Effective Early Literacy Skill Development for Young Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners: An Experimental Study of Two Methods Jo Ann M. Farver Christopher J. Lonigan Stefanie Eppe Published in Child Development, May/June 2009, Volume 80, Number 3, Pages 703–719 Abstract -94 Spanish-speaking preschoolers were randomly assigned to receive the High/Scope Curriculum or the Literacy Express Preschool Curriculum in English only or initially in Spanish transitioning to English. -Skills were assessed before and after the intervention in Spanish and English -Children in the English only and transitional groups made significant gains in their emergency literacy skills in both English and Spanish, English only and transitional groups were equally as effective for English outcomes and only the transitional model was effective for Spanish outcomes. -Results suggest that a targeted early literacy intervention can Literature Review ELL children tend to have poor literacy outcomes, lower academic achievement, and higher grade-repetition and schooldropout rates than do their non-ELL peers (August & Hakuta, 1997). Strong evidence to suggest that the problems children experience in learning to read during the elementary years and beyond are related to the pre literacy skills that they bring with them from preschool and kindergarten (Lonigan, 2006;Lonigan, Burgess, & Anthony, 2000; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1994). Researchers identified 3 key areas that are predictive of reading ability at school-age. These skills include: ● 1.Phonological awareness (the ability to detect and manipulate sounds in oral language independent of meaning; i.e., rhyming words and blending or deleting syllables or phonemes), ● 2.Print knowledge (letter identification and understanding of basic print concepts) ● 3. Oral language (vocabulary and grammar) (Lonigan, 2006; Lonigan, Burgess, Anthony, & Barker, 1998; Lonigan, Schatschneider, & Westberg, 2007) Research Questions A. What is the impact of the literacy intervention on Spanishspeaking ELL children’s early literacy skills in Spanish and English? A. Does the impact of the literacy intervention depend on the language of instruction? The Intervention The Literacy Express Preschool Curriculum Intervention High/Scope Curriculum is the regular curriculum used for all students -focuses on Oral language, emergent literacy, basic math and science, and socio-emotional development -10 thematic units -Each unit has 3 teacher directed small group activities -Curriculum is research based and met What Works Clearinghouse evidence standards The Learners -94 Spanish-speaking ELL children -Median age was 4.5 months, 👧 43 were female 👦 51 male -10 classes in a Head Start preschool program in an inner-city neighborhood in Los Angeles. 🏙 The Groups A. Control Group: 32 students B. 31 students C. 31 Students Received the usual High/Scope Curriculum. No intervention, just regular preschool curriculum. This group received High/Scope Curriculum and the small groups from the Literacy Express in English Only The group received their High/Scope Curriculum and the small groups from Literacy Express Preschool Curriculum beginning in Spanish and then transitioning to English instruction. Methods- Procedures -Parent Questionnaires for demographics Children were assessed pre-intervention and post intervention with the Oral language, phonological awareness and print knowledge subtests of the Preschool Comprehensive Test of Phonological and Print Processing (P-CTOPP). -Pre-test occurred in 📅 October/November and post test was at the end of the school year in May/June📅. - administered by trained research assistants The subtests 🗨 Oral Language 🗣: 👂Phonological Awareness: Receptive Vocabulary (40 items)- child is shown four objects in pictures and asked to point Definitional Vocabulary(80 items)- measure a child’s single word expressive vocabulary. Child is shown a picture and asked to name and describe an important feature. Presented in groups of 3 items Word Blending and Elision, Syllable blending and Elision and sub-syllable blending and elision 📖 Print Knowledge: Picture based, multiple choice measuring letter discrimination, letter sound identifcation and letter name and concepts about print. Methods- Procedures for the Intervention -Utilized the core small group activities from the Literacy Express Preschool curriculum and then they created parallel Spanish-language versions of these activities and materials - FOUR Bilingual graduate research assistants were trained to deliver the curriculum in Spanish and English by the third author who also served as intervention supervisor -FOUR TO FIVE students at a time in small group setting, for 4 times a week for 20 The transitional group received small group intervention from the curriculum in Spanish from Midminutes November to Mid-February (at week 9) at which point they were transitioned to English instruction. The transition took place over 3-4 weeks or 12-16 sessions. The trainers reviewed each of the lessons that had been previously given in Spanish and delivered them in English. All lessons after beginning around week 14 were delivered in English. The Intervention The 3 Types of Small Group Tasks: ● 1. 🗣 Oral Language: Conversations about reading with scaffolding to work on “talking about a book” or how to tell a story. ● 2. 👂Phonological awareness- word games and manipulatives ● 3. 📖Print knowledge activities with pictures, letters and writing the alphabet All children continued to receive whatever instructional activities were part of their High/Scope curriculum in all cases. Results- Demographics have an effect? Home Language Effects Researchers found that a main effect of home language environment on the Receptive Vocabulary measures in English and Spanish and on the Definitional Vocabulary measures in English and Spanish on the pre-test. In all cases, childrens scores on the measures increased relative to their home language exposure. For example, children whose home language environments were classified as more Spanish, had higher Spanish language scores than children in the other two home language environment classifications. Pre- Test Results Post Test Results Test Scores related to National Norms Conclusions -Indicate that the emergent literacy skills of Spanish-speaking ELL preschool children can be significantly enhanced using a small-group emergent literacy intervention. -It is possible to have significant positive impacts on each of the three key domains of emergent literacy. -These results indicate even high quality traditional EC educational environments do not provide an optimal educational experience for children who are at risk of problems with acquiring reading skills. -The impact of the intervention depended some extent of the language of instruction. For English language outcomes, both English-only and transitional Spanish-English model were both effective when compared to control group. -However only the transitional group outperformed the English-only group on English Definitional Vocabulary and English Print Knowledge. Conclusions -For Spanish language outcomes, only the transitional model was effective. -Children in the English only group made substantial gains in their English language skills, they performed no worse and no better than children in the control group in their Spanish language skills. -Also, the data provided no evidence of a negative effect on children’s skills in Spanish for the English only instructional model, which is the typical the preschool environments to which these children are exposed. -Only children who had instruction in Spanish made gains in Spanish language skills. -Print knowledge skills seem to be highly related across alphabetic languages and may be more easily transferable. -This study shows no evidence for transfer of children’s phonological awareness skills from English to Spanish. That is, children who received instruction in English only did not show gains in phonological awareness skills measured in Spanish. Conclusions The Dual Language approach supports stronger Spanish-language vocabulary development at no cost to English language development at no cost to the English language development and literacy in both monolingual English and Spanishspeaking children. The results suggest that the answer to the question concerning relative benefits of language of instruction, at least for preschool children depends on the outcome. If the goal is to help children develop English language pre-literacy skills, the language of instruction as long as it includes a substantial component of English language instruction-may not be important, as both approaches were effective. However if the goal is bilingualism, then young children may need to be given direct instruction to develop their pre-literacy skills in their first language as well as in English. Connections Implications for older grades: that bridging between the two languages thoughtfully is a must to create bilingual learners. Dual Language instruction may supports stronger literacy outcomes Connection to Literacy Squared in utilizing the one language to help with the other. Providing strategic intervention in skills through intentional cross language transfer that is planned. This research showed that skills from the English instruction do not necessarily transfer back to the L1 as some research suggests. Rather having L1 instruction may transfer to the L2 of English. Like in Literacy Squared, the Spanish skills are typically more advanced than the English and are a starting point for English instruction. Discussion Questions Do you feel that language of instruction is vital in your practice? Why or why not? Were there any conclusions that surprised you?
