Research Update

It is all coming together! Over the past few months of collecting data from students and survey’s from teachers, it was overwhelming. It was hard to grasp how do I organize, interpret, understand and decide how to use all of this information I was gathering. It wasn’t easy, but eventually I found a rhythm in my day to focus on small areas of my research project, which eventually all came together. That is where I am at now.

Throughout my research on how to properly assess English Language Learners (ELL) for Learning Disabilities, there is one thing that sticks out to me. It is not easy for an ELL student to do well on the standardized assessments provided to them. There are many questions with academic vocabulary and a need for background information that cannot be supported while a student is testing. Since these tests are not valid or reliable tools to assess ELL students for a Learning Disability, what body of evidence can we create to support the need for special education services?

Over the past few weeks, I have collected data on a group of ELL students in my academic placement. These students were paired with similar factors as another peer. Two students that I worked closely with had very similar factors. They both began Kindergarten at the same time, have been in the United States of America for the same time, speak minimal English at home, have an attendance issue, have had the same Tier 2 interventions, both have older siblings and they both have a speech disability. Through the support and collaboration of the ELL teacher, I was able to learn more about their home lives and the lack of academic work being completed at home. Both of these students are relatively similar compared to the huge factors that separate them from other ELL students and the non-ELL students they are with every day.

Over a six-week time period, I worked alongside their general education teacher, and ELL teacher to collaborate and work together to support both students. Through our observations the ELL teacher and I determined what scaffolds needed to be introduced into their Tier 1 instruction environment for them to be successful. We supported their general education teacher with reading, writing and math scaffolds to use throughout their day. We supported this first grade teacher with examples of how to efficiently use these scaffolds to consistently support their needs as an ELL student. Not only are these practices intended for the benefit of the ELL student, but for the class as a whole.

After six weeks of supporting Tier 1 instruction, it was very evident that the two boys had different academic needs. Boy A was able to learn to stay on task and successfully complete the work given to him with the support of the scaffolds. Boy B continued to struggle with understanding content and what was being asked of him. He was not able to complete his work at the same rate and quality as most of the students in his classroom. When the two boys were asked to write a sentence on their reading content, they were given visuals of how a sentence should be formed, given a text-starter, and having an adult support the student’s dictation of the sentence. Overall, the students received many scaffolds to write their simple sentence. Prior to the six-week intervention, both boys did not write recognizable sentences. After six weeks of intervention, Boy A was able to use the scaffolds successfully a write a complete sentence. Boy B required extra support to write the sentence word by word, with repeated directions throughout the process, despite the scaffolds put in place. The lack of progress from Boy B, compared to his like peer Boy A, gave the special education team reason to believe he possibly had a learning disability. At the end of this time, both boys would still have low scores on standardized assessments, however our body of evidence shows that Boy A has a relatively good rate of learning.

This process was completed very meticulously for these two boys and appeared to be successful in determining if either of the boys required special education services. This gave me reason to repeat this process for other students. I began to put together more students that had similar factors and academic levels. By supporting their Tier 1 instruction with more scaffolds, we were able to reveal students that had a stronger need for intensive and targeted instruction. Overall, part of this process reveals the support needed in Tier 1 instruction to support ELL students. This process could aid in the body of evidence needed to support an ELL students need for special education services.

Support in the Classroom

Part of my process is showing the need for support of scaffolds in the general education classroom. If I am given an English Language Learner (ELL) student to evaluate for special education, it is difficult to qualify that student based on the validity and reliability of the standardized assessments for ELL students. The trouble with giving the student the assessment in their native-tongue is that many students are considered poor-bilinguals and struggle with that language as well. Part of this journey has shown me that I need to know and understand the scaffolds for ELL students to support them in the general education classroom.

This blog post is a review of the journal article "Five Strategies to Help Beginning ELL’s Meet the Common Core" as published by The California Reader, in 2013, Vol. 47, No. 1, pg. 27-31.

Our goal as educators is to support the academic achievement of our students, and part of that is supporting them in meeting the standards. My research is trying to understand how to detect if an ELL student requires special education services. Since my academic placement is new to a huge growth in ELL students, not all classroom teachers have an understanding of how to support ELL students in class.

The article starts off explaining that ELL students need support in developing a greater language proficieny to meet the listening and speaking standards (pg 27). It is very common for beginning ELL students to be quiet and shy. This makes knowing and figuring out their needs very challenging for teachers. There are five strategies that support early ELL students to understand their needs to reach academic achievement (pg 28).

One strategy to support ELL student’s comprehension in class to is to analyze how you communicate with students. The article suggests that having “caretaker” speech is necessary to insure ELL students are listening to you communicating with them. The article describes “caretaker” speech as having a calming, and soft voice. The article expands that talking quickly and loudly can appear to be aggressive to ELL students, making their environment unpleasant. The article continues with suggesting teacher to talk in simple sentences. This helps to ensure that students have the chance to understand what is being communicated (pg 28).

A second strategy the article supports using in the general education classroom for ELL students is the practice of using real objects and visuals. The article describes that when ELL’s see written words it can be incomprehensible. The article makes a good comparison to trying to read Chinese symbols and trying to interpret the meaning without any knowledge of Chinese. The article expresses the importance of not assuming students understand the meaning of words, and to take the time to present them prior to the lesson. The article expresses that using concreate objects to support comprehension has students tap into their senses, which supports their memory for learned material. Lastly, the article expresses that even a simple drawing can make the difference of a comprehensible lesson for ELL students (pg 29).

Another strategy is to introduce the Total Physical Response (TPR). The article depicts the importance of meaning to support learning. One strategy the article discusses is how adding movement can help with comprehension. Movement should be explicit and intentional to convey clearly what is being learned (pg 29). I have added movement into my lesson on how to create a simple sentence.  We make a big gesture to emphasize using a capital letter at the beginning, jump every time we need a space and put a fist in the air for ending with a period. Overall, students know the movements more than the words capital and period, but they attach the movement to the meaning.  

The next strategy that the article asks teachers to utilize is the support of the students first language. The article explains that students can access deeper thoughts when they have the opportunity to express themselves more comfortably. If you have two ELL students who share the same first language, allow them to pair up and talk in their first language. The article expresses how much their growth can be stunted if they are asked to speak only English in class (pg 29).

Lastly, the article asks teachers to utilize engaging books to read to students. Reading to students helps them learn words and how to pronounce them correctly. The article continues to express that support their auditory learning is just as important as their visual learning (pg 30). Reflecting on this article makes me think that auditory learning is not always the main priority, when teaching students to read is so important. However, that auditory learning is best practice for all students and appears to be very important for ELL students.

Overall, part of supporting ELL students in the general education classroom is making sure they understand meaning. It is so easy to assume that a student understands what you are saying. In my experience, ELL students are able to observe what is going around them to support their own actions. Although this is a great strategy to support their ability to stay on task, it leads teachers to believe they understand what is being communicated to them. I believe the strategies shared in this article also reflect best practice for supporting all students, especially special education students. I would like to share these simple strategies with teachers to support all of their students. I will support general education teachers in implementing these strategies in order to understand the level of support their ELL students need. If the implementation of these strategies support the students’ academic growth, it would appear that they can be successful in the general education classroom.

It Takes a Village...

We have all heard the term, “it takes a village,” at one point in our lives. This simple phrase really conveys the number of people and support it takes to accomplish challenging tasks. This article has me reflecting on how much input and thought is needed to really understand and support every student individually. 

This blog post is a review of the journal article "Evaluating Special Education Services for Learners From Ethnically Diverse Groups: Getting It Right" as published by Bilingual Research Journal, in 2011, Vol. 34, No. 3, pg. 316-333.

The authors of the article interpret data from research completed in 2005-2006 on English Language Learners who were also receiving special education services. It was determined from this study that it was challenging for educational professionals to distinguish academic learning problems that were present because of a language barrier, or because of a learning disability. There data and files were then interpreted by professionals with expertise in the special education and ELL population of students. Results of the study did provide evidence that 18 out of the 44 students probably had a disability, and that their primary disability for 7 of those students was Speech and Language Impairment and 7 for Other Health Impairment (pg. 324) This study definitely helped shine a light on public school’s referral and evaluation system for Special Education. 

The article begins with a brief summary of how ELL students are twice as likely to be reading below grade level than English proficient peers. Since these students have low academic achievement, most teacher’s express concerns for students to be in special education (pg. 317). This article continues to discuss how the interpretation of the study’s results show that Response to Intervention (RTI) can be an appropriate strategy for supporting ELL students (pg 317).

Something from the article that was very interesting to me is it stated that, 56% of ELL students in special education are categorized under having a Learning Disability (LD). The article continues, calling the category of LD a “judgmental” disability category, since educators can place this disability category on a student without a medical diagnosis. (pg. 318). From my experience I can relate that the Learning Disability category has requirements, however interpretation of a student’s data can be debatable. The article continues to provoke thoughts on why so many ELL students are put into this category, and is it a result of poor interpretation of student data (pg. 318). This almost sounds like specialists know there is a factor that is preventing them from learning at the same rate as their peers, but not considering any of those factors to be something different than special education related. The article then continues to go through suggestions for acquiring accurate and reliable data on ELL students.  

As I think of my own personal experience, a lot of teachers do not know how to support their ELL students who have really low academics. The special education team is a very supportive team in our building and when teachers are struggling, our teachers seek advice and council from the special education team. Part of me wonders if general education teachers have the resources they need to support the needs of our ELL population. Working in a school district with 16% of our staff being of a minority group, but working with a population of 51% of our students being in the minority, there needs to be support in educating staff members.

The question becomes, who is supporting the ELL students in your school that have low academic achievement? Is there enough ELL support in your school to support students and teachers? It really does take a village to support a student with so many different factors. An interesting conversation the article brings up is also giving special education training to ELL teachers to have more participation in in the evaluation process to help support decisions. ELL teachers also have access to all ELL students and are able to compare similar peers to the growth of students with comparable histories (pg. 327). In my experience, a general rule of thumb for identifying students to be referred in special education is how different they are from their peers. The main concern is that students who are learning English as second language should not be compared to all of the students in their class, but rather peers who have the same background.

The more I research the topic, the more I realize how critical it is for communication and collaboration is necessary to truly identify ELL students with having a disability. Now the question is, what systems need to be in place for this communication to happen to identify ELL students for having a learning disability accurately? I will be collecting data on systems already in place in other schools that appear to be successful.