LEP SSI Updates June 5, 2006

1. Georgina K. González Director Bilingual / ESL Education Susie Coultress Assistant Director Bilingual / ESL Education Adela Esquivel Assistant to the Directors Texas Education Agency Division of Curriculum LEP SSI Updates June 5, 2006

2. Limited English Proficient • Texas Education Code (TEC)§29.052 defines… “Student of limited English proficiency(LEP) – a student whose primary language is other than English and whose English language skills are such that the student has difficulty performing ordinary class work in English.” • The term English Language Learner (ELL) is used interchangeably with LEP.

3. Did you know...? There are a total of711,737 Identified English Language Learners (ELLs) in Texas. PEIMS, Fall 2005

4. Texas Student Profile Grades Pre K - 12 2000-2001 2004-2005 1,650,560 (41%) Hispanics 1,969,097 (45%) 1,713,436 (42%) White 1,660,392 (38%) 586,712 (14%) African Am. 623,535 (14%) 12,120 (0.3%) Native Am. 14,350 (0.3%) PEIMS

5. Texas ELL Special Language Program Participation • ELLs 711,737 • Bilingual 376,170 • ESL 280,660 • ELL Parental Denials 46,528 • Not Served 8,379 PEIMS Fall 2005

6. Major Language Groups in Texas Schools Spanish 655,074 Vietnamese 12,300 Urdu 3,476 Arabic 3,093 Korean 2,824 Mandarin Chinese 1,910 PEIMS, Fall 2005 129 languages are represented in Texas schools

7. Number Of Limited English Proficient (LEP) Students 2000-01 570,603 2001-02 601,791 2002-03 630,345 2003-04 660,707 2004-05 684,583 2005-06 711,737 Number of LEP Students School Year PEIMS

9. Texas Regions with Highest ELL Populations • Region IV (Houston) 181,503 • Region I (Edinburg) 144,371 • Region X (Dallas) 119,190 • Region XI (Ft. Worth) 60,104 • Region XIV (El Paso) 50,882 PEIMS 2005-06

10. Identification of LEP Students To identify our LEP students the Texas Administrative Code (TAC §89.1215) requires districts to include two specific questions in the home language survey presented to the parents of new incoming students to the districts: (1) "What language is spoken in your home most of the time?“ (2)  "What language does your child (do you) speak most of the time? If a language other than English is written as a response then appropriate assessments are required.

11. List of Approved Tests for Identification of LEP Students May 1, 2006 the Committee convened to review publishers and approve a new list of tests for identification, placement and exit of Bilingual/ESL students. The updated list has been provided through the listserve. http://www.tea.state.tx.us/taa/stanprog052806.html

12. Legal Requirements When is a Bilingual Program required? • Each school district which has an enrollment of 20 or more limited English proficient students (LEP) of the same language classification in the same grade level district-wide shall offer a bilingual education program for LEP students in Pre-K to grade 5 • Grade 6 shall be included when clustered with the elementary grades TAC[§89.1205 (a)]

13. Legal Requirements When is an English as a Second Language (ESL) program required? All LEP students for whom a district is not required to offer a Bilingual education program shall be provided an ESL program, regardless of the students’ grade levels and home Language, and regardless of the number of students. Texas Administrative Code (TAC) [§89.1205(d)]

14. Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC) The Language Proficiency Assessment Committee (LPAC) is responsible for: • Identifying • Processing • Annually reviewing • Exiting • Monitoring All ELL students on each campus

15. Updates to the LPAC Process Manual http://www.tea.state.tx.us/curriculum/biling/teares-lpac-processmanual.html

16. Bilingual Education and English as a Second Language (ESL) Program Models Georgina González Director of Bilingual Education Division of Curriculum Texas Education Agency March 6, 2006 http://www.tea.state.tx.us/curriculum/biling/ProgramModels-revised110304.ppt

17. News from the field of English Language Learners Research A large scale study has been completed by Dr. Claude Goldenberg and Dr. Michael Kamil of California State University Their Preliminary report reflects the following: • Primary language instruction is very important for the academic success of second language learners • Vocabulary development is a critical factor in second language literacy • Parents with low literacy will increase their personal libraries when informed of the importance of reading and book availability for their children (American Association of Publishers October 2004-Washington D.C.)

18. Best Practice for English Language Learners • Integrated Language and Content Instruction • Lessons and units that foster concept development, practice, and application • Building background knowledge by providing concrete experiences • Instruction that incorporates students’ cultures and language (Dr. Emma Violand-Sánchez, Supervisor English for Speakers of Other Languages & High Intensity Language Training Arlington Public Schools, Oct. 2004)

19. Recent Literacy development findings in Spanish-speaking ELLs • Spanish phonemic awareness, letter identification, and word reading measured in grade 2 were reliable predictors of English performance on parallel tasks at the end of grades 3 and 4 (The International Dyslexia Association quarterly newspaper August, Carlo, Calderon, and Proctor, Spring 2005)

20. Recent Literacy development findings in Spanish-speaking ELLs • Vocabulary-building activities that require students to interact meaningfully with words through writing, making personal and semantic connections, and that specifically teach word learning strategies appear to be the most promising pedagogies to increase reading comprehension. (The International Dyslexia Association quarterly newspaper August, Carlo, Calderon, and Proctor, Spring 2005)

21. Recent Literacy development findings in Spanish-speaking ELLs • L1 word reading skills transfer to L2, but children must have first language literacy in the skill for the transfer to take place; oral proficiency in the first language is not sufficient. • Vocabulary is an extremely important predictor of reading comprehension (The International Dyslexia Association quarterly newspaper August, Carlo, Calderon, and Proctor, Spring 2005)

22. Recent Literacy development findings in Spanish-speaking ELLs • Children instructed bilingually were able to achieve high levels of English and Spanish literacy. Adjusting for SES, they were at the 7.2 grade level in Spanish Broad Reading and the 5.8 grade level in English Broad Reading at the end of Grade 5. (The International Dyslexia Association quarterly newspaper August, Carlo, Calderon, and Proctor, Spring 2005)

23. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Overall Findings • Few studies examine the benefits of teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, writing, or spelling • Few use experimental or quasi-experimental research designs to come to firm conclusions about effective practices for building literacy in language minority students. • This is very different than the research situation with L1 students. • NRP identified 450 experimental/quasi-experimental studies of instruction with English-only students • NLP identified 17 such studies (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

24. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Overall Findings • In the aggregate, however, it appears that what works with native-speaker populations generally works with English-language learners. • In fact, instruction that emphasizes literacy components confers a learning advantage to English language learners. • The effect sizes for such teaching tend to be in the moderate range, meaning that its benefits are large enough to be important. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

25. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Overall Findings • Effect sizes for language minority students are lower and more variable than those for native-English speaking students, suggesting that such teaching is likely to be necessary but insufficient. • It is possible that combining high-quality instruction in the literacy components with adjustments that take into account student’s first and second language proficiency would lead to higher effect sizes. • Research is needed to test this hypothesis. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

26. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Issues for ELLs • Specific sounds and sound placement in words differ for different languages. • Phonological tasks with unknown words are more difficult. • For ELLs, unfamiliar phonemes and graphemes make decoding and spelling difficult. • For literate ELLs, English graphemes have different sounds in L1. • Limited English proficiency prevents children from using word meaning to figure out how to read a word. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

27. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: NLP Phonemic Awareness and Phonics: Research • Findings are consistent with the very solid L1 research findings-both phonemic awareness and phonics instruction confer clear benefits on children’s reading development. • There is no evidence that phonemic awareness and phonics instruction in English needs to be delayed until a certain threshold of English oral language proficiency is attained. • * Important to keep in mind issues raised in previous slide. • Helping students hear English sounds that don’t exist or are not salient in their home language is beneficial. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

28. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Fluency: Issues for ELLS • Fluency embraces both word recognition and comprehension. • ELLs often have less opportunity to read aloud in English with feedback. • There are too few studies of teaching oral reading fluency with ELLs to draw firm conclusions. • Fluency is an important factor in comprehension and comprehension training influences fluency. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

29. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Fluency: Research • Fluency training similarly benefits ELLs and English-speaking students. • Existing studies have used good English models and paired ELLs with proficient English readers. • Existing studies ensure students understand the text before they read it. • With good instruction, ELLs can meet the same benchmarks. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

30. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Vocabulary: Issues/Strengths for ELLS • ELLS arrive at school with a much more limited English vocabulary than English-speaking students. • There are many basic words that English-Speaking students know that ELLs do not. • ELLs may lack labels in English for concepts they know and have labels for in their first language. • ELLs and English speakers may have different concepts for the same label. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

31. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Vocabulary: Issues/Strengths for ELLS • There is some English vocabulary that may be especially important in comprehending connected text-cohesion markers for example—that necessitates explicit instruction. • Words with multiple meanings can be of a source of confusion. • ELLs literate in a first language that has many cognates with English have an important resource. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

32. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Vocabulary Research: Summary • Very few empirical studies • Incidental earning improved vocabulary when the oral discourse is aligned with the visual images. Students need to have some English proficiency to benefit from its intervention. • Intentional learning improves vocabulary • Recurrent exposure to novel words, • Use in meaningful contexts, • Active processing of word meanings • Explicit word analysis • (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

33. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Comprehension: Issues for ELLs • Limited word recognition skills and fluency impede comprehension. • Limited vocabulary impedes comprehension. • Structural differences between languages can mislead ELLs. • Culturally unfamiliar text is more difficult to comprehend. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

34. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Comprehension Research: Summary • Few empirical studies focused exclusively on comprehension and ELLs. • Too few studies to determine best ways to facilitate comprehension in ELLs • Unlike first language research, strategy instruction did not always help reading comprehension. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

35. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Examples of modifications to interventions based on research • Identify and clarify difficult words and passages • Pre-teach vocabulary • Paraphrase text to make it more comprehensible • Use children’s first language • Constantly monitor student’s comprehension • Ask lots of questions • Ask different levels of questions • Provide opportunities for students to practice L2 • Story retells • Written responses (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

36. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Program of Research • Oracy/Literacy Development of Spanish-Speaking Children (HD39521;$17M) • Biological and Behavioral Variation in the Language Development of Spanish-speaking Children (R305U010001;$4M • Jointly funded by • The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. • US DOE Institute of Education Sciences. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

37. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Project investigators • University of Houston • D.Francis, C.Carlson, E. Hogan, P. Crino, H. Rivera • Cal-State – Long Beach • C. Goldenberg, L. Reese, B. Sanders • Southern Methodist • P. Mahree • Temple University • A. Iglesias • University of Texas-Austin. (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

38. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Overview of Projects • Measurement • Development • Instruction • Context • Early Intervention/Prevention • Classroom Language • Functional Neuroimaging (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

39. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Central Theme: The Role of Language in Literacy Development • Identify factors and conditions under which Spanish-speaking children develop proficient literacy skills in English and in Spanish • Factors operating at different levels (child, classroom, family, school, community) account for variability in development of these skills • Explication of this variability requires systematic measurement and analysis of these factors within and between these different levels (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

40. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Sampling Frame: Language of Instruction • Structured Immersion Predominantly English instruction from beginning of school • Transitional: Early Exit Initially instruction in Spanish, with predominantly English instruction beginning after GI, but before G4 • Transitional: Late Exit Initially instruction in Spanish, with predominantly English instruction beginning after G3 • Dual Language Balance of English and Spanish language instruction is maintained at through elementary grades (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

41. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: School Selection Criteria • 40%+ Hispanic/Latino • 30%+ ELL in Kindergarten • TEA/API Rating (Acceptable+/610+_ • Language Programs: • Transition • Structured English Immersion • 2-way (dual language)(maintenance) (dbe) • 3 Regions (Urban TX; Border TX; Urban CA) (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

42. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Phonemic Awareness and Phonics: Research and Instruction • A broad research base on native speakers of alphabetic languages shows that phonological awareness is important to acquisition of literacy in all alphabetic languages (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). • As mentioned, findings from the limited research on instruction with language minorities are consistent with the very solid L1 research findings. • Phonemic awareness and phonics instruction confer clear benefits on children’s reading development (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

43. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Basis for Research • Research Questions: • To what extent is phonological awareness a single construct across languages? • To what extent is phonological awareness distinct from letter-word identification? • Motivating Perspective: • Relations among outcomes may reveal important insights, esp. across languages (multivariate) • Education is a social phenomenon in which the context may have important implications, i.e., classrooms may differ in important ways (multilevel) (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

44. David J. Francis National Reading Panel Research on Effective Instruction: Test of Phonological Processes in Spanish: TOPP-S • Sound Matching (Initial Sounds/Final Sounds) • Blending Phonemes into Words • Blending Phonemes into Non-words • Phonemes Elision • Segmenting Phonemes into Words • Segmenting Phonemes into Non-words (Texas Institute for Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics-Presentation on March 7, 2006 )

45. Performance-Based Monitoring and Interventions June 1, 2006

46. 2006 PBMAS Update • 2006 PBMAS • BE/ESL Indicators were previewed during March TETN • CTE Indicators also previewed during March TETN • NCLB Indicators were previewed during April TETN • SPED Indicators were previewed during May TETN • Other System Components will be previewed today • 2006 PBMAS Manual will be available during the summer

47. 2006 PBMAS Preview

48. 2006 PBMAS Preview

49. 2006 PBMAS Preview

50. 2006 PBMAS Preview