Research Description:

Small Group Literacy Intervention for English Language Learners

According to the US Department of Education, about 1 in every 10 students enrolled in public schools in 2003 were English Language Learners (ELL).  This is over 5 million ESOL students, which is a jump of about 65% since 1993.  ELL students are only exempt from reading exams during their first year of enrollment.  After that, the students are taking the same exams as their peers who were born the United States and have been speaking English their entire lives and the ELL student scores do count towards the school’s performance.  There is a great need for our nation’s education system to determine the most effective ways to teach foreign children English.  Studies have shown that people with better early literacy skills, including phonological awareness, vocabulary, and comprehension, will have a greater likelihood of acquiring a second language successfully.  In my research, I hope to address the question of whether the University of Florida Literacy Initiative small group tutoring model, which focuses on the skills described above, is beneficial in helping ELL learners to acquire the English language more successfully and rapidly than students who are not exposed to this model.  The intervention will take place over 40 sessions, and include pre- and post- testing as well as various measures taken throughout the course of the intervention, to determine each child’s progress.  My goal is to discover that this model is beneficial to English Language Learners, so that it can be utilized by teachers throughout the country that are working with these students.