Structured Literacy is an Equalizer for ESOL Students

In this blog post, Marianne Brown, a teacher at Te Kura Tuatahi o Papaioea / Central Normal School in Palmerston North talks about how using structured literacy with students for whom English is not their primary home language (referred to as ESOL students) is equalizing and game changing. Marianne is a Tier 2 Literacy Intervention teacher and oversees the ESOL programme at the school and takes approximately 20 students a week for ESOL sessions. Download the blog: here.

Structured Literacy is an equalizer.  It's fair play and an even field for our neurotypical children as well as our dyslexic children, children with limited experiences and ESOL children. The alternative, Whole Language uses a strategy based on “informed guessing”. This is hard to do if you have limited experience, or English is your second language. How can you teach a child to make an informed ‘guess’ when they may not have the information at hand?

When considering what characteristics make effective ESOL assessments, the New Zealand Curriculum document, by the Ministry of Education (2005), suggests a teacher should:

• consider if it benefits and involves students,  

• does it support teaching and learning goals,

• is it suited to the purpose, and 

• is it a valid and fair assessment? 

Traditionally with other reading assessments, such as running records, as part of a Whole Language approach, the child is encouraged to use ‘informed guessing’ as the main strategy. Fleckenstein, J., Leucht, M., Pant, H.A. et al (2016) show that “non-native speakers of English generally underperformed compared to native speakers” in these types of informed guessing assessments. 

How are these types of assessments and teaching, that are based on using cues and prior vocabulary knowledge, that our ESOL students find difficult to access, fair?

A running record assessment of reading, that is based on ‘informed guessing’ relying on a native English vocabulary and using books that feature examples of New Zealand cultural practices, such as the Ready to Read series, disadvantage our ESOL learners right from the onset. It would not be considered a fair and valid assessment, and the subsequent teaching using non-decodable books is also not fair.

Using a Structured Literacy approach does not rely on the ESOL learner to have prior knowledge and vocabulary around New Zealand’s cultural practices to access literacy.

Research by Gough, P. and Tunmer, W. (1986) proposes that, “A simple view of reading was outlined that consisted of two components, decoding and linguistic comprehension, both held to be necessary for skilled reading.” It is so important that we focus on both comprehension and decoding with our ESOL learners for them to become successful readers. But, for a child to comprehend and gain meaning from text, decoding and fluency must first take place.

Kilpatrick’s (2015) research shows us that only 40% of students succeed without further instruction or interventions using a Whole Language approach, whereas 95% of students succeed using a Structured Literacy approach. This was particularly apparent for our ESOL learners in our school when we were following a Whole Language approach compared to Structured Literacy. 

Since changing to a Structured Literacy approach, we have seen remarkable gains in literacy with our ESOL students. In fact, we have found that they learn to read at the same rate as non-ESOL students………That’s what equality looks like.

Let me tell you about Katie, (name changed to protect privacy), an ESOL student at our school.

Katie was a student, who arrived as a refugee from Thailand when she was 9 years old, with no English language. At home, she spoke exclusively Burmese. She was a shy girl, who did not mix with her peers that often and would be frequently alone during lunchtime. When asked if she would like some help in finding someone to hang out with, she replied that she, “was not sad or lonely and wanted to walk around by herself”. As a consequence of not engaging with her peers, her second language acquisition did not progress at a rate that would be expected. This had a flow on effect to her reading and writing. After two years at school, she was still on magenta reading level. She simply could not use the traditional 3 cue system as she had very little knowledge of syntax or meaning of the text. When I first came across her, in year 6, she had all but given up on succeeding. She was acutely aware that she was so far behind the other students. This made her withdraw from the class even more and she had developed a highly sophisticated set of avoidance tactics as a result.  

With intermediate school looming at the end of the year, I sought to meet with her every day for half an hour to focus just on reading. Very reluctant at first, “because Mrs Brown, I just can’t learn it, my brain can’t learn it”, we started with Stage 1 sounds (from Little Learners Love Literacy) and lots of phonological awareness exercises. Little by little she progressed. Once she worked out what blending and segmenting was all about there was no stopping her! Within four months she was on Stage 5 (roughly end of blue on the colour wheel) and there was not a day that didn’t go by that she told me of some success. She started mixing more with her peers during lunchtime and we saw this shy girl, who frequently had her head down, blossom into one who looked at school and herself differently. One day I was walking through the school when she came flying out of the classroom and enveloped me excitedly in a bear hug. “Mrs Brown! The reliever gave me a worksheet to do and I could actually read it! I knew what to do, Mrs Brown! I could learn with the other kids!” I congratulated her, we did a little dance together and then I encouraged her to go back to class and continue with her work. After she went back there may have been a few tears that formed in my eyes that day. I love my job.

This is one story…..I can tell you at least another four like this one in just last year alone. For our ESOL learners, Structured Literacy is equalizing and game changing. Learning the code unlocks access to reading. For a lot of them, they might already have the knowledge on how to read, but it is in their first language. When learning how to read in English they simply don’t have the language knowledge to “guess at words”. But once having learnt the code, they can decode words, and from this fluency develops and comprehension follows. Their vocabulary and literacy have also improved with fantastic results in our school.

Like I said….Structured Literacy is an equalizer. Isn’t that what we all want for our children, equal opportunities?

References:

Fleckenstein, J., Leucht, M., Pant, H.A. et al. (2016). Proficient beyond borders: assessing non-native speakers in a native speakers’ framework. Large-scale Assess Educ 4, 19 

Gough, P. and Tunmer, W. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6–10

Kilpatrick, David A. (2015). Essentials of assessing, preventing, and overcoming reading difficulties. Hoboken: Wiley, 2015 

Ministry of Education (2005). ESOL Progress Assessment Guidelines. Wellington: Learning Media.