What Are the Best Methods

What are the best methods to use when teaching Language Arts to English Language Learners?

Lynette Shelby Question 2 RE 5710 November 22, 2005 When asked to think of a research topic, the first word that came into my mind was “Xai.” Xai is one of the students in my English as a Second Language (ESL) Language Arts inclusion class. He arrived in the United States last year as part of the last group of Hmong refugees to leave Thailand. Having never learned English before, Xai made significant progress in his language abilities through the efforts of our school’s ESL and reading intervention teachers as well as his sixth grade classroom teacher. Now that he is in the seventh grade, I was at a loss as to how to help him continue his success in reading without neglecting the other students who must take both the Reading and Writing End- of-Grade tests this spring. In fact, of the remaining students in this inclusion class, nearly one-third is classified as ESL. Many of these students’ reading abilities are significantly below those of their native English-speaking peers. Additionally, their writing abilities show poorly constructed, lackluster sentences. Faced with the challenge of all my students receiving passing scores on both of the state’s assessments is what led to the development of my question: What are the best methods to use when teaching Language Arts to English

Language Learners?

Many of today’s classrooms have a variety of ethnic groups as well as reading levels that teachers must deal with in order for her students to effectively learn how to read. It has been suggested that if students “fail to acquire literacy by second grade

[they] are likely to struggle with reading throughout their lives” (Juel, 1988). As a result, many of these at-risk readers are placed in supplemental reading programs and divided into performance groups during the school day to work on specific skills. Linan-

Thompson and Hickman-Davis (2002) wanted to analyze whether the number of students in each group affect the students’ overall reading performance.

The participants in this study were 90 students, 70 of whom were present during the entire treatment and 40 who were labeled as ELLs. These students were chosen based on teacher recommendations in addition to their performance on the Texas Primary

Reading Inventory. They were then divided into groups of one, three, or ten. Treatments were given for 58 consecutive days for 30 minutes. Each of the timed treatments was then divided into specific activities focusing on fluency, phonological awareness, instructional-level reading, word study, and spelling/writing. Student progress was assessed formally four times during the study: prior to the treatment, at the end of the treatment, four to six weeks after the treatment ended, and four months later.

Additionally, student abilities during the activities were informally assessed throughout the treatment.

Results of the study show that students made significant reading gains that were

“maintained over time” (2002). These gains were seen both in native English speakers as well as ELLs in most of the tested areas in all groups immediately after the treatment was completed. Four months later, the results remained steady with the exception of ELLs who continued to show gains in word attack abilities when they were members of the group of threes. Phoneme segmentation fluency scores continued to increase during the delayed testing for native speakers whereas EL students’ scores declined regardless of grouping.

The authors have concluded that students showed just as much growth when grouped in threes rather than one on one instruction; therefore, more students could possibly benefit from intervention services. Additionally the level of English knowledge in the ELL students was not a “factor in their ability to benefit from this type of comparison” (2002). Also all students, including ELLs, benefited from the treatment because of its systematic nature. This overall success for both native English speakers as well as ELLs could be attributed to the fact that specific skills where taught “sequentially in isolation and then practice[d] in context” (2002) and then practiced repetitively. “Finally, students had opportunities to talk about what they were learning and to engage in student-directed talk” (2002). As a result, the authors believe that this type of intervention would be beneficial to all students, regardless of native language, in order to assist them to become better readers.

It would be possible to put ELLs into small groups such as this when there are several intervention teachers available. Unfortunately in middle school, we are somewhat constrained by time making it nearly impossible to pull students for intervention without them missing any of their core subjects.

The purpose of this study, conducted by Linan-Thompson et al. (2003), was to research the effects of supplemental reading intervention paired with effective ESL practices for ELLs who were struggling with reading. When looking at the elements needed for reading instruction in monolingual students, the researchers determined four key components to be focused upon during the intervention. These components included fluency, phonological awareness, comprehension and vocabulary development, and word study. Additionally, explicit instruction of skill concepts, a variety of opportunities to practice acquired skills, and assessment of progress have been shown as effective practices with ELLs and thus included in the intervention.

Classroom teachers recommended struggling ELLs for intervention. After pre- assessment, twenty-nine students were chosen to participate. Of this number, twenty-six were available during each assessment point. Instruction was provided over fifty-eight sessions “to individual students and groups of two or three” (2003). Each session lasted for thirty minutes and activities were developed focusing on the previously identified key components. Their instructors assessed students’ progress informally during the treatment as well as formally four times during and after the intervention treatment.

Results of the study revealed that the students made significant gains on all components while participating in the intervention. During two subsequent follow-up assessments, four weeks and four months post-intervention, students continued to show gains in all target components with the exception of segmentation fluency in which the scores actually declined. The authors theorized that this decline “may be due in part to the lack of instruction in English and thus to reduced practice with English phonemes”

(2003) possibly because summer vacation occurred between the two follow-up assessments. The authors also pointed out that during the intervention, students gained an average of two words per week, twice the amount most English speaking second graders learn, which contributed to the high oral reading fluency scores. However once the intervention was completed, the participants new word knowledge fell to .50 words per week suggesting that their “oral reading fluency scores [were] linked to participation in the intervention” (2003). It should be noted that, while the participants acquired word knowledge was higher than native English speakers, “their overall reading rate was considerably lower” (2003).

The authors believe that their findings are relevant even though no control group was used during the study. By combining intervention strategies typically used with at- risk native English readers and strategies to teach ELLs, significant gains were realized.

In fact, the ELLs continued to show progress in most areas even months after the intervention was completed proving that direct, implicit intervention is worthwhile. Even though gains were seen in the study participants, I believe that the underlying suggestion for teachers is that the intervention methods need to be part of the daily lessons for ELLs. Without this constant practice, all the growth that the students initially experience will be lost due to inactivity caused by vacations or lack of practice during class time.

Over the years, the debate in bilingual education has been when to transition

ELLs to learning the English language. As a result, Gersten and Woodward (1995) decided to focus their attention to the long-term effects of two bilingual education programs, transitional bilingual education and bilingual immersion. Both of these programs have been used simultaneously in the El Paso, Texas school district. In transitional bilingual education, academic subjects are taught in the student’s primary language. The intent is, after students develop beginning literacy skills in their native language, they are gradually moved to total instruction in English no later than the fifth grade. On the other hand, “bilingual immersion involves accelerating the introduction of

English while maintaining [the native language] as a basis for conceptual development, clarification, and cultural identity” (1995). This approach exposes ELLs to English through activities using children’s literature. It is important to note that, if a student uses his native language during English only instruction, he is not punished; however, the teacher will continue to conduct the lesson or clarify concepts in English only.

In the El Paso school district, both of these programs was being used effectively thus creating the perfect location for a longitudinal study. Two hundred twenty-eight low-income students were involved, 111 in the bilingual immersion program and 117 in the transitional bilingual education. The study followed the participants’ progression of

English knowledge from the first through seventh grades and did not include those who had been retained. It should also be noted that the majority of participants, regardless of the program type, had very limited English knowledge upon entry to first grade as judged by a district-developed test. In order to measure the effectiveness of each program, the authors used three different data types. The main measurement tool was student achievement on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) in grades four through seven supplemented by responses from teacher questionnaires and student interviews. The point at which students entered mainstream classes was included as well.

Results from the ITBS show that students in the bilingual immersion program scored higher on the language portions than those who were a part of the transitional bilingual education program. However, the rate of language growth for those in the transitional bilingual program was significantly higher than participants in the bilingual immersion even though this difference decreased over time. When reviewing teacher responses to the questionnaires, the most important difference of their opinions was how successful students would be after mainstreaming. “Seventy-three percent of the bilingual immersion teachers thought that their students would succeed, whereas only

45% of transitional bilingual education teachers believed their students would succeed in subsequent years” (1995). Finally by the sixth grade, 65% of the transitional bilingual students had been mainstreamed versus 99% of the bilingual immersion students.

When analyzing the overall data, the authors concluded that there was no

“significant differences in achievement test scores by the seventh grade in all areas but reading, where the effect was small” (1995). As a result, either approach could be used effectively to instruct ELLs. It is important to note that, even though students showed some growth on the ITBS, their vocabulary and reading comprehension scores continued to be low suggesting that ELLs may be having difficulty understanding concepts in their middle school textbooks.

Based on this article, I believe that the transitional bilingual education approach would be the best for ELLs. Other research has proven that if an EL student is able to grasp the phonological aspects of their native language, then he will be able to apply this knowledge when learning how to speak and read English. The drawback however is that the majority of my EL students are Hmong which technically does not have a written language resulting in poor native language awareness. Even if I wanted my students to learn how to read in Hmong, it would be impossible to teach them using the transitional bilingual approach because there are so few teachers who can speak this language.

This study, conducted by Reid (2001), concentrated on the use of Reading

Recovery techniques with ELLs. The author was a middle school ESL teacher who had observed that while some of her students became good readers after being in the United

States for a few years, others, who had been here for at least two years, were still having difficulties reading and comprehending text. Moreover, it seemed that those who were struggling reading English the most were ones who were illiterate in their native language as well.

Reid chose six of her struggling students to participate in the study. They were then pre-assessed using Dr. Marie Clay’s Observation Survey. Over a period of seven months, students “received an individualized reading lesson from their ESL teacher or teacher aide once a week for 45 minutes” (2001). It is important to note that these lessons supplemented these students regular classroom instruction rather than replacing it. During the lessons, the instructor focused on specific reading strategies such as word families, rerunning, use of context clues, and stressing the importance of text sensibility.

A variety of reading types were used in order to foster interest and engagement in the lessons. Participants were then assessed again at the end of the study using the Word

Test section of the Observation Survey.

Results showed that all of the participants were able to correctly read a high percentage of words from the survey compared to their pre-assessment scores.

Additionally when comparing their reading scores on the Language Assessment Scales, none of the participants’ scores dropped. In fact when comparing their scores on the above test to other ESL students, three participants had a higher than average gain than the non-participants. Another important assessment factor was the students’ responses to survey questions identifying characteristics of good readers. Before the intervention began, the majority of students lacked confidence in their reading skills and abilities.

When asked the same questions again post-intervention, the students’ responses revealed their growing reading confidence.

Even though this was a smaller scale research project, it does show that Reading

Recovery techniques coupled with individualized reading strategies had a positive effect on ELLs’ reading abilities. More importantly though, the students developed a greater confidence in their own reading abilities.

This type of instruction could only be implemented in an ESL pull out program or a separate reading remediation class. With twenty-seven students in my classroom, I just do not believe that I would be able to effectively individualize instruction for everyone.

Based on experience, I do believe that the one-on-one instruction is one of the main reasons why the program was successful.

Conducted in Great Britain by Stuart (1999), this study wanted to focus on the benefits of phonological awareness and phonics instruction on young ELLs. One important variance of this study was that their own teachers rather than focusing on a small group of students taught the instructional programs to an entire class. Additionally, an assessment was given a year after the interventions were completed in order to determine the long-term impact on reading and spelling skills in ELLs. Schools chose either to use the Big Books intervention strategy or the Jolly Phonics program to teach phonological awareness and phonics skills. If the Big Books method was chosen, teachers were asked to use “imaginative and fun activities” (1999) which focused on the target letters and words for that week that were found within the text. Those teachers who chose to implement the Jolly Phonics program were given training and then asked to teach it using the provided materials.

A total of 112 five-year old students participated throughout the entire study. Of this number, 96 participants’ first language was something other than English. The intervention was conducted over twelve weeks for one hour each day. For the most part, the hour was an unbroken block of time beginning with whole group instruction. Then students were divided into groups for follow-up activities. Students were pre-tested two months prior to the intervention on “nine experimental measures of phoneme awareness, phonic knowledge, reading, and writing” (1999) in addition to nine control measures ranging from oral language to mathematical abilities. Testing was repeated two months following the intervention and one year later.

After analyzing the results of the experimental measures from all testing points, it was discovered that the participants in the Jolly Phonics group were significantly ahead of those from the Big Books program. This was especially evident at the third testing point, one year post-intervention. As a result, young ELLs who have poor vocabularies in English would benefit from an early intervention program, such as Jolly Phonics, which focuses on a “structured, rapid teaching of phoneme segmentation and blending skills” (1999) as well as the relationship between letters and their corresponding sounds.

Moreover, this study shows that these skills do not necessarily have to be taught in a small group setting since the participants in the phonics program were able to learn and retain the concepts presented to the larger group.

I agree that a phonic program would probably be the most beneficial for ELLs since they lack the fundamental basics of English letters and sounds due to the fact that

English typically is not spoken in the home. Once the basics are mastered, the EL students can be successful in reading as well as writing. I also believe that this study was significant because the participants’ native languages were something other than Spanish, which is the language that the majority of studies in the United States are focused upon.

As a result, a systematic phonics program would be successful with any language.

Here Hickman et al. (2004) presents a classroom strategy to assist ELLs in acquiring a better knowledge of vocabulary in addition to comprehending text better.

According to research conducted by McLaughlin (1987) and later Grabe (1991), “a student’s level of vocabulary knowledge has been shown [as] an important predictor of reading ability and reading comprehension”. This is especially important for ELLs who often lack an extensive vocabulary knowledge base that in turn affects their overall story comprehension.

In order to improve young ELLs' comprehension, the authors have designed a strategy that focuses on vocabulary through the reading of storybooks. Narrative or informational trade books, which capture students’ interests or follow a theme, are chosen as read-alouds. Whatever the choice, the book needs to have minimum of 200 words in order to be divided into two to four sections following the “natural flow of the story”

(2004). Vocabulary words for study are chosen from each section using the guidelines established by Beck, McKeown, and Kucan in their book Bringing Words to Life. Three

Tier 2 words, those that can be used in a variety of contexts, are chosen for study in each section.

Each read-aloud session should last about 30 minutes and follow a specific routine for the day. No matter which day it is, every session begins with an introduction of new vocabulary words by providing definitions which are constructed by the teacher using terms the students would understand. Then, the day’s passage is read with literal and inferential questions asked after the reading. Next, the passage is reread focusing on the vocabulary words and clarifying definitions that the students find difficult.

Additionally students participate in various activities to reinforce the day’s words. The next day begins with a review of the previous reading and vocabulary words then the above pattern is repeated with the new passage. The final day is devoted to an entire rereading of the book as well as activities that focus on four or five vocabulary words that were the most difficult for students to understand.

By focusing on Tier 2 words during the read-alouds, ELLs are exposed to a variety of words that are necessary to their language development. Additionally, these types of words are ones that are often found in a variety of areas; therefore, frequent exposure to them is critical for comprehension in all subjects.

For me, read-alouds of trade books is an activity that I would like to incorporate into my classroom; however, there is never enough time in a 90-minute block to do everything. I do believe that this strategy could be modified to use our literature text instead of trade books thus providing me with the necessary time. By doing this, I would help to greatly expand my ELLs vocabulary knowledge and expose them to quality short stories. Finally, I can satisfy the state requirements of question types and literary knowledge by using teacher created questions needed for each read-aloud section.

Written in three sections, this article by August et al. (2005) focuses on defining the problem of vocabulary development in ELLs, research studies on their vocabulary development, and activities that would aid in this endeavor.

When accomplished readers encounter unknown words in a text, they are able to infer its meaning by using context clues and move on without any disruption in comprehension. However, when students who are weaker readers read books above their abilities, they often become easily frustrated because the majority of words they encounter are unknown. Because of their lack of vocabulary knowledge, they are unable to use context clues to infer meaning thus creating a disruption in their comprehension (Carver, 1994). This is especially true for ELLs who, more often than not, have a vocabulary deficit, which also includes the variations of words such as synonyms/antonyms as well as multiple meanings. Without this deeper word knowledge, students are left stranded as they read.

The authors state that there have been few experimental studies concerning the teaching of vocabulary to ELLs. Some studies that the authors did find concerned cognate transfer. Cognates are words in English and another language, usually Spanish, which have similar spellings and the same definition. When ELLs are made aware of these cognates, their vocabulary knowledge increases thus creating a positive effect on reading comprehension. A second study conducted by Perez (1981) focused on various ways to instruct ELLs in vocabulary. Seventy-five Mexican-American third graders were chosen to participate in this vocabulary instruction. East treatment lasted 20 minutes a day for three months. Students were placed in one of four treatment groups each focusing on different ways to learn vocabulary. Students “were asked to complete written recalls about a social studies chapter on the second and third days of the lessons and again four weeks later [in addition to] multiple-choice vocabulary tests” (2005). It was discovered that the students whose treatment required them to create relationship maps with their vocabulary words and complete cloze statements performed better than those students in the other treatments (2005).

Finally, the authors suggested several strategies that teachers can use to expand their ELLs vocabulary knowledge. One suggested by Carlo et al. (2004) was the

Vocabulary Improvement Project (VIP), which focuses on teaching ELLs to use their cognate knowledge to infer the meanings of unknown English words. It was also noted that many of these cognates are defined as Tier 2 words according to Beck et al. (2002).

Carlo and his colleagues also suggested for teacher to directly teach basic, Tier 1 words

(Beck et al., 2002) to beginning ELLs. This instruction needs to be as concrete as possible through the use of pictures, demonstrations, or movement; however, some words, such as “love” or “friend”, just cannot easily be explained through a picture. For these types of words, teachers would need to provide a simple explanation to the students.

Finally, the authors suggest that teachers implement review and reinforcement of the target vocabulary words by using read-alouds. It is common knowledge that if vocabulary words are not used, then any student, regardless of labels, does not internalize them. As a result, activities such as “story retells, story mapping, dramatization, [or] literature logs” (2005) in which students are required to incorporate the week’s vocabulary words could be used as reinforcement.

Even though it can be challenging to select words to teach to ELLs, it is a necessary component of their reading instruction. The only way that these students will be able to catch-up with their English-speaking peers is through direct instruction of useful vocabulary words. Moreover the greater the store of vocabulary knowledge in

ELLs, the more they will be able to comprehend what they read.

Dr. Kucan trained me on how to incorporate Tier 2 words into my instruction. If done correctly, the chosen words are reviewed and reinforced throughout the week; therefore, I would not have a problem incorporating these strategies that the authors suggested. However, their suggestion of using cognates to expand vocabulary knowledge is not useful to me since the majority of my ELLs are Hmong whose language does not have any similarities to English. Vaughn et al. (2005) wanted to investigate methods to assist ELLs who are having difficulties in reading before they are classified as learning disabled. According to

August and her colleagues, many ELLs are currently being diagnosed as learning disabled when, in fact, their limitations are caused by other factors such as poor vocabulary development (2005). Since there is not much research concerning how to provide early intervention strategies for ELLs, the researchers had to look at effective interventions for native English speakers. They discovered that “effective reading interventions are systematic, explicit, and intense” (2005). Additionally, instruction in the key components of reading should be included such as “phonemic awareness, phonics and words study, fluency, writing, and comprehension strategies” (2005).

The purpose of the study was to develop interventions to be taught in either

English or Spanish, depending on the current language of instruction, in order to assist at- risk ELLs in developing their reading abilities. As a result, a four-phase intervention was designed. Phase One was the English intervention that used the Proactive Reading program (Mathes et al., 1999). This program includes “explicit phonemic awareness and phonics instruction” (2005) as well as short reinforcement activities. Phase Two included the development of additional activities to support the instructional focus of the lesson.

Included in these activities were methods proven to be effective when teaching ELLs such as the “use of visual, gestures, and facial expressions [as well as] explicit instruction in English language use” (2005). Phase Three focused on the intervention being delivered in Spanish. Lectura Proactive (Mathes et al., 2003) was designed using the same principles as Proactive Reading. “The result was a curriculum that was different in the sequence and focus of instructional content, but similar in terms of instructional design and delivery” (2005). Additionally, this instruction included strategies that would assist the Spanish ELLs when transitioning to English learning in the future. The final phase included instruction to “address language and vocabulary development needs”

(2005). This was accomplished through the use of read-alouds, broken into several passages, from which two to three new vocabulary words were chosen and focused on throughout the readings.

For the study, 105 at-risk ELLs in the first grade were chosen from several schools in Texas to participate. Sixty-four of these students were learning to read in

Spanish and therefore randomly divided in half among the comparison and intervention groups. The remaining students were learning how to read in English and also randomly assigned to a comparison group (n=19) or an intervention group (n=22). Those receiving intervention were further divided into groups of three to five and received daily instruction for fifty minutes that was provided by a tutor who was hired and trained by the researchers. The intervention lasted for approximately seven months. Pre- and post- testing was conducted using a variety of methods and tests in both languages which focused on letter naming, phonological awareness, oral language abilities, and word attack skills.

The results for those students receiving intervention in Spanish were extremely promising. These students outperformed their peers in the comparison groups on all measures except for letter naming (in Spanish) and phonological memory in which there were no differences. For ELLs who were being taught in English, the differences in testing results between the groups were not as consistent. The findings suggest that the elements of instruction that have been proven effective for at-risk native English speakers are also effective for ELLs. Both types of interventions focused on phonics instruction and word study, which has been proven a necessary component for students learning English. They also included strategies that have been shown to be effective when teaching ELLs. The researchers are currently following-up this study to discover if the early intervention better prepared ELLs for future school success.

Even though the authors did not directly state this, I believe that those students who are first taught to read in their first language outperformed those ELLs who were learning to read in English. This confirms other research which suggests that students who learn to read in their native language first will be more successful when they transition to reading in English.

While there is research on instructional practices for elementary-aged ELLs,

Klingner and Vaughn (2004) wanted to look at the researched based instructional practices for middle school ELLs. While conducting research, they noted that some researchers contend that while native language proficiency is an indicator of reading success in elementary school, oral English proficiency is the best success predictor for middle school students. This oral English proficiency occurs when ELLs can effectively use their knowledge of both English and native languages to aid in comprehension

(Jimenez et al., 1996). It has also been shown that having background knowledge of a topic is extremely important for understanding. As a result, time should be “spent previewing critical information and concepts from the text and tapping [into] related background knowledge” (2004). The importance of vocabulary acquisition was another topic that researchers believe is necessary for ELLs. Teachers cannot expect students to just pick this knowledge up on their own. In a study conducted by Zimmerman (1997), he discovered that EL students who were given explicit, interactive instruction performed better on reading tasks than those who were expected to incidentally learn vocabulary through independent reading.

After reviewing the literature, the authors turned their attention to finding effective instructional practices. The first strategy they discovered dealt with the issue of teacher questioning. Cazden (1998) has found that the post-reading question and answer period is not effective since little to no student conversation about the topic exists. As a result, he suggests that teachers should reorganize the structure of their classrooms to include more opportunities for students to discuss concepts and insights among themselves or with teacher support (1995). By doing this, students would be better able to comprehend a given topic.

Another strategy that would require a significant change in classroom structure is the Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) method. This combines cooperative learning techniques with reading comprehension strategy instruction to impact ELLs' overall reading abilities. Students are instructed on how to perform four tasks within a small group to assist with context comprehension. The first task of preview requires students to activate their prior knowledge of the subject. Next, they are instructed to click and chunk in order to monitor their own comprehension while reading and using strategies when they encounter text which does not make sense. The third task, known as get the gist, requires students to restate the main idea of the material. Finally, students are to wrap-up where they summarize knowledge learned and create questions that a teacher would ask.

The CSR method was reviewed by Klingner and Vaughn (2000) and found to be highly effective in making ELLs responsible for their learning as well as improving English vocabulary knowledge.

There were other strategies suggested by the authors that would not require such wholesale classroom changes. One is the use of mapping out vocabulary words. By creating vocabulary maps and continually adding new information or relationships, students are more able to internalize the word (Anderson and Roit, 1996). Also having teachers establish the context of a story and then asking students to make predictions is another valuable comprehension tool, especially when these predictions are later revisited for accurateness. Graves (1998) conducted a research study where he concluded that teachers who directly teach reading strategies, such as compare and contrast or finding the main idea, have ELLs who experience greater success in their reading abilities.

Finally, an often-overlooked yet simple strategy is to incorporate material from the students’ cultures into lessons. By doing this, students will have a knowledge base to draw experiences from resulting in them becoming more engaged in the reading and subsequent activities. Additionally, they will feel like the teacher and other students in the classroom value their culture.

While the authors were able to discover the above research studies and instructional practices, they acknowledge that much of it was based upon studies that target elementary students. As a result, they provide several potential issues concerning middle school ELLs that would be worthwhile to investigate so that classroom teachers can better meet the needs of their students learning to speak or better comprehend

English.

I think that their strategies are valid ones that could be implemented in ESL classrooms. This is particularly true for those that do not require teachers to drastically change their teaching methods in order to have a significant impact on their ELLs reading comprehension. I also noticed how similar some of these suggested strategies are to others that I have thus far read and reviewed.

This article, written by Hoover and Patton (2005), focused on the need to differentiate instruction for ELLs. This is especially true for those who have special needs due to a learning disability, behavior problems, or language barriers. But, what is differentiation? Gartin et al. best describes it as “using strategies that address student strengths, interests, skills, and readiness in flexible learning environments” (2002). As a result, the next question is how does a teacher adapt her classroom in order to meet the diverse needs of her students?

According to August and Hakuta, instead of looking for one program to fit everyone’s needs, teachers should look to several programs and choose the best components (1998). The result is that researchers have settled on five principles that focus on academic content, activities, and goals in order to produce effective curriculum for all types of ELLs. The authors also believe that it is important for educators to understand their students’ cultural backgrounds before deciding on any adaptations to the subject matter. These cultural considerations should include the family structure; gender responsibilities; discipline procedures; religion, health, and time issues; and traditions such as holidays (2005). Several helpful checklists are included with the article in order to guide teachers when making differentiation decisions.

Overall, I believe that the majority of these suggestions are somewhat farfetched.

While I think that it is necessary to be sensitive towards certain holidays or significant historical events related to a given culture when planning for some subjects, such as in social studies, I do no believe that these considerations should be taken into account for every single lesson planned. Instead, the main focus should be on how to best instruct the students so that maximum learning is achieved.

The idea of storytelling is one that has been around since the beginning of time.

Cultures have evolved from sitting around fires telling family or tribal stories to sitting around the dinner table, especially during gatherings, to relate many of the same stories or to create new ones. In fact, some of the most beloved stories that we read today, such as Aesop’s fables or fairytales, were originally told aloud. Recently, the use of storytelling in a classroom has been shown to improve students’ reading abilities by increasing their comprehension and vocabulary knowledge (Trostle and Hicks, 1998) as well as listening skills.

Groce decided to study if storytelling had an impact on reading abilities (2004) choosing to use teacher interviews and classroom observations as data. She first had teachers participate in a day in-service training where they learned techniques for the art of storytelling such as props, gestures, voice intonation, and vocabulary adjustments. For the stories used during the training, teachers were encouraged to share family stories as well as those from favorite books, without using the book for support. Following the training, teachers were encouraged to return to their classroom, and, with support from the author, implement the practice into their content area subjects.

The author then interviewed teachers from each subject area (Language Arts, science, social studies, and bilingual education) to evaluate the success of the implementation.

All the teachers praised the storytelling method believing that their students’ reading, and even writing, abilities improved regardless of the content area. Additionally, the bilingual teacher believed that this method provided a means for her students to practice oral literacy skills in English as well as their native language.

The author felt that one reason teachers were so willing to include more storytelling opportunities in their lessons was because of the support and feedback which was provided during the classroom observations. Overall, the inclusion of storytelling methods in content areas was an extremely effective way to increase students’ reading and writing abilities in such a way that they did not realize they were learning. Because of this engagement, students were more likely to be interested in the subject matter and retain the lesson’s concepts longer.

I think that the storytelling method offers real opportunities for classroom use. It would be similar to Reader’s Theatre in that the students would need to analyze the story in order to decide on intonation for a character or a given section. By doing this, students are able to develop greater metacognitive literacy skills. The only drawback to this method would be a teacher’s willingness to “act” in front of her students. For someone who is normally reserved, telling a story using gestures or costumes would be extremely difficult. In this case, much support and practice would need to be provided. This final research study was determining the effectiveness of collaboration between an urban school and a university to improve the reading abilities of ELLs who were either at-risk or currently labeled as Learning Disabled. It has been documented extensively how students who attend low-income urban schools have poor reading skills due to the pervasive poverty in the community as well as a lack of qualified teachers.

This is an important issue because, for those students who do not develop their reading skills early, they are much more likely to have reading difficulties throughout their educational careers. EL students are particularly prey to this fact because they must first learn the English language before they can even begin the process of learning how to read.

With this in mind, Haager and Windmueller (2001) created Project PLUS

(Partnership Linking University School Personnel) in order to reduce the number of ELLs who were at-risk for reading failure. The project’s main emphasis was on what Simmons and Kameenui (1998) call the “big ideas” of reading: phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, and text fluency. The researchers also wanted to include effective instructional practices for ELLs especially highlighting the need for vocabulary development throughout contexts. In order to implement their plan, it was decided to provide

“ongoing professional development for teachers in the form of intensive workshops followed by classroom-based coaching and consultation” (2001).

All of the participants in the study were enrolled in a largely Hispanic, urban school in which 70% of the students were classified as limited-English proficient. One hundred fifty-six first graders and 179 second graders were the focus of the study.

Additionally, seventeen teachers were included in the study in order to gauge their success in implementing the program. These teachers were provided with supplemental training in the previously mentioned “big ideas” and given a “collection of practical, hands-on strategies that [they] could implement in their classrooms with small groups or individual students” (2001) in order to improve their at-risk students’ reading abilities.

The effects of Project PLUS were analyzed according to student and teacher outcomes. Students were assessed three times during the school year using the Dynamic

Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) developed by Kaminski and Good

(1996). Results for the first grade students showed continued growth in each skill area; however, normal benchmark tasks, such as Letter Naming Fluency, were delayed.

Second grade results indicated that these students made steady progress on the Nonsense

Word Fluency portion of the test; however, their benchmark levels for Oral Reading

Fluency were significantly delayed. It is also important to note that a large group of students were well below benchmark levels for oral reading fluency in both grade levels.

The authors believe that since these students may just be learning English, they therefore did not have a strong enough knowledge base to rely upon for the assessment.

Teacher outcomes were assessed throughout the year by using monthly teacher logs, interviews, and notes collected during informal observations. After reviewing the data, researchers noted several persistent themes. One was how much the teachers saw the DIBELS assessments as tools to use when planning instruction for their at-risk students. This suggests that teachers were beginning to focus more on individual students needs thus creating a shift in teaching methods from whole group to more individual or small group instruction. Overall, the teachers were extremely positive about the entire experience. The authors believe that by providing an extensive amount of support to the participating teachers, a noticeable impact was made on the overall teaching and learning experiences throughout the school. Since many of the teachers in the study were

“emergency hires,” they needed as much support as possible in order to produce positive reading results in their at-risk ELLs. As a result, these teachers are likely to continue using the strategies they learned to assist future at-risk learners.

I believe that whenever a university can assist a struggling school with effective, useful strategies, then everyone benefits. However, in my opinion, this study was somewhat vague in describing the exact teaching strategies and activities the researchers introduced to the school. Given that the assessment results were not overwhelming positive, I would be better able to evaluate the program with more specifics about its content.

Since I teach middle school students, I first tried to find studies or best practice articles which focused on this particular age group; however, there just were not that many available. In fact, Klingner and Vaughn (2004) even stated that there is currently a lack of extensive studies concerning middle school ELLs. As a result, I believe that the information I gleaned from articles which focused on teaching methods concerning elementary level ELLs could be adaptable for my purposes. One such method suggested by Hickman et al. (2004) was using storybooks to improve reading comprehension and abilities. All students, even older ones, enjoy being read to as long as the books are on an appropriate level and are interesting. I had always assumed that teaching EL students in English was the better method in helping them learn the language. However after reading the studies by Gersten and

Woodward (1995) as well as Vaughn et al. (2005), my opinion has changed. I now understand that those students who are literate in their native language will be better able to transition into learning English because, having phoneme awareness in one language, the students has a schema to fall back on when learning another. Even though my opinion has changed, the reality that the majority of schools in our area lack the necessary personnel to teach ELLs in their native language has not. Until more of the Hmong population decides to become teachers, this shortage will continue.

The most important fact that I learned was how vocabulary instruction is they key for being successful in reading English. I had always been told by our school’s ESL teacher that teaching vocabulary was important, but she never explained why or offered suggestions on how to do it. Since almost every study that I read included the necessity of learning vocabulary in them, I now understand how this knowledge could either make or break reading comprehension. As Carver (1994) stated, if an ELL reads a book which has a high number of unknown words, then that student will not understand what he is reading resulting in frustration and disenchantment. In fact, this lack of vocabulary knowledge is one possible reason why many of my ELLs reading levels are below their

English-speaking peers.

Currently the vocabulary words that I have my students learn are those already listed in their reading book. They roughly create a concept map of these words and then we do nothing else with them until test time. However, I now intend to use more of the strategies that I learned from Dr. Kucan and Bringing Words to Life (Beck et al., 2002) in order to provide practice and reinforcement with the vocabulary words that I choose which may not necessarily be those that are listed in the text. Additionally, these words do not necessarily have to come from the reading textbook. Instead, any type of book, whether it is a content area text or storybook, can be used to find Tier 2 vocabulary words. Not only will knowledge of these types of words assist ELLs during reading, but it will help to enliven their sentences during writing activities as well.

I believe that researching this question of best practices when teaching ELLs has helped me to better understand their English learning processes. With new strategies, and some that were revisited, I now have more “tools” in my toolbox to assist EL students in becoming better readers and writers.

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