Read the article by Gerber et al. (2004), and book chapters (Richards & Leafstedt, 2009) posted on Canvas under the heading Teaching Small Intervention Groups??. Read the sect

Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 19(4), 239–251 Copyright C© 2004, The Division for Learning Disabilities of the Council for Exceptional Children

English Reading Effects of Small-Group Intensive Intervention in Spanish for K–1 English Learners

Michael Gerber University of California, Santa Barbara

Terese Jimenez Loyola Marymount University

Jill Leafstedt California State University, Channel Islands

Jessica Villaruz, Catherine Richards, and Judy English University of California, Santa Barbara

In this article we report small, but statistically significant, effects of brief supplemental instruc- tion on English reading by Spanish-speaking kindergartners (N = 37) who performed poorly on a bilingual battery of phonological-processing tasks. Intervention design was compatible with the Reading First initiative and with research on use of multitiered intervention strate- gies for preventing reading failure among young monolingual students (e.g., L. S. Fuchs & Vaughn, 2003). We describe a Core Intervention Model (CIM) comprised of specific instruc- tional behaviors that teachers might easily learn and employ regardless of curriculum, and discuss implications of our findings for building multitiered preventative instruction for young English learners.

Scientific evidence supports as effective those early read- ing intervention programs that include such characteris- tics as (1) low child-to-teacher ratios, (2) structured and fast-paced designs, (3) an emphasis on fluency as a pri- mary goal, (4) a well-designed and effective regular class- room reading program, (5) evidence-based techniques, (6) direct and explicit instruction, and (7) ongoing assessments (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Foorman & Torgesen, 2001; Justice & Pullen, 2003; National Reading Panel, 2000; Pikulski, 1994). These and other elements have been found to be effective for identifying risk for reading disabilities among young monolingual students and as a basis for design- ing interventions aimed at preventing that failure (Fletcher & Lyon, 1998; Fletcher et al., 2002; Lyon, 2003; Lyon et al., 2001; Torgesen et al., 2001). However, interpretation of the same performance on English-reading tasks by young English learners (ELs) is problematic because they have lim- ited exposure and proficiency in English; these children are often confused with students who have learning disabilities (Alanis, Munter, & Tinajero, 2003). Whatever individual dif- ferences may exist that would predict later reading difficulties are masked to some extent by variations in previous English- learning opportunities. If we could account for these varia-

Requests for reprints should be sent to Michael M. Gerber, 2327 Phelps Hall, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. Electronic inquiries may be sent to mgerber@ education.ucsb.edu.

tions in some way, it is reasonable to expect that the same elements of early assessment and instruction that are effec- tive for monolingual students will be effective for ELs as well. What is missing in this body of research-based recommen- dations for reading practice is a better understanding of how to conduct monitoring and intervention programs for young ELs who are experiencing difficulties learning to read in English and who are easily confused with students with learn- ing disabilities.

Preventing Reading Failure

Special education policy since 2002 has been increasingly aligned with the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Un- der NCLB, schools must engage in focused and account- able efforts to improve educational outcomes for all stu- dents but, especially, to close the gap in achievement for historically low-achieving students, including those who are disabled and those who are English learners. Fundamen- tal to this effort is a strong orientation toward preven- tion of reading failure. This orientation is emphasized by NCLB’s Reading First initiative. This initiative provides fund- ing and guidelines for establishing “high-quality, compre- hensive reading instruction in kindergarten through grade 3” and has been increasingly associated with a “three- tier model” of intervention (L. S. Fuchs & Vaughn, 2003; National Academy of Sciences, 2002; Vaughn, Bos, & Schumm, 2001).

240 SPECIAL SERIES: READING RISK AND INTERVENTION FOR YOUNG ELs

Three-Tier Model of Intervention

The central concept of a “three-tier model” of intervention is to monitor progress, frequently and continuously, using measures that are reliable predictors of later reading profi- ciency. By this means, teachers can identify those students who, despite good instruction, fall behind peers in rate as well as level of achievement. Generally speaking, teachers engage in primary (i.e., Tier 1) intervention as soon as their monitoring identifies students. Primary intervention may in- volve not only more instruction over a specified period of time (e.g., 10 weeks), but also some reconsideration and re- design of normal curriculum and instruction for those stu- dents who are failing to keep pace. Secondary (i.e., Tier 2) intervention occurs when monitoring reveals that students who received primary intervention nevertheless continue to lag behind peers. Secondary intervention implies instruction that occurs over and above normal but high-quality classroom instruction. It may involve tutorial or small-group instruction for 30–60 minutes each week on specific and important pre- reading skills (e.g., detecting rime or onset of words, segment- ing or blending phonemes, mentally manipulating phonemes by deletion and substitution). Tertiary instruction (i.e., Tier 3) is a highly intensive, for example, 50 hours or more over 10 weeks, of tutorial or small-group instruction for students that appear to resist good instruction, those who are persistent strugglers despite primary and secondary interventions.

Although researchers are steadily converging on bench- marks for identifying nonresponsive monolingual students, it is unknown at this time how to apply these identification and intervention strategies for young ELs. Many students who come to kindergarten lacking exposure to English phonology, alphabet, and vocabulary, for example, are unlikely to meet reading benchmarks under the progress-monitoring system described above. Therefore, it is certain that many will be perceived to be at risk.

It can be argued that erring on the side of overidentification for these children does no harm, but there is also a need to be economical with instructional resources allocated for inten- sive interventions. In addition, it is unclear whether the same instructional targets should have priority for students who are just learning English at school. How, for example, can ELs learn to associate English alphabet with English phonology when they do not yet know English phonology? Finally, the multitiered strategy described above depends critically on a high baseline level of instructional quality. It is only against that baseline that failures to progress can be interpreted mean- ingfully. However, we do not yet know to what extent what we perceive as high-quality instruction for monolingual students will be equally appropriate as well as effective for ELs.

Instruction and Preventative Intervention for At-Risk English Learners

Two decades of research have established that differences in phonological-processing abilities—particularly phono- logical awareness (PA)—are predictive of the degree to which monolingual students experience later success or failure in word reading (Ball & Blachman, 1991; Bradley

& Bryant, 1983; Christensen, 1997; Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Stanovich, 1986; Torgesen et al., 1999; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987). Initially, relatively few researchers seemed to recognize the implications for ELs, but there is an in- creasing number of empirical studies exploring to what ex- tent phonological-processing abilities represent core cogni- tive abilities, independent of one’s particular spoken language that might be available (i.e., transfer) as resources when learn- ing to read English as a second language (e.g., Bialystok, Majumder, & Martin, 2003; Cisero & Royer, 1995; Durgunoglu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Geva, Wade- Woolley, & Shany, 1997; Gottardo, Yan, Siegel, & Wade- Woolley, 2001; Leafstedt, 2002; Riccio et al., 2001).

Moreover, while substantial research now has been de- voted to the scope and sequence of phonological prereading tasks that both promote and predict word-reading fluency for monolinguals, less has been written about how to frame such a curriculum for English learners or what specific in- structional behaviors will be effective for them. A new best- evidence synthesis of literature on reading programs for ELs (Slavin & Cheung, 2003) reveals a dearth of rigorous re- search on programs of reading instruction for ELs. Systematic study of early English-reading acquisition by ELs is similarly scarce. Researchers only recently began reporting longitudi- nal studies of English-reading development among groups of English learners (e.g., Gerber & English, 2003; Lindsey, Manis, & Bailey, 2003; Siegel et al., 2003; H. E. Swanson, Saez, Gerber, & Leafstedt, 2004).

Nevertheless, because interventions to teach phonolog- ical skills to monolingual English-speaking kindergartners have been successful in promoting improvement in word- reading ability (e.g., D. Fuchs et al., 2002; O’Connor, Jenkins, & Slocum, 1995), it seems reasonable to expect sim- ilar results for ELs by way of the cross-linguistic transfer of L1 phonological-processing skills to L2 reading. On the other hand, kindergartners in monolingual studies received instruction based on a phonological system with which they already were very familiar and highly practiced. That fa- miliarity might confer an advantage despite cross-linguistic transfer of some processing abilities. Therefore, in the study we report in this article, we assumed that training individu- als to improve performance on tasks requiring phonological- processing skills requires instruction that initially capitalizes on the phonological system with which students are most familiar. Therefore, our primary intervention for ELs who appeared to be at risk on bilingual monitoring measures was conducted in their home language (L1) to influence learning and performance in English (L2).

Curriculum and Instruction in Early Reading

Most studies of early intervention to prevent reading failure have focused on a specific scope and sequence of skills (i.e., a curriculum) determined to be critical to later word reading. Whatever individual adaptations that teachers make to indi- vidual differences in performance, attention, or behavior are generally not reported. For teachers of ELs whose students are also diverse both in first and second language proficiency, a distillation of critical features of effective instructional

GERBER ET AL.: EFFECTS OF SMALL-GROUP INTERVENTION 241

behaviors, independent of a specific reading curriculum, would be useful for raising the baseline of primary inter- ventions for ELs perceived as being at risk.

We may assume that extant studies of early reading inter- vention have employed an array of research-validated prac- tices and that among these are some principles of teaching that are drawn from the same knowledge base that informs instruction of students with learning disabilities. Specifically, research literature provides extensive evidence that students with learning and reading disabilities benefit from instruc- tional interventions that include elements of direct instruc- tion (H. L. Swanson & Hoskyns, 1999). In direct instruction, skills are rationally divided into hierarchical steps and are taught to a mastery criterion, using rapid pacing, large number of individual or group response opportunities in small, rela- tively homogenous groups. Thus, a direct instruction model fits well with the goals of multitiered interventions focused on a specific set of critical prereading and reading skills.

Furthermore, although one-to-one instruction has been used to produce maximum results in many recent studies of early reading interventions (e.g., Torgesen et al., 2001; Vellutino et al., 1996), this may not be a realistic goal for teachers and schools (L. S. Fuchs, 2002) with limited re- sources. Fortunately, reading instruction for small groups of students (i.e., three to five) can achieve results that may equal or surpass comparable one-to-one instruction (Elbaum, Vaughn, Hughes, & Moody, 1999; Foorman & Torgesen, 2001; National Reading Panel, 2000; Rashotte, MacPhee, & Torgesen, 2001; Vaughn, Hughes, Moody, & Elbaum, 2001). Again, a direct instruction model based on small-group in- struction not only helps maximize response opportunities for individual students deemed to be at risk, but also provides ex- plicit language models for students struggling with English skills.

Core Intervention Model (CIM)

In constructing an intervention model for this study, one that would be suitable for teachers to use in a multitiered system of instruction for at-risk ELs, we were guided by three consid- erations. First, we conceptualized intervention as necessarily compatible with current models of multitiered interventions (e.g., Reading First) in which supplemental instruction is pro- vided for students shown to be at risk based on low perfor- mance of critical prereading skills. Second, we wanted the intervention model to be simple in conception and implemen- tation to maximize its uptake by teachers, so we concentrated on instructional behaviors and techniques in addition to a simple developmental sequence of skills (Christensen, 1997). Third, we wished to test the hypothesis that cross-linguistic transfer of important phonological skills to L2 reading can be promoted by intervention in L1 prereading skills for young ELs.

Specifically, to provide supplemental, more intensive in- struction for students who appeared to be at greatest risk for experiencing difficulty learning to read English words, we designed a Core Intervention Model (CIM) based on general principles of direct instruction. Our CIM is designed for di- rect instruction of groups of four students who perform most poorly on phonological-skills screening. CIM teaching em-

phasizes example items for learning and practicing reading- related skills, rather a curriculum in its conventional sense. The sequence of teaching events is set by two considerations. The first was the relative fluency of students’ performances on items representing four, developmentally sequenced tasks— rime detection, onset detection, phoneme segmentation, and phoneme blending. The second was the sequence of steps in teaching the items, particularly the contingent correction, or reteaching, that was triggered by students’ errors in respond- ing. We used simply constructed materials to illustrate or sup- port the direct instruction teaching routines, again with the purpose of making the CIM maximally adaptive and usable for teachers. Following from principles of direct instruction, the CIM required teachers to be explicit and concise in ask- ing questions, to proceed at a rapid pace, and to monitor and contingently respond to errors with a specified subroutine whenever these occurred. That is, students were enthusias- tically praised for correct responses and incorrect responses triggered a series of defined prompts from the teacher that guarantee eventual success.

These explicit correction procedures for systematic reteaching are fundamental to our CIM. We call our correc- tion subroutine the Correction Staircase. The theory behind the Correction Staircase is that cognitively complex demands can be reduced systematically until students are able to re- spond correctly and then can be recomposed in “steps,” each providing a scaffold that supports the next higher step, until students are able to respond correctly to the original high- demand question.

Each teaching sequence in the CIM begins with what we call a “supply” question with an illustrative item (e.g., “What word rhymes with cat?”). These are called “supply” questions because students have to construct and provide a response, including orchestrating component processes for understand- ing the question, performing multiple, controlled operations in working memory as well as search of longer-term memory, while formulating and articulating a response. When students commit an error (or are unable to respond), teachers “step- down” the demand of the question by reducing it to a binary choice requiring recognition of correct answers; for example, “What rhymes with cat, calf or bat?” Students are praised for the correct response, as they are for each and every correct response throughout the use of the Correction Staircase. If students select correctly, teachers “step up” and again ask the original supply question.

If students cannot respond correctly to the binary choice question, teachers step-down to a model-lead step. At this step, the teacher first models the correct response (e.g., say- ing, “Bat rhymes with cat. What word rhymes with cat?”). Again, if the student is correct the teacher steps-up to the next more complex question (i.e., the binary choice) and contin- ues upward until the original supply question is presented and correctly answered. That is, teachers always begin and end a correction sequence with a supply question.

If students are still incorrect at the model-lead step, teach- ers step-down to the model-imitation step. At this step, stu- dents are prompted to imitate the teacher’s model of a correct response (e.g., “Say bat.”). Students are prompted until they repeat the correct answer. Again, as before, after any correct response, teachers immediately step-up to the next higher

242 SPECIAL SERIES: READING RISK AND INTERVENTION FOR YOUNG ELs

step until they culminate the sequence at the original supply- type question. If students respond to the supply question, the teacher might move on to the next question in his or her lesson sequence or present another, similar supply question to test for learning (e.g., “What rhymes with lip, lint or clip?”). If students are incorrect, the teacher again employs the Correc- tion Staircase as described above. Generally, teachers do not need to provide explanations to link the steps of correction. To do so, in fact, may increase the difficulty for ELs because it imposes additional language demands and may distract them from the focus on critical phonological discriminations that this technique promotes.

The staircase approach assures that students always are led to the correct answer, are given the opportunity to re- spond independently, and are reinforced positively for doing so. To use the staircase approach, teachers must understand its limited but important instructional objectives. Teachers must be able to create a lesson sequence in the set of illustrative items or problems that they choose and the fluency criteria (i.e., fast, accurate responding) for which they monitor so that they maximize the likelihood that students will generalize to untaught responses.

Summary

Although significant progress has been made in understand- ing the underlying mechanisms that contribute to read- ing disabilities in young monolingual students, it remains unclear how reading-specific disabilities can be meaning- fully discriminated from difficulties experienced when learn- ing to speak and understand English as a second lan- guage. Relatively recently, researchers have begun to explore cross-linguistic relationships between first language (L1) phonological-processing abilities and second language (L2) word-reading skills for young ELs. This research, together with the growing body of new longitudinal studies of reading development in young ELs, several of which are represented in this special issue, may offer insights into how—or if—we should discriminate young English learners from struggling readers whose home language is English. This research also might provide an empirical basis for applying or modifying those instructional strategies that are proving effective in pre- venting reading failure for many native English speakers.

The present study is part of an ongoing longitudinal re- search project that aims to extend our theoretical and prac- tical understanding of the role of phonological-processing abilities for young students acquiring second-language read- ing skills (Gerber & English, 2003). As part of this larger longitudinal project, we report here the effects of an in- tervention using our Core Intervention Model for a group of Spanish-speaking kindergartners who performed poorly on Spanish as well as English phonological tasks. Be- cause students were not familiar with English on entering kindergarten, we conducted the kindergarten intervention in Spanish. In first grade, when English phonics instruction be- gan and when students had learned enough English to be instructed in English, we conducted a new intervention in English. This article will present results to address the fol- lowing questions.

1. Is a brief intervention based on our Core Intervention Model sufficient to improve performance on English word-reading tasks by the 20 percent of English learn- ers who perform most poorly on bilingual measures of phonological-processing skills?

2. Do these at-risk English learners trained in phonolog- ical skills catch up to their not-at-risk peers over time?

METHODS

The present study was part of an ongoing longitudinal study, La Patera, of English word-reading acquisition by Spanish- speaking students who began school as English learners. In 2000–2001, La Patera recruited three elementary school dis- tricts in California that enrolled primarily Latino students for whom English was a second language.1 Latino students as a percent of school enrollment was 71 percent, 81 percent, and 84 percent in these districts; 43 percent, 49 percent, and 40 percent of students, respectively, were considered by the districts to have limited English proficiency. Over 70 per- cent of students in each district received free or reduced lunch. In a survey of the families of students, 75 percent reported family incomes below $29,000. Second-grade read- ing performance in these districts on statewide, standardized tests was markedly below expectations, particularly for stu- dents designated by districts as not being English proficient. An informal survey of teachers revealed that no consistent early reading curriculum was in use across districts, schools within districts, or teachers within schools. After receiving consent from schools, teachers, and parents, we initiated the longitudinal study with data from kindergartners in 23 intact classrooms. Our final kindergarten sample included data from 377 students.

As part of this longitudinal study, we identified students as being at risk in kindergarten based on bilingual measures of phonological-processing skills. In first grade, we included measures of word reading as part of our “risk” criteria. Each year of the project we planned an instructional intervention based on a Core Intervention Model for students at risk. Our purpose was to see if relatively brief, supplemental instruction would close the gap in English word reading between students considered at high risk and their higher performing peers.

Participants

To identify students at risk in the larger research project from which this study is extracted, we first identified 20 percent of our entire longitudinal sample (N = 377) that were low- est performing on a series of bilingual tests of phonological skills. To do this, we created a selection score constructed as the sum of unit-weighted factor scores derived from a principal components analysis of a battery of English and Spanish measures (see Gerber & English, 2003). Specifi- cally, our selection score was constructed from three factors (components) extracted from English and Spanish versions of 15-item phonological-awareness tasks. Tasks loaded on fac- tors representing cognitive demands and not language of task.2 For example, all four English and Spanish rime and

GERBER ET AL.: EFFECTS OF SMALL-GROUP INTERVENTION 243

onset tasks loaded together. The same was true for the two segmentation and two final phoneme tasks, respectively.

We were also concerned with the practical distinction be- tween those students from our entire sample presumed to be at risk for poor reading outcomes based on test performance and those students for whom teachers had the greatest concern about likely reading success. Therefore, we consulted with classroom teachers to give them an opportunity to agree, dis- agree, or substitute another student from their classrooms for whom they had greater academic concerns. Teachers agreed that 80 percent of the students who would have been iden- tified by test alone were at highest risk. These students be- came part of the Intervention Group. We permitted teachers to substitute their preferences to complete the target num- ber of at-risk students (i.e., 20 percent of the cohort). All the teacher-nominated students performed at least in the bottom 40 percent on phonological assessments.

By allowing teachers’ perceptions to enter into selection, we traded a degree of experimental control, that is, risk oper- ationally defined in terms of phonological measures, for eco- logical validity—teachers’ formative judgments about stu- dents they teach. As we report below, this decision might have been consequential to outcomes.

For this article, we report results for 43 students for whom we have complete kindergarten and first-grade data. Students in our final risk group came from five schools and 15 class- rooms. These students received interventions (INT) to accel- erate growth on English word-reading measures. As a nonin- tervention comparison group (NON), we randomly identified in each of these classrooms a sample of the remaining, usu- ally better-performing students (i.e., those whose selection score did not fall into the risk group). In this report, INT and NON refer only to group assignment of students in kinder- garten. At the end of kindergarten, we had complete data for 37 INT (54 percent female) and 45 NON (31 percent female) students, respectively. Of these students, we had 28 INT and 15 NON students available for analysis at the end of first grade.

When we looked at this final sample to see how students in the remaining first-grade groups had been categorized by kindergarten testing versus teacher judgment, we found that 23 of the 28 INT students (80 percent) had been selected jointly for intervention by test performance and teacher judg- ment. The remaining five INT students were selected only by teachers, but were in the bottom 40 percent on test per- formance criteria. Of the 15 NON students remaining at the end of first grade, there were six students who were nomi- nated in kindergarten either by test criteria (two) or by teacher judgment (four) alone. The researchers and the kindergarten teachers had previously agreed that these students would be on a wait list and would not receive intervention. The re- maining nine NON students at the end of first grade were not considered high risk by either kindergarten test criteria or teacher judgment.

The two groups of students were, on average, five years, six months of age (SD = 4.7 months) at the time of initial testing. Available school data allowed us to confirm that all except three students (one in INT and two in NON) were Latino/Hispanic. Although these three students’ ethnicity

could not be confirmed through school records, all were iden- tified as ELs by their teachers.

Pre- and Posttest Assessments

All students were assessed individually twice a year by teams of fluently bilingual undergraduates who were trained and su- pervised by graduate research assistants to perform all assess- ments. Students in both INT and NON groups were assessed before and after interventions each year for a total of four data points. We conducted preintervention assessments dur- ing the fall quarter of the academic year and postintervention assessments immediately following intervention completion in the spring. Assessments were conducted on school sites in the quietest available spaces. Most of the tests were individu- ally administered in three 20-minute sessions. Different test sequences, alternating between English and Spanish, were randomly assigned to students; however, we avoided sequen- tial administration of Spanish and English versions of the same task.

We always asked students about their language prefer- ence for speaking with the assessors. In addition, though, each assessor determined the dominant language by asking the student a series of questions such as: What language do your parents speak? Do you speak English? Do you speak Spanish? Which language would you like to speak today? If dominant language was unclear, the tester gave directions in both English and Spanish. If students’ behaviors led as- sessors to doubt expressed preferences, assessors provided test instructions and assistance in the language that seemed better understood. This occurred only a few times. Once an administration language was established, all test instructions, regardless of the language of test content, were given in the language that students understood best.

Assessors tallied scores and initialed record forms. These were then checked and rechecked by at least two other stu- dents, including a doctoral research assistant. Final data were entered into a database in which students were identified only by codes provided by the school districts. Data entry was spot- checked multiple times for entry errors.

Interventions

Intervention was considered a supplement to instruction stu- dents received in their respective classrooms. The same bilin- gual undergraduates who served as assessors were trained to use our Core Intervention Model to provide small-group di- rect instruction in Spanish to INT students. In first grade, intervention was presented in the students’ language of in- struction, which was English for all but two classrooms. Only 14 students continued to receive intervention instruction in Spanish in first grade.

CIM training consisted of a special two-hour workshop with modeling of direct instruction techniques and explana- tion of a desired scope and sequence of skills to cover for each session. Following this initial training, tutors engaged in su- pervised practice at a nonproject school site that also had

Collepals.com Plagiarism Free Papers

Are you looking for custom essay writing service or even dissertation writing services? Just request for our write my paper service, and we'll match you with the best essay writer in your subject! With an exceptional team of professional academic experts in a wide range of subjects, we can guarantee you an unrivaled quality of custom-written papers.

Get ZERO PLAGIARISM, HUMAN WRITTEN ESSAYS

Why Hire Collepals.com writers to do your paper?

Quality- We are experienced and have access to ample research materials.

We write plagiarism Free Content

Confidential- We never share or sell your personal information to third parties.

Support-Chat with us today! We are always waiting to answer all your questions.