The goal of the present study was to examine how effective use of teaching strategies predict reading growth among a sample of English Language Learners. The study specifically examined whether the types of teaching strategies that predict growth in decoding skills also predict growth in comprehension skills. The sample consisted of students in…

California has the largest share of the English Language Learner (ELL) student population in the U.S., and it continues to grow. English Language Learners are the fastest growing group in the public school population and they are underachieving. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the longitudinal changes in the performance of English…

This longitudinal study examined the role of oral proficiency on English reading comprehension, as measured with elicited narratives using a wordless picture book, "Frog Where are You?". The sample consisted 102 English language learners, including both Spanish and Cantonese speakers. Narrative samples were collected in the winter of…

Assessing and monitoring student progress is becoming increasingly important in classrooms and for accountability purposes. Yet, in order to interpret changes in assessment results from one year to the next as reflecting differences in underlying ability rather than as variations in the measurement, the assessments used should be measuring the…

A Mandarin/English two-way immersion elementary program is described from its inception and implementation through the fifth grade, the culminating year of the program. All students in all grades were assessed on their oral/listening, reading, and writing performance in Mandarin using program-created assessment measures. Fifth-grade students also…

This study examined whether having a teacher with National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS) certification improves student achievement. The study analyzed data on about 3,800 second through fifth grade students taught by 198 teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Study data were from 2003-04 and 2004-05. The authors…

This study examined the effectiveness of a transitional Spanish-English bilingual program, Academic Language Acquisition (ALA), in enhancing K-5 students' English-language proficiency, as well as their English performance in academic subject areas, in comparison with the Structured English Immersion (SEI) process. An existing reading program,…