Book 1: Instruction and Academic Interventions

1. Book 1: Instruction and Academic Interventions Practical Guidelines for the Education ofEnglish Language Learners

2. The Center on Instruction is operated by RMC Research Corporation in partnership with the Florida Center for Reading Research at Florida StateUniversity; Horizon Research, Inc.; RG Research Group; the Texas Institute for Measurement,Evaluation, and Statistics at the University of Houston; and the VaughnGross Center for Reading and Language Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.The contents of this PowerPoint were developed under cooperative agreement S283B050034 withthe U.S. Department of Education. However, these contents do not necessarilyrepresent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should notassume endorsement by the Federal Government.2007 The Center on Instruction requests that no changes be made to the content or appearance of this product.To download a copy of this document, visit www.centeroninstruction.org

3. Practical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners Authors David J. Francis, Mabel Rivera Center on Instruction English Language Learners Strand Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics University of Houston Nonie K. Lesaux, Michael J. Kieffer Graduate School of Education Harvard University Héctor Rivera Center on Instruction English Language Learners Strand Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics University of Houston

4. Practical Guidelines for the Education of English Language Learners Research-based Recommendations for Instruction and Academic Interventions Research-based Recommendations for Serving Adolescent Newcomers Research-based Recommendations for the Use of Accommodations in Large-scale Assessments

5. Book 1: Instruction and Intervention Foreword Overview Reading Conceptual Framework Recommendations Mathematics Conceptual Framework Considerations

6. Seminal Research Reviews August, D. L., & Shanahan, T. (Eds.). (2006). Developing literacy in a second language: Report of the National Literacy Panel. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Genessee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, W. M., & Christian, D. (Eds.). (2006). Educating English language learners: A synthesis of research evidence. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

7. Instruction and Intervention: Outline Demographics Current Policies and Achievement Conceptual Framework Research-Based Recommendations for Instruction and Intervention Strategies for Effective Instruction

8. Demographics

9. Who areEnglish Language Learners? • National-origin-minority students with limited proficiency of English; • Heterogeneous; • Membership defined by limited proficiency in English language use, which directly affects learningand assessment; • Membership is expected to be temporary.

10. Frequently Used Terms Language Minority Student(LM): a child who hears and/or speaks a language other than English at home. Limited English Proficient(LEP) : an LM students whose limited command of English prevents independent participation in instruction (federal term). English Language Learner(ELL): an LM student designated locally (i.e., by the state) as limited English Proficient.

11. Identification Home survey Language proficiency tests Other input (e.g., teachers) Monitoring Language – Title III Achievement – Title I Definitions: At School Entry Language Minority Learners ELLs (or LEP) IFEP (fluent) Language Prof. Tests IFEP = Initially Fluent English Proficient Slide courtesy of N. Lesaux and M. Kieffer, Harvard Graduate School of Education

12. Language Minority Learners RFEP (reclassified) Language Prof. Tests ELLs (or LEP) IFEP Definitions: Over Time RFEP = Reclassified Fluent English Proficient Slide courtesy of N. Lesaux and M. Kieffer, Harvard Graduate School of Education

13. Spanish predominant Large population Largest growth • Largest and fastest growing ELL groups: • Students who immigrated before Kindergarten • U.S. born children of immigrants More than 400 different home languages; Spanish predominant (70%) One of the fastest-growing groups among school-aged children in U.S. More than 9 million students, roughly 5.5 million of whom are classified as Limited English Proficient (LEP) Demographics By 2015, second-generation children of immigrants are expected to be 30% of the school-aged population

14. Learning challenges ELLs face unique learning challenges: • to develop the content-related knowledge andskills defined by state standards; • while simultaneouslyacquiringa second (or third)language; • at a time when theirfirst language is not fully developed(e.g., young children); • to demonstrate their learning on assessments in English, their second language.

15. States with over 200% growth: Alabama Indiana Minnesota Oregon Arkansas Iowa Nebraska South Carolina Georgia Kansas Nevada Tennessee Idaho Kentucky North Carolina Puerto Rico ELL Growth Source: U.S. Department of Education’s Survey of the States, Limited English Proficient Students and Available Educational Programs and Services, 1991-1992 through 2000-2001. Slide courtesy of Kathleen Leos, USED.

16. ELL Performance Outcomes • Some states have begun to look at the performance of ELLs on state tests after they have gained proficiency in English. • Although some reclassified ELLs do well, many students who have lost the formal LEP designation continue to struggle with: • academic text, • content-area knowledge, and • oral language skills.

17. Current Policy and Academic Achievement

18. English Language Learnersand the No Child Left Behind Act ELLs present unique challenges to: • Teachers, • Administrators, • Assessment systems, and • Accountability systems.

19. English Language Learnersand the No Child Left Behind Act NCLB: • High standards of learning and instruction for all students; • English Language Learners one of five areas of concentration to advance student achievement; • Increased awareness of the academic needs and achievement of ELLs; • Schools, districts, and states held accountable for teaching English and content knowledge to ELLs.

20. English Language Learnersand the No Child Left Behind Act Under NCLB, state education agencies are held accountable for the progress of ELLs in two ways: • Adequate Yearly Progress(AYP) expectations for reading and mathematics under Title I, and • Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives(AMAO) under Title III, demonstrating satisfactory progress in learning English and attaining English proficiency.

21. Academic Performance Indicators for ELLs On 4th grade National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), ELLs were: • only1/4 as likely to score proficient or above in Reading as their native English speaking peers and • only 1/3 as likely to score proficient or above in Math as their native English-speaking peers.

22. Conceptual Framework: Reading

23. Guiding Principle #1 The crucial application for reading skills is to learn new concepts and develop new knowledge across a range of content areas. • Applies to all learners, not only ELLs; • Reading difficulties affect a learner’s knowledge base and vocabulary needed for text comprehension and independent writing in content areas.

24. Guiding Principle #2 To plan for effective instruction, educators must clearly understand the specific sources of difficulty or weaknesses in ELLs. Effective instruction requires careful assessment to: • identify the specific source of difficulty and • select the appropriate instructional approach or intervention.

25. Word Reading To master word reading, children must make a connection betweensounds and letters. • Learners recognize systematic relationships between phonemes and letters from already mastered patterns in order to decode unfamiliar words. Like native English speakers, 5-15 % of ELLs have difficulty acquiring sound-symbol correspondences and experience word reading difficulties. • ELLs with phonemic and phonological awareness difficulties typically also experience these difficulties in their native language. • ELLs with code-based difficulty must receive early systematic, explicit instruction.

26. Guiding Principle #3 ELLs often lack the necessary academic language for comprehending and analyzing text. • Many ELLs who struggle academically have well-developed conversational English skills. • Challenging academic language appears in higher grades’ reading materials, often long after ELLs stopped receiving special language support.

27. Academic Language:The Key to Academic Success Academic language: the vocabulary and semantics of a particular content-area literacy. • Fundamental to academic success in all domains; • A primary source of ELLs’ difficulties with academic content across grades and domains; • Often still a challenge after students achieve proficiency on state language proficiency tests; • Influences ELLs’ performance on all assessments.

28. Conversational vs. Academic Language Skills ELLs with good conversational skills often lack sufficient academic language skills to succeed in school. Research has shown that good conversational English skills may be accompanied by limited academic language skills in ELLs. The language of print differs from conversational language. • Many elementary and middle school students—ELLs, reclassified ELLs, and native English speakers—in urban schools have academic vocabulary scores below the 20th percentile. • ELLs who are considered as no longer needing support instruction in English still lack skills that enable them to understand and manipulate content vocabulary.

29. Components of Academic Language • Vocabulary used across academic disciplines: • Breadth– knowing the meanings of many words, including many words for the same, or related, concepts; • Depth– knowing multiple meanings, both common and uncommon, for a given word; • Understanding complex sentence structures and syntax typical of formal writing styles; • Written vocabulary (distinct from oral vocabulary); • Understanding the structure of argument, academic discourse, and expository texts (how to participate in a debate, or how to organize a lab report).

30. Components of Academic Language Other aspects of academic language relate to the text: • Organization of expository paragraphs; • Function of connectives (such as therefore and in contrast); • Wide range of vocabulary that appears far more often in text than in oral conversation; • Specific academic vocabulary—the words necessary to learn and talk about academic subjects (analyze, abstract, estimate, observe).

31. Why do students fail to acquire academic language? • Lack of exposure to appropriate books and to people who use academic language; • Lack of opportunities to learn and use academic language; • Lack of systematic, explicit instruction and sufficient and supportive feedback. (Scarcella, 2003)

32. What does it mean to know a word? Five Levels of Word Knowledge: • No knowledge; • General sense; • Narrow, context-bound knowledge; • Enough knowledge to understand but not enough to recall and use appropriately; • Rich, decontextualized knowledge of a word’s meaning, its relationship to other words, and metaphorical use. Students should leave high school with a working understanding of about50,000 words (Graves, 2006).

33. Guiding Principle #4 The great majority of ELLs experiencing reading difficulties struggle with skills related tofluency, vocabulary,and comprehension. Explicit instruction focused on these skills is critical.

34. Guiding Principle #5 When planning instruction and intervention, consider the function of the instruction: • Prevention—to avoid the onset of possible learning difficulties; • Augmentation—to boost skills with supplemental instruction; • Remediation—to correct existing deficiencies.

35. Intensive (1:1) 3-5% Identified/ Indicated 15-25 % AT-RISK 75-85 % MEETING BENCHMARKS Universal

36. Research-Based Recommendations for Reading Instruction and Intervention

37. ELLs need early, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonological awareness and phonics in order to build decoding skills. Recommendation #1

38. Recommendation #1 (cont’d) • Do not wait until oral language proficiency is at the same level as native peers; start early. • Carefully match the code-based intervention to the child’s source of difficulty. • These skills are highly correlated (i.e., above .9) across alphabetic languages.

39. Support Word Reading Formats for explicit, intensive, and systematic instruction and intervention in phonological awareness and phonics for ELLs: • Class-wide instruction to prevent the majority of difficulties; • Supplemental, small-group intervention for at-risk learners experiencing difficulties; and • Intensive, 1:1 remedial support for children with sustained difficulties.

40. K-12 classrooms across the nation must increase opportunities for ELLs to developsophisticated vocabulary knowledge. Recommendation #2

41. Effective Vocabulary Instruction • Explicit—direct instruction of meaning along with word-learning strategies; • Systematic—teachingwords in a logical order of difficulty and relevance; • Extensive—incorporatingvocabulary across the curriculum; and • Intensive—teachingmultiple meanings of words, relations to other words, and different forms of words.

42. Effective Vocabulary Instruction Must occur in all classrooms and be consistent with grade-level instruction: • In primary grades, read-aloud books and extended talk; • In upper elementary grades, increased academic vocabulary through texts and word-learning strategies.

43. Reading instruction in K-12 classrooms must equip ELLs with strategies and knowledge tocomprehendandanalyzechallenging narrative and expository texts. Recommendation #3

44. Strategies for Improving Comprehension • Small-group oral reading; • Small group discussion, small-group work; • Previewing to: • Generate interest in topic; • Build background knowledge; • Predicting, clarifying, and summarizing.

45. Effective Comprehension Instruction Kindergarten through 2nd grade— Instruction should focus on books that are read aloud and discussed to: • Give ELLs opportunities to develop and extend language through structured talk and • Use modeling and explicit comprehension strategies (predicting, monitoring, and summarizing). Upper Elementary grades— Focus on teaching academic language and sentence structure. Middle and High School grades— Increase variety of more sophisticated content-are texts with an emphasis on strategies for comprehension and word learning.

46. Effective Comprehension Instruction Teach students to make predictions consciouslybeforereading: • Ask students to recall what they know about the type of text to be read; • Scaffold and support discussions of predictions to help students gain understanding.

47. Effective Comprehension Instruction Teach students to monitor their understanding and ask questionsduringreading: • Ask students questions during reading to cue them to recognize when their comprehension breaks down; • Ask students to explain their processes for making meaning in order to increase opportunities to produce language.

48. Effective Reading Comprehension Teach students to summarize what they have read after the reading activity. Summarization requires the ability to synthesize information and to differentiate between more and less important information.

49. Instruction and intervention to promote ELLs’reading fluencymust focus onvocabulary development and increased exposure to print. Recommendation #4

50. Small-group Oral Reading • Students read aloud, stumble, get corrective feedback, keep going; • Student practice reading with appropriate phrasing and expression, and are able to process for meaning and understanding; • Students discuss comprehension in a group.