Hidden Strengths of Emerging Bilingual Readers

Hidden Strengths of Emerging Bilingual Readers October 23, 2014 cathy compton-lilly by Catherine Compton-Lilly University of Wisconsin-Madison Oct. 23, 2014 I am constantly impressed when an 8-year-old-child easily shifts between languages, translating her mother’s words into English to compensate for my lack of Spanish. In recent years, a growing body of research has highlighted the significance of bilingualism and the long term effects being bilingual, or being multilingual, has not only on people’s understandings of language, but also on their general cognitive abilities. Perhaps this is why I am intrigued by a recent publication by esteemed scholar, Luis Moll. I highlight Moll’s work partly because I found it in a book on Vygotsky and feared it might not be discovered by many of us who focus on literacy. In this chapter, Moll and his colleagues observed two groups of children as they moved between reading instruction in Spanish and English. The children spent half of their days in each classroom. The teacher who taught them to read in English did not speak Spanish. Moll and his research team were intrigued when they noticed that some children who were capable readers in Spanish, were identified as struggling in their English reading classroom. When their Spanish-speaking teacher viewed her students participating in the English reading classroom, she noted, “Those can’t be my kids. Why are they doing such low-level work?” Moll and his colleagues initiated a series of teaching-learning experiments in which they asked children to read texts in English and then discuss what they had read in Spanish. The results were compelling. Children who appeared to have minimal comprehension of English texts when they were required to discuss these texts in English, revealed rich comprehension when they were allowed to talk about the texts using their native Spanish. Moll and his colleagues worked toward creating a “bilingual zone” in which children were invited to draw on their Spanish language resources to comprehend and discuss texts they had read in English. Specifically, Moll and his colleagues were careful to provide scaffolds when children discussed texts using English. They built on students’ comments and provided missing elements of stories enabling groups of students to collectively express what they understood and to share their ideas with each other. When students gave short one-word responses, the research team situated these comments within the story and invited other members of the group to build on these comments. Finally, the research team invited children to use Spanish to access key terms and convey ideas the children could not yet express in English. Throughout this process, the research team actively resisted allowing the children to resort to literal and basic comprehension of texts. Instead, they asked high-level inferential questions and expected the children to respond to complex ideas while employing language scaffolding and allowing the children’s selective use of Spanish. As Moll reports, “we knew that the students could perform at more advanced levels,” and that “it was well within their zone of proximal development.” Significantly, the idea we can invite bilingual speakers to draw on their full language repertoire— in two languages— is a concept quickly gaining traction with our colleagues who focus on ESL and bilingual education, as noted in several of the studies listed at the end of this post. Teachers can ask children to use their native languages to talk or write about books read in English or explore different ways of conveying ideas using multiple languages or language variations. In addition, it is important for teachers to recognize the bi-literate abilities many children bring to classrooms, including being able to write words and sentences in more than one language. Even teachers who do not speak the native languages of all her students can invite students to draw on their bi-literate abilities, consulting with bilingual colleagues as needed. Recent work on “translanguaging” opens the door for reading scholars to think deeply about intersections between reading and language. Moll’s work invites all of us to consider the competencies our bilingual students bring to text and possibilities for our teaching. - See more at: http://www.reading.org/literacy-daily/post/lrp/2014/10/23/hidden-strengths-of-emerging-bilingual-readers#sthash.k8q6rBEo.dpuf

Dual-Language students outpace peers on tests

Dual-language students outpace peers on tests ELIZABETH HARMON With almost half of the students in Woodstock School District 200 enrolled in the dual-language program, administrators say they’re encouraged by their academic progress. At the Board of Education’s meeting Feb. 10, D-200 Director of Grants, Language and Culture Keely Krueger presented a report on the program, which includes 1,800 students in pre-K through high school who learn in both English and Spanish. The presentation included 2014 Illinois Standard Achievement Test scores that showed middle school dual-language students continue to outperform their mono-language counterparts. Results from the 2014 ISAT reading exam showed that among students taught in English only, 59 percent of sixth-graders, 65 percent of seventh-graders and 59 percent of eighth-graders met or exceeded state standards. Among dual-language students, about 80 percent of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders met or exceeded state standards. Math scores reflected a similar pattern. District 200’s dual-language classes are different from English-as-a-second-language programs. Parents of students who speak either English or Spanish as their first language can elect to have their children enter the dual-language program, where students receive regular classroom instruction in both languages. Krueger, Superintendent Mike Moan and members of the board suggested the dual-language students’ higher scores could be due to several factors, including the positive impact of learning a second language at a young age, teaching strategies, as well as active parental involvement in their education. “Our job for monolingual classes is to make sure we’re having the same kind of progress, and to ask what we can learn from our experience [in dual-language] moving forward,” Moan said. The performance bump applies to low income students as well, and Moan added that encouraging more African-American students to enroll in dual-language could benefit another demographic subgroup that has traditionally struggled academically. Krueger also recapped the progress the district has made with its dual-language high school program, one of a handful in the state. This year, the first class of dual-language students entered their junior year of high school and are taking Spanish content and literacy classes, in addition to English electives. Next year, the program will add a Spanish-language international business class. Students who pass a Spanish proficiency exam will receive a seal of biliteracy on their high school transcript. Those who have taken six dual-language courses and pass proficiency exams in Spanish and English also will be awarded a dual-language medallion to wear at commencement. The class of 2016 will include the first dual-language graduates. Woodstock’s program has attracted local and national attention. Teachers and administrators have been presenters at national dual-language conferences, and representatives from 10 districts in Illinois and Wisconsin have come to Woodstock to observe the program in action. With more area districts, including Crystal Lake, Harvard and Barrington, now offering dual-language programs, Krueger said finding native Spanish-speaking teachers continues to be a challenge. “With the growth of dual-language programs in other districts, there’s more competition,” said Krueger. While the district continues to recruit teachers from overseas, Krueger said that they are increasing efforts to hire locally but also are visiting job fairs throughout the state. “We’re only five years away from having a teacher come back who has gone through our program,” said board member Russ Goerlitz.