervention strategies implemented with ELs can improve the necessary tools and skills to read, can attract the attention of administrators and lawmakers to put more emphasis on the support and development of academic interventions for EL students struggling to read in two languages.
This study was based on data from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) federal grant project, English Language and Literacy Acquisition-Validation (ELLA-V, PR/Award Number U411B120047) that was designed to validate the intervention components from an earlier project, English Language and Literary Acquisition (ELLA, PR/Award Number R305P030032). The present study included 76 first-grade ELs from an urban district in the Houston area, with 33 in treatment (15 girls and 18 boys) and 43 in control (25 girls and 18 boys). The study offers evidence of the efficacy of instructional interventions (Story Telling and Retelling and Higher Order Thinking for English Language and Literacy Acquisition [STELLA] and academic oral language in science [AOLS]) targeted toward improving ELs’ English literacy skills, including word recognition, letter-sound correspondence, and phonemic awareness, and therefore, overall reading ability. Treatment students received 2 years of supplemental English direct reading instruction provided by highly-trained bilingual paraprofessionals during Grades K-1, while control students received standard district-provided English as a second language (ESL) instruction.
Student test scores on the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey-Revised (WMLS-R) and the Test of Phonological Awareness (TOPA) for English phonological awareness, letter-sound correspondence, and word recognition were used to compare growth over time and to compare students across conditions using descriptive statistics and multiple regression. Students who received the treatment demonstrated statistically significant gains over time in the aforementioned reading components. | |
