Data-Based Instructional Decision Making for English Language Learners

1. Data-Based Instructional Decision Making forEnglish Language Learners Mabel O. Rivera, Ph.D. Magdalena Fernandez, MBA

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.2009 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. Identification Home survey Language proficiency tests Other input (e.g., teachers) Initial Classification: At school entry Language Minority Learners Language Minority Learners ELLs (or LEP) IFEP Language Prof. Tests IFEP = Initially Fluent English Proficient Slide courtesy of N. Lesaux and M. Kieffer, Harvard Graduate School of Education

4. Classification Over time Monitoring Language – Title III Achievement – Title I Language Minority Learners Language Minority Learners RFEP Membership is not static. As students become proficient in English, they lose their ELL/LEP designation. ELLs (or LEP) Language Prof. Tests IFEP RFEP = Reclassified Fluent English Proficient Slide courtesy of N. Lesaux and M. Kieffer, Harvard Graduate School of Education

5. 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, Mathematics, and Science under Title I, and • Annual Measurable Achievement Objectives(AMAOs) under Title III, demonstrating satisfactory progress in learning English and attaining English proficiency.

6. Audience Poll • Do you work directly with ELLs? • Yes • No

7. 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 • oral language skills Issue: The current model of LEP designation does not provide support to ELLs who are dismissed

8. Learning challenges • ELLs face a unique set of learning challenges: • to develop the content-related knowledge andskills defined by state standards • while simultaneously acquiringa second (or third)language • at a time when their first language is not fully developed(e.g., young children) • to demonstrate their learning on an assessment in English, their second language

9. Yes No Language Proficiency Assessment (listening, speaking, reading and writing) Norm-Referenced Standardized Achievement Test No Language Proficiency Assessment necessary High Medium / Low No further evaluation needed ELL School-based Committee Admission Form, Parent/Tutor Survey, Teacher Referral Student speaks/hears a language other than English at home? Progress Monitoring Classroom Placement Instructional Guidelines Assessment Guidelines Accommodations Bilingual Program English-only Program Interventions Teachers’ Data Driven Decisions

10. When planning for instruction… • Consider the following questions when the student starts school…. • How long has the student been receiving formal instruction in English? In the native language? • What is his/her English proficiency level? • How different is the student’s native language alphabet from English?

11. When planning for instruction… • Consider the level of transferability between L1 and English • Depending on their proficiency level, ELLs draw on a host of linguistic, metacognitive, and experiential resources from their L1 • Reading skills • well developed reading skills transfer from L1 to L2 Ex: inference from text, monitoring comprehension • Concept knowledge • well developed schemas only need a transfer of label from L1 to L2

12. Degree of Transferability • Depends upon: • The proficiency of native language skills • The degree of overlap in the oral and written characteristics of the native and second language • Type of language (alphabetic, logographic, etc.) • Similar orthographies • Overlap in sound-symbol correspondence

13. Audience Poll • For those who are teachers, are your students proficient in their L1? • Yes • No

14. When planning for instruction… • Consider the following questions during the school year and successive years: • What are the student’s specific areas of difficulty or weakness? • Does the student have difficulties in most academic areas? • Has the student ever received supplemental or targeted instruction in the area of difficulty? • Does the student display specific strengths in the area(s) of difficulty?

15. Curricular design and instruction of ELLs must follow the principles of differentiated instruction Decisions about how instruction is delivered must be guided by the student’s needs (progress monitoring data) Individual differences have a significant relationship with literacy development Accommodations and interventions should be provided as necessary depending on the student’s response to instruction Principles for instruction of ELLs

16. Effective Classroom Instruction • Begins with systematic assessment of students’ strengths and needs, as well as ongoing monitoring of students’ progress • Use an effective assessment system that focuses on multiple skills and includes different sources of information: • Diverse sources of data should identify difficulties as well as strengths, monitor progress, and measure outcomes • Maintain a balance in order not to “over-test”

17. Progress Monitoring • Systematic classroom-based evaluation methods: • Direct observation • Teacher-student conferences • Student journals • Writing samples • Records of oral reading • Teacher-made tests • Published formative assessment tests

18. Formative Assessment (Texas) • Academic achievement • Terra Nova CAT/CTBS • Iowa Test of Basic Skills/Educational Development • Stanford Achievement Test Scores below 40th percentile on Reading and Language Arts indicate a limited English proficiency Note: The 2008 List of Approved Tests for Assessment of LEP Students can be accessed from: http://www.tea.state.tx.us/curriculum/biling/leptests.html

19. During Progress Monitoring • What should I look for in my ELL students? • Some ELLs struggle in Reading as they show…. • Difficulty with decoding and phonological awareness skills • Which would affect word reading skills • Lack of depth and breath of academic vocabulary • Reading comprehension problems

20. During Progress Monitoring • Some ELLs struggle in Math and other content areas as they show… • Lack of conceptual understanding • Gaps in procedural fluency • Difficulties related to adaptive reasoning • Problems carrying out procedures • Lack of productive disposition

21. ELL-Responsive Accommodations Appropriate accommodations for ELLs should provide linguistic support to minimize the cognitive demands of text and assessment instruments that are not related to the content being tested (Acosta, Rivera, & Shafer Willner, 2008) Testing accommodations should always match accommodations provided during regular instruction. Students should be familiar with the process or the accommodation may actually increase cognitive demands.

22. Research-Based Recommendations for Instruction and Intervention

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

24. Recommendation #1 (cont’d) Early, explicit, and intensive instruction in phonological awareness and phonics: • Do not wait until oral language proficiency is at the same level as native peers; start early • Need a close match between the child’s source of difficulty and the code-based intervention • PA and Ph are highly correlated across alphabetic languages (i.e., correlations above .9)

25. Supporting word reading acquisition • 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 • Intensive, 1:1 remedial support for children with sustained difficulties

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

27. What we know… • Frequent and explicit vocabulary instruction is necessary for ELLs. • Vocabulary instruction, while varied in nature and quantity, on average does not receive adequate instructional attention. • Study example: • 5-10% of reading instructional time was devoted to vocabulary development. • Instruction focused more frequently on labels and definitions. • Repeated exposure to new and familiar words is important for students to learn and remember word meanings. • Students need 12-14 meaningful exposures to a word and its meaning, in multiple contexts (text, discussion, writing, etc.).

28. Effective Vocabulary Instruction • Explicit – direct instruction of meaning along with word-learning strategies; • Systematic – teaching words in a logical order of difficulty and relevance; • Extensive – incorporating vocabulary across the curriculum; and • Intensive – teaching multiple meanings of words, relations to other words, and different forms of words

29. Effective Vocabulary Instruction • Must occur in all classrooms and be consistent with grade level instruction • Read-aloud books and extended, structured, scaffolded talk • Increase academic vocabulary through texts and word-learning strategies

30. Effective Vocabulary Instruction Instruction should address learning: • definition • multiple meanings of words • word parts • how words relate to one another • about words in multiple contexts • strategies that allow for independent word learning • Francis, 2006

31. Native Language as a Resource • Research has shown that instruction on the cross-linguistic relationships between words is beneficial for ELLs. • This involves: • making students aware of the similarities between words in the two languages. • making students aware of words that are cognates • words that are spelled alike and have similar meanings in two languages

32. Cognates • Words in two languages that are spelled similarly and share a similar meaning. • 60% of the English language is derived from Latin • 30% of words in English are cognates with Spanish • Many commonly encountered prefixes are cognates. • Some, but fewer, suffixes are also cognates. • Many of the root words in the two languages are cognates. • Students can be taught to use cognates as early as preschool.

33. Cognates and False Cognates: Word Sorts • Give students cards with cognates - one set with English and one with Spanish. • Task 1: Sort words into cognate pairs • Task 2: Circle the differences in the words • Task 3: Discuss differences in spelling, word parts, pronunciation, etc. • Variation: • Introduce students to the concept of false cognates and provide examples (e.g., pie). Include false cognates as well as cognates.

34. actual alfabeto calendario largo general minuto pie actual alphabet calendar large general minute pie

35. actual (real) alphabet calendar large (big) general minute pie (dessert with filling in a shell) actual (present) alfabeto calendario largo (length) general minuto pie (foot)

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

37. Comprehension instruction tends to be uni-directional – focusing on products rather than process. Products: reading text and answering questions about the text geared toward checking if appropriate knowledge was gained. Process: active strategies and self-monitoring that promote understanding of text. What we know… • Francis, 2006

38. Strategies for Improving Comprehension • Small group oral reading • Small group discussion, small group work • Previewing • Generates interest in topic • Provides background knowledge • Predicting, clarifying, summarizing

39. Effective Comprehension Instruction • Teaching students to make predictions consciouslybefore reading • Ask students to recall what they know about the type of text to be read • Discussions of predictions that include teacher supports and scaffolds would provide opportunities to gain understanding

40. Effective Comprehension Instruction (cont’d) • Teaching students to monitor their understanding and ask questions duringreading • Asking students questions during reading cues them to recognize when their comprehension breaks down • Asking students to explain their processes for making meaning is another method to increase opportunities to produce language

41. Effective Reading Comprehension (cont’d) • Teaching students to summarize what they have read after the reading activity • Summarizing requires the reader to synthesize the information and to differentiate between more and less important information

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

43. What we know… • Fluent readers are those who read without much apparent effort; automatically decoding words and applying strategies for decoding unknown words. • Fluent readers read with expression, and appropriate inflection and phrasing. • Important to distinguish between rate and fluency • Rate = speed of decoding (can be single words or words in context) • Fluency = rate AND appropriate phrasing, inflection, and prosody

44. What we know… • Students who are fluent readers will be able to spend less time focusing attention on the process of reading words, and more time on what they are reading (comprehension). • Instruction for students who have difficulties with fluency should include: • Increased practice reading text that is matched to the student’s instructional level (90% decodable) • Goal of practice = deeper representations and more efficient access to words and their meanings in various contexts. • Francis, 2006

45. Effective Fluency Instruction • Students re-read the passage until they • meet their oral reading fluency goal, • read the passage with very few errors, and • read with acceptable phrasing and expression • ELLs benefit from oral discussions • Pre-teach vocabulary words • Teacher leads the discussion about words, meaning

46. Effective Fluency Instruction • Corrective feedback from adults • Immediate and positive feedback provides support to students who are not secure about pronunciation of difficult words • Teachers may collect data on students’ miscues in order to provide individual support during small group or one-on-one discussions

47. Effective Fluency Instruction • Discussions and questioning • Maintains students’ engagement • Provides opportunity to promote comprehension strategies and vocabulary development • Students learn to monitor their understanding • Provides opportunity to clarify doubts and explore different angles for meaning

48. Effective Fluency Instruction • Important points: • Reading should be an active learning activity with feedback • Reading should provide opportunities to serve as models as well as to learn from others

49. Recommendation #5: ELLs need significant opportunities to engage in structured, academic talk across all K-12 classrooms and content areas

50. Academic Language:The key to academic success • Academic language refers to the vocabulary and semantics involved in 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