English Learners Struggling with Literacy: Does A Spanish Literacy Intervention Enhance Outcomes?

Of the school aged children that attend public schools in the United States (US), over 11 million students enter school speaking a language other than English (Kena et al., 2016). With the rise of English Learners (ELs) in classrooms across the US, schools have struggled with providing students with the educational foundations needed to achieve, particularly in literacy. In part, due to their limited English proficiency, many ELs struggle with English literacy, which impacts their overall achievement in school. Despite making gains in reading achievement (Hemphill & Vanneman, 2011), only 9% of EL fourth graders score at or above proficient on literacy measures, which contributes to the continued achievement gap between ELs and their monolingual peers (National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP], 2015). However, there is strong evidence that ELs who have solid skills in their native language are able to apply their understanding to their learning in English. The literature also indicates that learning to read in the native language optimizes achievement in English, thus being bilingual and biliterate is a future potential benefit for ELs (August, Shanahan, & Escamilla, 2009). Since ELs may have a higher possibility of struggling with literacy in school, it is imperative that the benefits of native language literacy instruction are explored. Thus, understanding how a phonics-based literacy intervention delivered in Spanish affects the English literacy outcomes of ELs struggling with literacy is critical in order to provide students with a solid foundation for later literacy success. Therefore, the purpose of this single group pre- test/post-test study was to determine how a Tier 2 phonics-based literacy intervention, provided in Spanish, affects EL students’ literacy skills in both Spanish and English. The participants in this study were nine first grade students, with Spanish language proficiencies ranging from intermediate to advance, who were ELs and struggling with reading. Students met with the researcher in small groups (3 to 4 students in a group) for 18 intervention sessions of 45 minutes each. During the intervention, the students engaged in evidence-based literacy activities designed to enhance their literacy of Spanish. Students were pre-tested and post-tested on measures of phonological awareness, phonics, reading fluency, and comprehension in both English and Spanish. Data analysis included calculating means and standard deviations for all assessments and conducting a repeated measure analysis of variance (ANOVA) to report overall differences between related means. In addition, change scores between pre and post-assessments were calculated for each student to determine trends. Overall, the findings indicated a positive growth trend on all literacy measures in both languages, while statistically significant results were obtained for Spanish and English phonics. Analysis of individual student scores indicate most students made gains from pre-test to post-test on all areas assessed, while English comprehension had mixed results. Given the positive impact on students’ Spanish literacy development and its positive effect on English literacy development, native language instruction and interventions should be used with struggling ELs. Other implications for research and practice include the need for teacher preparation in the area of bilingual education, with a primary focus on biliteracy education as well as the implementation of culturally responsive reading interventions in the students’ native language to assist them in bridging the literacy achievement gap.