Does Supplemental Instruction Support the Transition From Spanish to English Reading Instruction for First-Grade English Learners at Risk of Reading Difficulties?

Abstract

This study examines the effect of 30 min of small group explicit instruction on reading outcomes for first-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) at risk of reading difficulties. Participants were 78 ELs from seven schools who were receiving Spanish only, or Spanish and English, whole group reading instruction in first grade. Students were rank-ordered within schools and then randomly assigned to a treatment condition ( n = 39) or a comparison condition ( n = 39). Students in the treatment condition received instruction on transition elements that supported their transfer of skills from Spanish to English. Students in the comparison condition received Business as Usual instruction from a variety of commercially available programs. Findings indicated that ELs in both conditions made significant gains from pretest to posttest on all reading outcomes even though instruction in the treatment condition focused significantly more on higher order skills (i.e., vocabulary, comprehension, and transition elements) whereas instruction in the comparison condition focused significantly more on lower order skills (i.e., phonics, word work, and sentence reading). Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

Building the Oral Language of Young Hispanic Children Through Interactive Read Alouds and Vocabulary Games at Preschool and at Home

“…For example, our data did not indicate significant gains in young EL's expressive vocabulary knowledge in English as indicated in the Barnett et al (2007) study. A plausible explanation for the lack of effects in English could be that (a) our intervention was shorter and less structured than the instruction in the Barnett et al study; (b) young ELs in our study might not have reached a level of vocabulary knowledge in their native language that would allow them to transfer this knowledge to English, confirming Cummins (1979) threshold level hypothesis suggesting that bilinguals need to come to a threshold in their native language to see differences in their second language; (c) vocabulary knowledge does not transfer as easily as other skills such as phonological awareness and decoding (Baker, D. L., Burns, Kame'enui, Smolkowski, & Baker, 2015;Bialystock, Luk, & Kwan, 2005); and (d) in order for transfer between two languages to occur, young EL's English vocabulary knowledge needs to be at a certain level of proficiency (Baker, D.L., Park, & Baker, 2013;Lindsey, Manis, & Bailey, 2003). Our findings, however, corroborate the findings by Cena et al (2013), where first grade Spanish-speaking students living in the U.S. who received a vocabulary intervention in Spanish, made significant gains in their vocabulary knowledge in Spanish.…”

A Meta-Analysis of the Effect of Phonological Awareness and/or Phonics Instruction on Word and Pseudo Word Reading of English as an L2

“…A number of studies produced moderately negative effect sizes (i.e., Baker et al, 2016; Kamps et al, 2007; Solari & Gerber, 2008; Yen, 2004) that contrasted with the results presented by most other studies. There are at least two possible explanations for these somewhat unexpected results.…”

“…Yen’s (2004) study was an unpublished masters’ thesis study conducted by a novice researcher which may explain the substantial divergence of its results from those of most other peer-reviewed investigations. In the case of Baker et al (2016), Kamps et al (2007), and Solari and Gerber (2008), these studies all contained sizable numbers of at-risk learners. This relatively high proportion of at-risk learners within the sample may account for the discrepancy in their findings and those of most of the other studies in the analysis.…”

Connecting the Present to the Past

“…For example, a transitional bilingual program (TBP) can be defined as a program where students are (a) taught entirely in their L1 for 1 or 2 years, (b) taught in their L1 throughout elementary school with some English language development (ELD) instruction (Slavin & Cheung, 2005), or (c) taught in their L1 for a certain percentage of the time each day (e.g., 30%) and in English for the rest of the time. In other words, in bilingual programs, the amount of time taught in each language in each grade can vary by school, classroom, or even time of year (D. L. Baker, Burns, Kame’enui, Smolkowski, & Baker, & 2015; Umansky et al, 2015).…”

“…In other words, the impact of the transfer of beginning reading skills (e.g., phonological awareness and decoding) on more complex reading skills (e.g., comprehension) does not appear to occur naturally from one language to another. An additional RCT study, which examined the effects of an intervention focusing on transition elements intended to help ELs at risk for reading difficulties in the transition from Spanish to English skills, indicated no significant differences in reading outcomes between ELs in the transition intervention and ELs who received a business as usual intervention from the school (D. L. Baker et al, 2015).…”