Learner Outcomes for English Language Learner Low Readers in an Early Intervention

Learner Outcomes for English Language Learner Low Readers in an Early Intervention PATRICIA R KELLY San Diego State University San Diego, California, United States FRANCISCO-XAVIER GÓMEZ-BELLENGÉ The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio, United States JING CHEN Education Statistics Services Institute Washington, District of Columbia, United States MELISSA M SCHULZ Miami University Oxford, Ohio This study investigated the efficacy of Reading Recovery® (RR) with first grade English language learners (ELLs) in U.S schools by examining the literacy outcomes of ELLs compared with their native Englishspeaking (NES) peers, who were also enrolled in RR We also explored how ELLs’ fall oral English proficiency levels were related to their spring literacy levels Pre- and post-test measures included tests of text reading and phonemic awareness, because text reading is the broadest measure of reading ability and phonemic awareness is an important aspect of reading and oral English proficiency Results indicated that 76.42% of NES and 69% of ELLs who had a complete program of intervention successfully achieved grade-level performance These differences were statistically significant but the effect size was small Overall, the differences between RR NESs and RR ELLs are not sufficient, when they exist, to warrant excluding ELL students from the RR intervention In schools where students not have access to bilingual education, Reading Recovery is an appropriate addition to the range of best-practice services available to ELLs he academic achievement of ELLs has become an important issue for many school districts as larger numbers of children come to school speaking a language other than English By 2000, 18% or nearly 47 million people over the age of five in the United States spoke a language other than English (Meyer, Madden, & McGrath, 2004) This T TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 42, No 2, June 2008 235 increase in ELLs has affected schools significantly The number of language minority students in U.S public schools is projected to be 40% of the school-age population by the 2030s, and according to Thomas and Collier (2002), most schools are undereducating this group of students Reading achievement for many ELLs has been below their NES peers (Donahue, Daane, & Jin, 2005) Grade data from the 2003 National Assessment of Educational Progress indicated that only 44% of Latino fourth graders, many of whom are ELLs, scored at or above the basic level, far below the 75% level of Anglo students By Grade it is often too late to catch students up to their peers (Juel, 1988) However, early interventions are showing promising results for ELLs (Slavin, 2005) One early intervention, RR, has demonstrated very good success rates with ELLs (Ashdown & Simic, 2000; Escamilla, 1994; Neal & Kelly, 1999) The purpose of this article is to further examine the efficacy of RR with ELLs in U.S schools The study examined the literacy programmatic outcomes of Grade ELLs compared with their NES Grade peers, who also were enrolled in RR during the 2002–2003 school year RR is a large-scale intervention, serving about 140,000 students in nearly 10,000 U.S elementary schools Students served by RR are likely to come from marginalized groups; they are more likely to belong to a minority group, to receive free or reduced-price school lunches, and are all, by definition, among the lowest readers in their classes (GómezBellengé & Rodgers, 2004) Additionally, the students who are the focus of this study are also ELLs The purpose of this article is studying the triple jeopardy of sociodemographic risk, low reader, and ELL status and the outcomes for such students Their outcomes are important for us as practitioners because some school administrators withhold the benefits of this intervention from ELLs believing that outcomes for ELLs will be less favorable or the intervention will take too long BACKGROUND Much of the debate regarding the ideal education for ELLs has centered on beginning reading instruction Some educators and researchers argue that ELLs should learn to read in their native language first, and then in English (Ramírez, Yuen, Ramey, & Pasta, 1991; Slavin & Cheung, 2003; Thomas & Collier, 1997, 2002) Other researchers indicate that research does not support bilingual education (Baker, 1987; Baker & de Kanter, 1983) Before 1990, very few large-scale federally funded studies examined bilingual instruction and how long an ELL should spend in bilingual education to become proficient enough in English to compete academically with NESs Ramírez and his colleagues addressed this gap 236 TESOL QUARTERLY in the ELL research (Ramírez et al., 1991) when they compared language-minority students’ performance in three program treatments in which the major difference was the amount of instruction conducted in students’ first language, Spanish The children who received substantial amounts of instruction in Spanish and were gradually exposed to English for instruction “realized the greatest growth in skills” (p 639) Ramírez et al concluded that instructional time spent in bilingual education may contribute to later achievement in English Thomas and Collier (1997) reached similar conclusions indicating that the use of learners’ native language in classroom settings for an extensive time period resulted in more overall English academic achievement Slavin and Cheung (2003) reviewed experimental studies of reading programs for ELLs using a best-evidence synthesis, focusing on “comparisons of bilingual and English-only programs and on specific, replicable models that have been evaluated with English language learners” (p v) They concluded that existing evidence favors bilingual approaches, particularly paired bilingual strategies Additional support for well-designed bilingual programs comes from Cummins (1981), Krashen and Biber (1988), Lambert and Taylor (1987), and Moll and Diaz (1985), based on the view that a child’s first language can become the foundation for the acquisition of a second language (English) However, bilingual instruction is not available to many ELL students; therefore, teaching must have certain characteristics to qualify as highly effective, expert teaching for this population of students First, highly effective teachers incorporate differentiated instruction, which provides learners with the opportunity to use reading, writing, and oral language in multiple ways across multiple academic content areas, and teachers scaffold the students’ literacy attempts to encourage student risk-taking and discovery (Boyle & Peregoy, 1998) Second, these teachers believe that all children have funds of knowledge to share (Moll & Greenburg, 1990) and that incorporating students’ experiences within lessons increases students’ motivation to learn Third, effective teachers have autonomy in their teaching Moll (1988) explains, “This autonomy was not only reflected in their teaching but in the children’s learning” (p 471) Fourth, ELLs benefit from instruction which uses systematic phonics, one-to-one tutoring, small-group instruction, programs that emphasize extensive reading, and cooperative learning programs (Slavin & Cheung, 2003) In conclusion, instruction that is highly effective for ELLs when bilingual education is not available is produced by teachers who have a strong theoretical understanding of effective teaching and learning and who offer flexible instruction that is tailored to meet diverse learners’ individual academic needs LEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 237 The Role of Intervention Some researchers have concluded that early intervention, itself, may be more important than the language of instruction for ELLs (August & Hakuta, 1997; Brisbois, 1995; Johnson, 1992) It has been argued that early literacy instruction for ELLs coincides with effective instruction for English-dominant students (Slavin & Cheung, 2004) because the instruction considers the learners’ diverse needs Several early interventions have been associated with positive outcomes for ELLs (Gersten, 1985; Hurley, Chamberlain, Slavin, & Madden, 2001) RR has been found to be a highly successful early intervention for struggling Grade students (Pinnell, Lyons, DeFord, Bryk, & Seltzer, 1994) and in local studies with ELLs (Ashdown & Simic, 2000; Neal & Kelly, 1999) The remainder of this article reports the results of the first national U.S study examining the efficacy of RR with ELLs It is also the first study to investigate the impact of initial oral English proficiency on RR outcomes by examining oral English proficiency in more detailed categorizations than previously investigated Reading Recovery RR is an early intervention designed to help the lowest-achieving Grade children learn to read and write Children receive daily individual 30-minute lessons from a specially trained teacher for 12–20 weeks RR results show that it is successful in closing the achievement gap for these children (Schmitt, Askew, Fountas, Lyons, & Pinnell, 2005) RR was developed in the 1970s in New Zealand by Marie M Clay and a team she recruited to determine which teaching activities worked with hard-to-teach 6-year-old children Along with teaching procedures, Clay developed the theoretical basis for RR It is different from the single-ormajor-variable theoretical approaches often driving intervention instruction RR is an effective model of literacy instruction based on a complex constructive model of literacy learning (Clay, 2001) and on several theoretical tenets including the following: (a) The role of oral language is central to the task of learning to read (Clay, 1998, 2001) (b) The learner is seen as active and constructive Clay (2001) draws on the work of Singer (1994) to explain how the child is at first “constructing very simple actions systems, which become more complex” (p 224) (c) Reading and writing are understood as complex and reciprocal processes (d) The emphasis of instruction, carried out through reading and writing connected texts, is on creating a broad foundation of cognitive competencies which leads to the beginning of a self-extending system through 238 TESOL QUARTERLY which learners learn more about reading every time they read, independent of instruction (Clay, 2001) (e) Quality interactions between an expert teacher and young reader are critical; teachers adjust their scaffolding to accommodate the growing competencies of the child (Clay & Cazden, 1990) (f) Acceleration of learning for a short period of time to catch the student up to grade-level performance is the expected outcome of RR tutoring (Clay, 2005; Klenk & Kibby, 2000) Best Practices in Early Intervention RR fits with the best practices in early intervention Children who not learn to read in the first few grades of school fall further and further behind, and catching them up becomes more difficult with each successive year of failure ( Juel, 1988) Early intervention has attracted increasing attention as an important prevention before the downward spiral of reading failure becomes established (Slavin, Karweit, & Wasik, 1992) RR has received considerable scrutiny by researchers outside of RR with favorable conclusions about its efficacy as an early intervention Wasik and Slavin (1993) showed that RR raised the reading achievement of the lowest performing students up to average achievement levels, and the effects of RR were impressive at the end of the intervention and held for years Hiebert (1994) reported that a high percentage of RR children were able to read at least Grade text at the end of Grade 1, and the results of RR had considerable fidelity Shanahan and Barr (1995) came to similar conclusions about RR’s ability to bring lowest-achieving children to performance levels of their average-achieving peers and its replicability across sites They also acknowledged that RR had become a vital force in influencing the way we view early literacy development Researchers affiliated with RR also have reported the effectiveness of this early intervention (Pinnell, 1989; Pinnell, Lyons, DeFord, Bryk, & Seltzer, 1994) In a recent randomized trial involving 148 Grade students, Schwartz (2005) found that students who received RR services “showed significantly higher performance compared with the random sample control group” (p 257) A recent meta-analysis of RR found that “the bulk of available evidence indicated that RR has had positive effects on participating students across outcomes designed for the program and external to it” (D’Agostino & Murphy, 2004, p 35–36) Klenk and Kibby (2000) examined the field of remedial reading They noted the influence of Clay and RR, which operationalized the ideas that reading development in young children can be accelerated to prevent reading failure and that success should be defined as reading at grade level LEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 239 Pressley (2002) addressed the positive effects of RR in the affective domain: “Experiencing success in Reading Recovery lessons seems to be a source of joy for students” (p 212) This may be an especially important aspect of RR instruction for ELLs in light of the evidence offered by Krashen (1981) that affective variables are related to success in learning a second language RR in ELL Research The effectiveness of RR with ELLs has been reported in England, New Zealand, and the United States Hobsbaum (1995) in England and Smith (1994) in New Zealand reported similar rates of success for ELLs as for NES children In the United States, studies in New York (Ashdown & Simic, 2000) and California (Kelly, Gomez-Valdez, Klein, & Neal, 1995; Neal & Kelly, 1999) described similar results They concluded that ELLs reach similar on-grade reading levels as their NES peers Neal and Kelly (1999) noted also that ELLs needed only a few more days of instruction than their NES peers to reach these reading levels Their study did not address the impact of initial oral English proficiency on learning outcomes for ELLs Two of the previously mentioned studies did address English language proficiency In the Hobsbaum (1995) study, teachers rated students’ fluency according to a four-stage rubric, from Stage 1, Beginner, to Stage 4, Fluent She reported that the discontinuing or successful completion rate for ELLs increased as their level of English fluency increased That is, the higher the learner’s level of fluency, the greater his or her the success rate However, Hobsbaum (1995) cautioned that the teachers in her study may not have been using fluency ratings accurately Ashdown and Simic (2000) also addressed fluency levels They found that all ELLs had high success rates and, it is interesting to note, fluent ELLs were more likely to be successful in RR than native speakers However, their ELLs were classified into only two broad categories: limited English proficient (LEP) or fluent A further limitation of the previous research is that none of the studies were national in scope Though some were relatively large scale, they used convenience samples Instructional Elements in RR That Support ELLs Several elements of the design of RR reflect the previously discussed characteristics described as supportive of instruction for ELLs (Boyle & Peregoy, 1998; Moll, 1988; Moll & Greenburg, 1990; Slavin & Cheung, 2003) RR teachers build close relationships with students, and they 240 TESOL QUARTERLY provide a safe learning environment (McDowall, Boyd, Hodgen, & van Vliet, 2005) Teachers have autonomy in designing instruction for individual children They recognize each learner’s individual strengths and needs and provide personalized and individualized instruction based on these strengths (Clay, 1993, 1998) RR lessons include reading, writing, and oral language in multiple ways It is a powerful resource for ELLs’ language development According to Clay (2001), oral language supports reading and writing acquisition and is both a resource to and a beneficiary of learning to read and write RR teachers support ELLs’ oral language development in their daily interactions throughout the lesson; they model English in their conversations, select texts that extend the learner’s control of English structures, and scaffold the learner’s construction of new language during writing and reading The lesson design provides both structure and flexibility At the beginning of each RR lesson, students benefit from the repeated practice of reading familiar books that provide the learner with an opportunity to strengthen the decision-making processes (Clay, 2005) Later in the lesson, when the child is engaged in writing, they have many opportunities to incorporate their own experiences as they construct their own messages Over time, more and more complex language structures are written with the support of the expert teacher The last part of the lesson includes the introduction (by the teacher) and the reading (by the student) of a text specially chosen for the student Here the teacher has the opportunity to negotiate the meanings and vocabulary in the text based on the student’s experiences, and to orient the child to new language structures he or she will encounter in the book This scaffolding allows ELLs to understand concepts and ideas in the text and to hear and use new language prior to reading the new book Each RR learner has the opportunity to further develop their independent problem-solving skills using new and interesting texts; the teacher encourages independent problem-solving while providing appropriate instruction and scaffolding for new learning (Clay, 2005) Other elements of RR also contribute to its success RR teachers are expertly trained through extensive theoretical and clinical coursework, and they receive ongoing professional development following their initial year of training Teachers learn how to inform their instruction by collecting and analyzing data on students’ reading and writing each day Additionally, RR employs vigilant national data evaluation using a standardized methodology The study we describe in this article addresses some of the limitations of previous research and extends findings of earlier research about RR and ELLs The data presented in the current study are unique in that they cover the entirety of available U.S data on ELL students served by this very large-scale early intervention We wanted to see if our results LEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 241 based on national data of ELLs in RR during one academic year would yield results similar to those found in earlier smaller studies (Ashdown & Simic, 2000; Neal & Kelly, 1999) in which ELLs in RR performed as well as NESs on end-of-year tests We also wanted to extend our understandings about the relationship between initial oral English proficiency and ELLs’ success on text reading and phonemic awareness tasks, extending earlier research by Hobsbaum (1995) Research Questions The following research questions guided this study: 1a Is the rate of students who successfully discontinue their series of lessons comparable between ELLs and NESs? 1b Do both groups have similar outcomes on the text-reading and phonemic-awareness tasks? 2a Are the lengths of the interventions comparable between ELLs and NESs? 2b Do the lengths of the interventions vary for ELLs by their fall oral English proficiency level? For ELLs, is the fall oral English proficiency level related to spring outcomes on the text reading and phonemic awareness tasks? For ELLs, is the fall oral English proficiency level associated with end-of-program status outcomes? (End-of-program status outcomes are whether the learner successfully completed the intervention and was at average reading and writing levels.) METHOD In this study, we examined the literacy outcomes of ELLs served by RR and compared the outcomes with those of NES Grade students who were also served by RR RR was implemented in 52 states and federal subdivisions during the 2002–2003 school year, with 17,000 teachers serving about 140,000 learners in more than 3,000 school districts and nearly 10,000 schools This study used data collected as part of the national program evaluation of RR Data are collected and reported for every learner in the program (Gómez-Bellengé & Rodgers, 2004) Procedure As a condition of being granted a royalty-free trademark from RR, participating schools send program evaluation data to the National Data 242 TESOL QUARTERLY Evaluation Center (NDEC) at the Ohio State University Although data are collected for all students who participate in RR, not all data fields are collected for all students A core data collection of required fields is collected for all students These data are complemented by an optional collection of data from participating school districts The data used for this study were therefore collected as part of an ongoing annual program evaluation Because some data fields are optional, they are not available for all students For example, the measure of oral English proficiency was available for only 55% of the nonnative speakers of English (NNESs) This means 55% of the schools implementing RR voluntarily participated in a supplemental data collection, which included measuring oral English proficiency Data on oral English proficiency were available for three-fourths of the schools serving ELLs The NDEC collects a variety of information on each RR student In this study, the following data were used: background, intervention status outcomes, and the length of the intervention Oral English proficiency and literacy measures data were collected in fall (preintervention) as well as in spring (postintervention) Participants RR is aimed at bringing struggling readers to average reading levels As a result, all of the children in this study were identified as being among the lowest 20% of readers in their schools in the fall of Grade Participants in this study include 8,581 ELLs and 121,961 NESs who were served by the RR program in the United States during the 2002–2003 school year ELLs are defined as having a native language other than English and as having an oral English proficiency level less than articulate and proficient based on school tests; we excluded children whose native language is not English but who were found to be proficient speakers of English on tests administered in their schools RR is an intervention that serves significant numbers of ELLs In 2002–2003, 13% of all the children served by RR were ELLs These ELLs were served by 3,837 different teachers in 2,537 schools and 907 school districts The proportion of ELLs served by RR varied from 0.15% to 50.56% of the children served locally ELLs and NESs served by RR during the 2002–2003 school year were quite different demographically (see Table 1) Most (74%) ELLs were Spanish speakers As compared with NESs, ELLs were less likely to be boys (56.2% vs 58.8%), much more likely to have free or reduced-price lunch (60.9% vs 37.4%), much less likely to be white, non-Hispanic (9.3% vs 66.2%), and more likely to be Hispanic (74.0% vs 7.9%) or Asian (12.1% vs 0.6%) LEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 243 TABLE Characteristics of Children Served by the Reading Recovery Program, 2002–2003 Variable Gender Male Female Free/reduced price lunch Yes No Race/ethnicity White, non-Hispanic Hispanic Asian Black Other/Missing English language learners (n = 8,581) Native English speakers (n = 121,961) 56.2% 43.8% 58.8% 41.2% 60.9% 39.1% 37.4% 62.6% 9.3% 74.0% 12.1% 2.7% 1.9% 66.2% 7.9% 0.6% 22.9% 1.6% Measures Oral English Proficiency Assessment Oral English proficiency was measured in fall of the Grade Because it is an optional data field, data were available for 55% of the ELLs served School districts participating in RR use several different assessments, including bilingual syntax measure, language assessment scales, idea proficiency test, student oral language observation matrix, language assessment battery, and basic inventory of natural language Most of the assessments follow a six-level scale rubric If none of these assessments were used, teachers were instructed to use a six-level scale rubric (see Table 2) developed by Rodriguez (2003) for this purpose Although we understand that the rubrics are not strictly comparable to each other, we TABLE Rodriquez’s Oral English Proficiency Six-Level Scale Rubric Level Description Child unable to respond Isolated words and expressions Isolated phrases and fragmented or very simple sentences Complete sentences, often with systematic errors in syntax (i.e., errors in the use of articles, verb endings, and pronouns) Coherent sentences with native-like fluency (occasional errors in either syntax or vocabulary; controls syntactic structures that include plurals, articles, pronouns, and some verb endings) Complete sentences that are coherent and syntactically correct (articulate and proficient) Note Students at Proficiency Level were excluded from the study 244 TESOL QUARTERLY TABLE Literacy Measures on Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words (HRSW) and Text Level Reading (TRL) Purpose Task Range of scores Reliability HRSW TRL To assess phonemic awareness by determining how well the child represents the sounds of letters and clusters of letters in graphic form To write a dictated sentence, with credit for every sound correctly represented To determine an appropriate level of text difficulty and to record, using a running record, what the child does when reading continuous text 0–37 Cronbach’s ␣ = 0.96 (Clay, 2002), based on data collected from 104 urban children in fall 1990 To read texts representing a gradient of difficulty until the highest text level with 90% accuracy or better is determined with teacher recording text reading behaviors during the oral reading task; texts were drawn from established basal systems and have, over the years, proved to be a stable measure of reading performance 0–30 Rasch (Wright, Linacre, & Schultz, 1989) item separation reliability (equivalent to Cronbach’s ␣) = 0.9896 (Clay, 2002), based on data from 96 urban children in fall 1990 Spring text reading level: The participant’s text reading level in spring 2003 was measured and reported, with a permissible score range of 0–30 Spring hearing and recording sounds in words: The participant’s phonemic awareness level in spring 2003 was measured and reported, with a permissible score range of 0–37 End of program status (discontinued vs others): RR children who achieve average reading levels as determined by rigorous exit criteria are designated as discontinued The intervention is discontinued when children have reached a reading level comparable to that of their classroom peers and have developed “a system of strategies which work in such a way that the child learns from his own attempts to read” (Clay, 1993, p 58) These children represent 59% of all children served and 77% of children completing the full series of lessons (Gómez-Bellengé & Rodgers, 2004) Length of the intervention (number of weeks): The length of RR interventions is the final variable used in this study The annual evaluation methodology measures this variable in two ways: calendar weeks of instruction and total number of instructional sessions As one would imagine, the two measures are highly correlated (Pearson r = 0.873, p < 0.01) The measure of weeks was used in this study because it 246 TESOL QUARTERLY more directly relates to policy implications of RR instruction of ELL students Statistical Procedures To compare the rates of students who discontinued successfully between ELLs and NESs (Research Question 1a), a z test on the difference in discontinuing rates was conducted To examine differences in spring literacy level indicated by TRL and HRSW (a phonemic awareness assessment, Research Question 1b), a between-subject multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed Two literacy measures in spring (TRL and HRSW) served as dependent variables and ELL status was the independent variable The MANOVA assumption of homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices was checked A t test was used to compare the lengths of interventions of ELL and NES students who discontinued successfully (Research Question 2a) and a univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to find out if the lengths of interventions (dependent variable) varied for successfully discontinued ELL students based on their fall oral English proficiency level (Research Question 2b) We did not conduct a regression analysis because we not have evidence that the fall oral English proficiency measure (independent variable) is an equal interval variable This reason also applies to Research Question To answer Research Question (spring TRL), we examined covariance matrices A chi-square test for independence was used to determine the relationship between the end-of-program status and the fall oral English proficiency (Research Question 4) We used this statistical procedure because the end-of-program status is a nominal variable and the fall oral English proficiency is an ordinal variable but treated as nominal as we did in Research Questions and RESULTS Research Questions 1a and 1b 1a Is the rate of students who discontinue successfully their series of lessons comparable between ELLs and NESs? 1b Do both groups have similar outcomes on the text reading and phonemic awareness tasks? For research question 1, we specifically wanted to know (a) if the discontinuing rates for ELLS and NESs served by the RR program are LEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 247 TABLE End-of-Program Status for Students with Complete Interventions by Native Language Status End-of-program status English language learners Native English speakers Discontinued Recommended Total 4,494 (69%) 2,023 (31%) 6,517 (100%) 72,716 (76.4%) 22,429 (23.6%) 95,145 (100%) comparable, and (b) if the children who discontinued successfully in the ELL and the NES groups had similar outcomes on measures of text reading and phonemic awareness NESs discontinued at a rate of 76.4% and ELLs at a rate of 69% (Table 4) The result of the z test suggested a statistically significant difference on the discontinuing rates (z = 13.52, p < 0.05) However, the effect size as measured by Cohen’s h (Cohen, 1988) was 0.15, which is small according to Cohen’s guideline Having established that the difference in discontinuing rates between RR ELLs and RR NESs is statistically significant but with a small effect size, we performed a MANOVA to examine differences in spring literacy level for ELL and NES students who discontinued successfully This between-subject comparison was done for two literacy measures, TRL and HRSW Means and standard deviations of these two variables for each group are presented in Table The MANOVA assumption of homogeneity of variance-covariance matrices was not satisfied However, even when this assumption is violated, MANOVA test statistics tend to be robust when sample sizes are equal (Bray & Maxwell, 1985; Stevens, 1996) Therefore, the sample sizes of the ELL and the NES groups were equalized by random deletion of NES cases, as recommended by Tabachnick and Fidell (2001) Because the sample size of the NES students is very large, random deletion of many cases is unlikely to cause loss of power In addition, because the deletion is conducted randomly, no bias is introduced into the original data set This procedure led to a sample of 4,362 ELLs and 4,362 NESs, all of TABLE Spring Literacy Level by Native Language Status for Reading Recovery Students Who Discontinued Successfully Spring literacy variable Text reading level Hearing and recording sounds in words Native language status M SD ELLs NESs ELLs NESs 18.33 19.09 35.79 35.91 3.91 4.02 1.73 1.51 Note M = mean; SD = standard deviation; ELL = English language learners; NESs = native English speakers 248 TESOL QUARTERLY whom were served by RR and discontinued successfully At the alpha level of 0.05, the ELL and the NES groups were found to differ statistically on the overall spring literacy level (Wilks’s ⌳ = 0.99, F(2, 8,721) = 40.31, p < 0.001) However, the effect size as measured by partial ␩2 was 0.009, which is smaller than 0.01, Cohen’s (1988) criterion for a small effect size The small effect size suggests that the statistically significant difference on overall spring literacy was not practically meaningful Follow-up univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that both text reading and phonemic awareness measures in spring contributed to the overall significant difference in spring literacy Their partial ␩2s were 0.009 and 0.001, respectively According to Cohen’s criterion, both univariate effects are too small to be meaningful Research Questions 2a and 2b 2a Are the lengths of the interventions comparable between ELLs and NESs? 2b Do the lengths of the interventions vary for ELLs by their fall oral English proficiency level? Research Question examines the length of RR interventions of ELLs and NESs who discontinued successfully On average, NES students who discontinued successfully spent 15.64 weeks (SD = 4.86) in RR, and their ELL counterparts spent 16.55 weeks (SD = 4.91) The difference in length corresponds to less than week or about four instructional sessions A t test reveals that this difference is statistically significant (t(77,163) = 12.20, p < 0.05) However, the effect size as measured by Cohen’s d (Cohen, 1988) is 0.18, which is small according to Cohen Next, the lengths of interventions were compared across five fall oral English proficiency levels (0–4) for successfully discontinued ELL students Table presents the average lengths of interventions by fall oral English proficiency level An ANOVA shows that discontinued ELLs of various fall oral English proficiency levels did not differ statistically in TABLE Lengths of Interventions by Fall Oral English Proficiency Level for ELLs Who Discontinued Successfully Fall English proficiency level M (weeks) SD 15.58 16.69 16.59 16.52 16.55 4.91 4.93 4.90 4.82 5.04 Note M = mean; SD = standard deviation; ELLs = English language learners LEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 249 their lengths of interventions (F(4, 4,488) = 0.90, p = 0.461) The assumption of homogeneity of variance was satisfied by the data Research Question For ELLs, is the fall Oral English proficiency level related to spring outcomes on the text reading and phonemic awareness tasks? Research Question aimed to explore how fall oral English proficiency levels of discontinued ELL children relate to their spring literacy levels as measured by the TRL and HRSW tasks Table reports the means and standard deviations of the two measures in spring by the fall oral English proficiency level of discontinued ELLs Discontinued ELLs with different fall oral English proficiency levels appeared to have comparable performance on TRL and HRSW at the end of the RR intervention in spring The mean scores on TRL and HRSW of discontinued ELLs with intermediate fall oral English proficiency levels are lower than those with the lowest or highest fall oral English proficiency levels; however, this apparent curvilinear relationship is not borne out in Tukey’s posthoc tests (to be discussed later) Because the assumption of equal variance–covariance matrices was not satisfied, random deletion of cases was used again to equalize the sizes of all fall oral English proficiency groups Afterward, a MANOVA was performed It showed that discontinued ELL students of different fall oral English proficiency levels differ overall on the two measures in spring (Wilks’s ⌳ = 0.98, F = 2.05, p = 0.037), but the effect size of the fall oral English proficiency level (partial ␩2 = 0.011) was small TABLE Spring Literacy Level by Fall Oral English Proficiency for ELLs Who Discontinued Successfully Spring literacy measure Text reading level Hearing and recording sounds in words Fall oral English proficiency level M SD 4 19.14 18.07 17.97 18.28 18.22 36.02 35.60 35.73 36.01 35.59 4.16 4.06 3.85 3.99 3.60 1.48 1.84 1.63 1.19 1.76 Note ELLs = English language learners Means (M) and standard deviations (SD) were computed based on the data with equalized sample sizes for five fall oral English proficiency groups 250 TESOL QUARTERLY Follow-up univariate ANOVAs revealed that spring TRL (F(4, 735) = 2.05, p = 0.086) did not contribute to the significant multivariate test result In contrast, spring HRSW (F (4, 735) = 2.61, p = 0.034) did, but only marginally To find out ELLs of which fall oral English proficiency levels differed on spring HRSW, pairwise comparisons were performed using Tukey’s posthoc tests However, Tukey’s tests did not find statistically significant differences between any two fall oral English proficiency levels Research Question For ELLs, is the fall oral English proficiency level associated with end-of-program status outcomes? (End-of-program status outcomes are whether the child successfully completed the intervention and was at average reading and writing levels.) Research Question ascertains whether the end-of-program status of ELLs served by RR is independent of their fall oral English proficiency levels A chi-square test was performed for this purpose Table presents the frequency distribution of end-of-program status by fall oral English proficiency level The chi-square test was significant at the 0.05 level, suggesting that RR ELLs’ end-of-program status and their fall oral English proficiency levels are not independent of each other Fewer RR ELLs of fall proficiency levels 0, 1, and than expected discontinued successfully, and more children of levels and than expected discontinued successfully If levels 0–2 are combined to form a group of lower fall oral English proficiency, and levels and are combined to form a group of higher fall proficiency, the estimated odds of being successfully discontinued versus other status for the higher proficiency group are 1.60 times the odds for the lower proficiency group TABLE End-of-Program Status by Fall Oral English Proficiency Level for ELLs Fall oral proficiency level Discontinued count Recommended action % Discontinued* 152 (161) 337 (445) 1,248 (1,380) 1,705 (1,597) 1,052 (912) 57 (65) 219 (173) 699 (604) 691 (744) 357 (437) 72.7 60.6 64.1 71.2 74.7 Note ELLs = English language learners Likelihood ratio ␹2 = 143.47, p < 0.05 Numbers in parentheses are expected counts for each cell They are rounded to integers * Discontinued as percentage of students receiving a full program of instruction (discontinued plus recommended) LEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 251 DISCUSSION Having reached average reading levels relative to their classroom peers, children served by RR complete the intervention successfully and the intervention is discontinued Some stakeholders have expressed the concern that RR may not be as effective with ELLs as it is with NESs As a result, they believe that ELLs may be less likely to discontinue, and when ELLs discontinue, they exit at lower literacy levels However, the result of Research Question shows that although the difference in discontinuing rates of NESs and ELLs was statistically significant, the effect size was small In other words, a difference between a 76% and a 69% rate of discontinuing successfully is not large enough to justify withholding this service from ELLs Interventions with a success rate as high as 69% are not common According to Hiebert and Taylor (1994), “schools have not been successful in their attempts to help lower achieving students ‘catch up’ to their peers Unfortunately, most children who get off to a slow start in reading remain behind in reading” (p 4) In terms of spring literacy outcomes on TRL and HRSW, Research Question shows that the differences between ELLs and NESs who discontinued successfully were pedagogically small or trivial On average, ELLs performed less than one text level and less than one phoneme worse than NESs That ELLs and NESs have essentially similar spring literacy levels is as one would expect, given RR’s specific and rigorous criteria for discontinuing the intervention successfully RR instruction for these children did not just give them a bump in their performance The results of performances by ELLs on TRL and for HRSW in spring were at grade level for the end of Grade Being able to perform with their peer group has a significant impact on school performance RR changes the trajectory of learning of first graders at risk and does what Hiebert and Taylor (1994) advocated: “Schools can change the education that they provide to children at risk of experiencing reading difficulties so that these children become successful readers” (p 4) A common concern among school administrators is that because ELLs have less item knowledge (such as letter name knowledge, letter sound knowledge, and fewer known words), less background knowledge, and lower English proficiency than NESs, their RR interventions could take longer than the allotted 20 week time frame This concern or assumption is not supported by the data in this study Research Question reveals that although the difference between the ELL and the NES groups in the number of weeks that interventions last is statistically significant, it is equivalent to only about four instructional sessions, which is not a practically meaningful difference This finding substantiates what Neal and Kelly (1999) reported in their study of RR in California in which RR ELLs reached similar on-grade reading levels as their NES peers in simi252 TESOL QUARTERLY lar time frames Additionally, in the current study we found that the lengths of interventions in weeks not differ statistically among discontinued ELLs of various fall oral English proficiency levels, suggesting that fall oral fluency of discontinued ELLs is not related to their length of intervention Again, withholding RR services on the basis of concern over differences in length of interventions is not justified We not have data to address directly the work of Ramírez et al (1991) and Thomas & Collier (1997), which suggests that children served with bilingual interventions make faster progress than those who are not, but it is at least as important to be able to show that ELLs served by RR progress nearly as fast as NESs The results for Research Question (For ELLs, is the fall oral English proficiency level related to spring outcomes on the text reading and phonemic awareness tasks?) reveal that in spite of significant results on the MANOVA for text level and phonemic awareness, and on a follow-up ANOVA analysis on phonemic awareness, differences in spring phonemic awareness between the five oral English proficiency groups are pedagogically trivial, with scores ranging from 35.6–36 out of a possible score of 37 RR instructors work with children who are such low readers that they cannot benefit from grade-level literacy instruction After the RR intervention, those who meet the criteria for successful discontinuation fall within an average range of performance relative to the general Grade population, and they are now able to benefit from classroom instruction This is an important aspect of RR Klenk and Kibby (2000) found that students served in interventions such as Title I programs make progress compared with nonparticipating peers but “fail to achieve or maintain levels of success comparable to their mainstream peers” (p 675) Traditional approaches to providing extra help in reading have “operated from a perspective of providing remedial instruction, as opposed to accelerated learning” (Hiebert & Taylor, 1994, p 5) The emphasis on accelerated learning, which drives instruction in RR, is what allows RR participants to catch up to their peers Research Question reveals that ELLs’ fall oral English proficiency levels are related to the discontinuation rates Children with higher proficiency levels (i.e., levels and combined) are 1.6 times more likely to successfully complete RR (discontinue) than those with lower proficiency levels (levels 0–2 combined) However, as shown in Table 8, even the group with the least favorable status outcomes had 60.6% of students reaching average reading levels This is a group who spoke only isolated words of English in fall (fall oral English proficiency level 1) and were among the lowest readers in their grade A further examination of the data shows that of the remaining 39.4% who did not meet the rigorous criteria for discontinuation, more than 9% reached a text reading level LEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 253 of 16 or higher at year end A text level of 16 is considered the low end of average for the spring of Grade (Gómez-Bellengé & Thompson, 2005) The results of our study reflect results of earlier RR studies by Ashdown and Simic (2000) in New York and Hobsbaum (1995) in England in terms of the effects of fall English proficiency on student outcomes Ashdown and Simic found that their fluent ESL group had higher discontinuation rates (66.3%) than their LEP group (61.7%) Hobsbaum found that the English fluency levels of the students were related to discontinuation rates and that the higher the level of fluency, the better the discontinuation (success) rates Both studies concluded that RR is an effective intervention of ELLs, regardless of initial English proficiency The literature contains some evidence for why RR is effective with this ELL population We know that for ELLs, differentiated instruction, adequate scaffolding, and teachers skilled enough to work with autonomy are important success factors (Boyle & Peregoy, 1998; Moll & Greenburg, 1990) We also know that for ELLs, systematic phonics instruction, oneon-one instruction, and extensive reading are important (Slavin & Cheung, 2003) Also, because early interventions meet the needs of early learners, they may have a greater impact on student outcomes than home language (August & Hakuta, 1997; Brisbois, 1995; Gersten, 1985; Hurley et al., 2001; Johnson, 1992; Slavin & Cheung, 2003) Overall, the differences between RR NESs and RR ELLs are not sufficient, when they exist, to warrant excluding ELL students from the RR intervention In schools where students not have access to bilingual education, RR is an appropriate addition to the range of best-practice services available to ELLs LIMITATIONS First, existing data were used with no random selection or assignment As a result, certain possibly confounding factors such as socioeconomic status (SES) are not considered SES has consistently been shown to be associated with academic outcomes Children from low-income families are more likely to become poorer readers than those from high-income families (Langer, Applebee, Mullis, & Foertsch, 1990) If students from two groups (e.g., ELL and NES) differ systematically on SES and students from families of higher SES are more likely to participate in RR, not controlling for this confounding factor may lead to a spurious group difference, such as the difference on spring literacy levels between the ELL and the NES groups Second, ELL students may or may not have participated in formal 254 TESOL QUARTERLY English as a second language (ESL) programs in their respective schools; this possible effect was not controlled for If the programs have possible positive effects on ELL students’ reading proficiency, these effects will help close the gap (if there is any) between the ELL and the NES students, and thus the findings regarding the effectiveness of RR would be a mixture of the effectiveness of both the ESL program and the RR intervention Third, data were analyzed only for school districts that participated in the voluntary supplementary data collection Nevertheless, there is no evidence suggesting that these districts differ from those that did not report voluntary supplementary data Fourth, participants’ oral English proficiency was measured using several different assessments in different school districts The comparability of those assessments is unknown and needs to be investigated CONCLUSION This research study supports the findings of previous studies regarding the effectiveness of RR with the lowest achieving Grade children, and it has added to understandings about the success of RR as an early intervention with ELLs RR is an intervention that is effective in accelerating the progress of ELLs to reach average levels of performance A combination of factors may contribute to the achievement made by both ELLs and NESs who were initially among the lowest readers in their Grade classes: strong relationships formed between teachers and children, which fostered an environment for risk-taking and learning; precise one-on-one differentiated instruction based on students’ strengths; incorporating the child’s funds of knowledge into the lesson to enhance motivation; expert teaching and scaffolding provided during every lesson, which led to accelerated learning; sound theoretical understandings about literacy learning held by RR teachers; and lessons based on quantities of reading, writing, and conversation For 30 minutes each day, the ELL student has the opportunity to engage in conversations and teaching–learning interactions with his or her RR teacher The teacher has the expertise to provide scaffolding throughout the lesson to help students improve their ability to speak, read, and write English Teachers engage ELLs in meaningful conversations about their lives and help them write down what they want to say The teacher selects appropriate texts for them to practice reading and to learn new ways of operating on increasingly more complex texts Through conversation and in an environment that is based on interactive ease (Yerington, 2004), teachers provide the necessary background information and orientation to new stories, reLEARNER OUTCOMES FOR ELL LOW READERS IN AN EARLY INTERVENTION 255 ferred to as comprehensible input by Krashen (1981), so that the child will be successful when reading This gradual increase in the demands of reading and writing with expert support allows the child to take on and then practice more and more English structures in both reading and writing This upfront and ongoing support lays the foundation for a risk-taking environment, so important for ELLs (Kelly, 2001) According to Yerington (2004), who studied teacher and ELL student interactions during RR lessons, The one-on-one setting allows the teacher and student to interact in a way that promotes good conversational traits and fosters communication within the learning–teaching dyad Good teaching decisions that connect with the students’ personal experiences and support the atmosphere of comprehensible input in terms of conversational content—the explanation of problematic plot concepts and difficult English language structures—enhance successful performance (p 137) The results of this study support the expansion of RR with Grade ELLs who are struggling to learn to read The evidence suggests that regardless of their proficiency in English, it is likely that many ELLs will benefit greatly from the expert instruction provided by RR teachers We find no reason for school administrators to withhold RR services from ELLs, an often-marginalized group Further research is needed to see if the gains made by ELLs are sustained into Grades 2–5, as are the gains made by children who received RR tutoring (Askew, Wickstrom, & Frasier, 1999; Brown, Denton, Kelly & Neal, 1999; Homan, 1999) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Susan Ding for her help in preparing the database for analysis, and we acknowledge the Reading Recovery teachers around the world who successfully teach children to read every day THE AUTHORS Patricia R Kelly is a professor in the College of Education at San Diego State University, San Diego, California, United States, where she is the interim associate dean for faculty development and research She is a Reading Recovery trainer Her research interests include early literacy intervention and effective literacy instruction Francisco Gómez-Bellengé has worked in bilingual programs in Washington, D.C., and Cleveland, Ohio, United States He is currently director of the National Data Evaluation Center at the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States Jing Chen is a research analyst at the Education Statistics Services Institute, American Institutes for Research, Washington, D.C., United States She earned her doctorate in quantitative research and measurement in education from the Ohio State Uni256 TESOL QUARTERLY versity, Columbus, Ohio, United States Her areas of interest and specialty include large-scale assessment, adult literacy, and educational statistics Melissa M Schulz earned her doctorate in literacy from the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States Her research is focused on understanding the early literacy practices of young learners from diverse backgrounds, as well as understanding the home–school 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