ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

Development of Literacy among ELL in grades K-2

Development of Literacy among ELL in grades K-2

Introduction

Researchers agree that there is a pressing need to understand how language-minority children emerge to literacy in a second language. However, emergent literacy investigations have dealt primarily with native speakers of English emerging to literacy in a white, middle-class environment and with children learning to read and write in Spanish. Similarly, there has been insufficient research relating the process of second language acquisition to the classroom settings for learning English such as the nature of instruction provided and the use of written versus oral modes of English input.

However, some investigations suggest that young ESL children are capable of making sense of written input while they are working on becoming fluent speakers of English. This research orientation maintains that just as speaking, reading, and writing are interrelated in the emerging literacy of native speakers, they are equally related in the emerging literacy of second-language children. A literature-based curriculum, in particular, may capitalize on this relationship as it encourages children to talk about the stories they hear and to write their own stories. Classroom contexts that include a writing center where children take control of their writing seem to encourage ESL children to experiment with emergent forms of writing. First-grade English learners, in particular, may attain a level of reading and writing development similar to that of native English speakers when classroom practices support meaningful engagements with print and teacher-led scaffolds to help children figure out sound symbol correspondences.

To provide accountability and uphold standards on learning for every child in this country, both federal and state legislation has required the inclusion of all students, including English language learner (ELL) students, into large-scale assessments. Such inclusion requirements have drawn more attention to the validity and fairness of assessments for ELL students, who may not fully demonstrate their knowledge and skills due to their lack of English language proficiency. In assessing ELL students' content knowledge and skills, their facility with the language of the assessment (English) confounds students' ability to show what they know and understand. For example, when a math test is administered in English, test results not only may be a function of ELL students' mathematics knowledge, but also of their ability to understand the language of the test. It raises a serious validity concern if test items contain unnecessary linguistic complexity that interferes with ELL students' ability to show their content knowledge.

Discovering literacy themes

Discovering literacy opportunities was an inductive process, based on the types of literacy practices that characterized the different literacy events and considering the teacher's literacy views, the children's interpretations of literacy events and practices, and the children's evolving identity as readers and writers (McGee & Richgels, 1990). Then, using the constant-comparative method, the literacy practices for each literacy event were grouped into two distinct categories that reflect the literacy themes. The names of the teacher and children mentioned in this study are pseudonyms.

The children's sense of themselves as readers grew out of their ...