Project Activities
The researchers will develop and validate PALS español, a Spanish version of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) assessment. PALS español will be designed for use by teachers in kindergarten through third grade to diagnose reading difficulties and monitor progress in Spanish literacy among Spanish-speaking students to support their development of English literacy skills. The researchers will engage in several tasks to develop and validate PALS español, including item pool construction, graphic design work, and field testing to establish reliability and validity for the assessment.
Structured Abstract
Setting
Field testing will take place in schools located in Minnesota, New York, Texas, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
Sample
A minimum of 4,000 children in kindergarten through third grade (1,000 at each grade level) who speak Spanish as their first language, and their teachers.
PALS español, a valid and reliable Spanish version of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) assessment. This reading assessment will be used by teachers in kindergarten through third grade to diagnose reading difficulties and monitor progress in Spanish literacy among Spanish-speaking students in the early elementary grades to inform instruction and support development of English literacy skills.
Research design and methods
The researchers will engage in several tasks to develop and validate PALS español, including item pool construction, graphic design work, and field testing to establish reliability and concurrent and predictive validity.
Control condition
There is no control condition.
Key measures
To establish the concurrent validity of PALS español, the researchers will use teacher ratings of children's Spanish reading proficiency, the Test of Phonological Awareness in Spanish (TPAS), and the Tejas Lee: El inventorio de lectura en español de Tejas. To establish the predictive validity of PALS español, the researchers will use children's scores on the English PALS, standardized tests (e.g., the Stanford Achievement Test, 10th Edition - SAT 10), and state standards assessments in English and reading (e.g., Virginia's Standards of Learning - SOL).
Data analytic strategy
Content analysis by an expert panel and pilot-testing will be used to establish the linguistic and cultural appropriateness of the items and the clarity of the task directions, as well as potential content bias due to gender or Spanish language dialect. Item difficulty and item discrimination will be assessed to identify weak or poor-performing items (e.g., low ceiling items, items with no discrimination). The parallel forms of the test will be equated using a statistical equating procedure. Differential item functioning analyses will determine the effects of gender, geographical subgroup, and socioeconomic status. Internal consistency reliability, test/retest reliability, and inter-rater reliability will be assessed to determine the consistency of the test outcomes. A variety of validity analyses will be run, including content validity, concurrent validity, and predictive validity, as well as construct validity using factor analysis of the sub-domain structure and discriminant analysis to verify that the assessment accurately identifies students at-risk for reading difficulties in Spanish.
People and institutions involved
IES program contact(s)
Project contributors
Products and publications
Products: The products of this project will be two parallel forms of PALS español, a fully developed and validated Spanish version of the Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening (PALS) assessment for use with Spanish-speaking English language learners in kindergarten through third grade, technical manuals for both forms, a set of instructional guides for teachers (e.g., a hotline for teachers to call, online resources) to demonstrate how information gathered from PALS español can be used to inform literacy instruction and facilitate reading in English, and published reports.
Journal article, monograph, or newsletter
Ford, K., Cabell, S., Konold, T., Invernizzi, M., and Gartland, L. (2013). Diversity Among Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners: Profiles of Early Literacy Skills in Kindergarten. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 26(6): 889-912.
Ford, K.L., Invernizzi, M.A., and Huang, F. (2014). Predicting First Grade Reading Achievement for Spanish-Speaking Kindergartners: Is Early Literacy Screening in English Valid?. Literacy Research and Instruction, 53(4): 269-286.
Ford, K., Invernizzi, M., and Huang, F. (2018). The Effect of Orthographic Complexity On Spanish Spelling in Grades 1-3. Reading and Writing, 31(5), 1063-1081.
Ford, K., Invernizzi, M., and Tortorelli, L. (2012). PALS Español: Why Assess in Spanish?. Reading in Virginia: The Journal Virginia State Reading Association, 35: 35-42.
Project website:
Related projects
Questions about this project?
To answer additional questions about this project or provide feedback, please contact the program officer.
