Description:

Purpose: On the 2005 National Assessment of Educational Progress, among students who are English language learners, 4% of Grade 8 students and 5% of Grade 12 students read at or above the proficient level. In contrast, among students who are not English language learners, 32% of Grade 8 students and 37% of Grade 12 students read at or above the proficient level. Despite the evident need, very little is known about how English language learners become fluent readers at advanced levels. Although some research has been done on young students who are English language learners with beginning reading difficulties, few studies have been conducted with English language learners beyond grade 3.

In this study, researchers address this gap by studying the academic vocabulary development of middle school English language learners who are struggling to learn academic English and develop sufficient reading comprehension abilities to be successful in their content area classes. The goals of this project are to: (a) compare two interventions on the development of English (i.e., vocabulary, morphology, spelling, and reading comprehension skills) and science content knowledge in native Spanish speakers in the middle school grades; (b) determine whether the outcomes of these interventions vary as a function of amount of exposure to Spanish at home and/or school, and/or their current levels of English and Spanish oral proficiency and literacy ability; and (c) contribute to the research base on the transfer of skills from Spanish to English.

Project Activities: In Year 1, the researchers will develop and pilot test the two versions of the content-based vocabulary curriculum, focusing on words emerging from their science curriculum. The team will also develop study-specific student outcome measures and fidelity measures during Year 1. In the second and third years of the project, the researchers will conduct an experimental study with 900 native Spanish speakers in two middle schools in a school district with a high density of native Spanish speakers. For each of two cohorts, a 21-week English/Spanish vocabulary intervention will be provided to one-third of the participating students, a monolingual English vocabulary intervention will be provided to another third of the participating students, and the remaining students will serve as a control group and will continue to receive their regular instructional program. Both intervention curricula focus on the same target words drawn from the science text. In the English/Spanish curriculum, explicit connections to the Spanish equivalents of the target English words and their constituent parts are made. In the monolingual English curriculum, such connections are not explicitly made. Assessments will be administered to all students to measure baseline and posttest performance in English and Spanish vocabulary, reading, morphology, and spelling. In addition, the standardized English reading and science achievement test scores collected by the district will be used as further measures of intervention effectiveness.

Products: The expected outcomes of this study include two fully developed versions of the content-based vocabulary intervention and published reports describing the relative effects of the two instructional interventions on student outcomes.

Structured Abstract

Purpose: The goals of this project are to: (a) compare two interventions on the development of English (i.e., vocabulary, morphology, spelling, and reading comprehension skills) and science content knowledge in native Spanish speakers in the middle school grades; (b) determine whether the outcomes of these interventions vary as a function of amount of exposure to Spanish at home and/or school, and/or their current levels of English and Spanish oral proficiency and literacy ability; and (c) contribute to the research base on the transfer of skills from Spanish to English.

Setting: The study will take place in an urban school district in Connecticut.

Population: Study participants are 900 native Spanish speakers in two middle schools in a single school district. The school district has a high density of native Spanish speakers who are also from low-income homes.

Intervention: The two interventions are aimed at developing English language (i.e., vocabulary, morphology, spelling, and reading comprehension skills) and science content knowledge in native Spanish speakers in the middle school grades. Both interventions employ a balanced approach that draws equally upon meaning-making activities and structural analysis in an effort to promote both depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge. However, one intervention is cross-linguistic and draws explicit connections between English and Spanish at the lexical and morphemic levels, while the other uses English only and does not draw explicit connections across the languages. Both interventions focus on the same target words drawn from the students' science textbook. The cross-linguistic curriculum makes explicit connections to the Spanish equivalents of the target words and their constituent parts, while the monolingual English curriculum does not.

Control Condition: Students in the control condition will continue to receive their regular instructional program.

Research Design and Methods: This study employs a multisite cluster randomized trial design. Classes of students will be randomly assigned to receive the cross-linguistic intervention, the monolingual English intervention, or their regular instructional program. Randomization will occur within teachers; trained research assistants will deliver the interventions. In order to increase the total number of students and classes participating in the study, a two-cohort design will be used, with half of the students and classes being drawn from the seventh grade population in Year 2, and the other half being drawn from the seventh grade population in Year 3.

Key Measures: A general assessment of English and Spanish vocabulary and reading abilities will be conducted through the administration of relevant subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPB-R), while a more specific assessment of skills and knowledge related to the interventions will be conducted through the administration of English vocabulary, reading comprehension, morphology, and spelling assessments, as well as a Spanish cognate assessment, all developed as part of this project. In addition, the standardized English reading test scores and standardized science achievement test scores collected by the district will be used as further measures of intervention effectiveness.

Data Analytic Strategy: Multilevel modeling will be used to determine the potential effects of the interventions, taking into consideration student factors (e.g., home language and literacy exposure, language of prior schooling) and treatment condition, as well as fixed effects for teachers and schools.

Project Website: http://www.cal.org/vias/subproject4/

Products and Publications

Book chapter

Arteagoitia, I., and Howard, E. (2015). The Role of the Native Language in the Literacy Development of Latino Students in the United States. In J. Cenoz, and D. Gorter (Eds.), Multilingual Education: New Perspectives (pp. 61–83). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Journal article, monograph, or newsletter

Green, J.D., Gonzalez, E.M., López-Velásquez, A., and Howard, E.R. (2013). Hands-On Professional Development: Middle School Teachers' Experiences With a Curriculum Intervention Research Project. Middle School Journal, 45(2): 27–32.

Howard, E.R., Green, J.D., and Arteagoitia, I. (2012). Can Yu Rid Guat Ay Rot? A Developmental Investigation of Cross-Linguistic Spelling Errors Among Spanish-English Bilingual Students. Bilingual Research Journal, 35(2): 164–178.