Effectiveness of a Spanish Intervention and an English Intervention for English-Language Learners at Risk for Reading Problems
Vaughn, Sharon; Cirino, Paul T.; Linan-Thompson, Sylvia; Mathes, Patricia G.; Carlson, Coleen D.; Hagan, Eisa Cardenas; Pollard-Durodola, Sharolyn D.; Fletcher, Jack M.; Francis, David J. (2006). American Educational Research Journal, v43 n3 p449-479. Retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ746822
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examining91Students, grade1
Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School
Review Details
Reviewed: April 2014
Teaching Academic Content and Literacy to English Learners in Elementary and Middle School Practice Guide- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Findings
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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100% English language learners -
Female: 46%
Male: 54% -
Ethnicity Hispanic 100%
Enhanced Proactive Reading Intervention Report - English Language Learners
Review Details
Reviewed: September 2006
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Enhanced Proactive Reading.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
English Language Composite |
Enhanced Proactive Reading vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grade 1;
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55.66 |
58.66 |
No |
-- |
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Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Woodcock-Johnson (WJ): Word Attack subtest |
Enhanced Proactive Reading vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grade 1;
|
99.92 |
94.40 |
No |
-- | |
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Word reading efficiency |
Enhanced Proactive Reading vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grade 1;
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16.93 |
12.83 |
No |
-- | |
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Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) |
Enhanced Proactive Reading vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grade 1;
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17.07 |
12.28 |
No |
-- | |
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Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills (DIBELS) |
Enhanced Proactive Reading vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grade 1;
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14.66 |
11.26 |
No |
-- | |
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Letter sound identification |
Enhanced Proactive Reading vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grade 1;
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23.02 |
21.45 |
No |
-- | |
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Woodcock-Johnson (WJ): Letter-Word Identification subtest |
Enhanced Proactive Reading vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grade 1;
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89.88 |
87.42 |
No |
-- | |
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Passage Comprehension |
Enhanced Proactive Reading vs. Business as Usual |
Posttest |
Grade 1;
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86.93 |
86.13 |
No |
-- |
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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100% English language learners -
Female: 46%
Male: 54% -
Urban
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Texas
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Ethnicity Hispanic 100%
Study Details
Setting
Four Texas schools, considered effective for bilingual students and where the population was at least 60% Hispanic, were chosen as sites for this study. Schools were located in urban or urban boundary areas. Each school’s first-grade classrooms provided core English reading instruction to English language learners using well known reading programs.
Study sample
Ninety-one Hispanic, first-grade English language learners (46% female) from 20 classrooms participating in this study were randomly assigned to the intervention or comparison group. All participants were prescreened to assess their English language ability and met two inclusion criteria: scoring below the 25th percentile for first grade on the Letter Word Identification subtest of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery; reading between zero and one word from a list of five two- to four-letter words in English and Spanish.
Intervention Group
The intervention group received Enhanced Proactive Reading from October to May. The curriculum was implemented as a supplemental reading program for low-performing students. Instruction was carried out over 120 lessons, in 50-minute sessions, to groups of three to five students (with homogeneous reading achievement). Classroom teachers taught both intervention and comparison students. The intervention was delivered by bilingual (Spanish/English) teachers in a pull-out setting. Checklists and observations were conducted and found that the intervention was delivered with acceptable fidelity.
Comparison Group
The comparison group English language learning students did not participate in the supplemental reading program but received the same core reading instruction as the intervention group. Seventy percent of comparison group students received, on average, 63.6 hours of supplemental reading instruction.
Outcome descriptions
The reading measures included various subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson battery of assessments, the Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills, and a measure of students’ ability to identify letters in the English alphabet and to provide at least one corresponding sound for each letter. The Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (composite scores and some related subtests) served as the English language development measure. Although random assignment was done at the student level and the unit of assignment matched the unit of analysis, the study authors investigated classroom-level clustering, and clustering that might have impacted findings because the intervention was delivered in small groups. In both cases, clustering did not have an impact on findings. (See Appendices A2.1 and A2.2 for more detailed descriptions of outcome measures.)
Support for implementation
Intervention teachers received 12 hours of professional development prior to implementation and six hours of professional development after the intervention had been implemented for six weeks. Teachers also participated in frequent staff development sessions and on-site coaching. Note that some teachers had previously taught the curriculum as part of the other study reviewed in this report.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
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Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).