Counseling, Higher Education & Special Education

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2226

The departments within the College of Education were reorganized and renamed as of July 1, 2011. This department incorporates the former departments of Counseling & Personnel Services; Education Leadership, Higher Education & International Education (excluding Organizational Leadership & Policy Studies); and Special Education.

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.English language learners

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A BILINGUAL FAMILY LITERACY PROGRAM FOR FAMILIES OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: EXPERIENCES, PERSPECTIVES, AND LITERACY PRACTICES FROM THREE FOCAL FAMILIES
    (2015) Palombo, Kimberly Marie; Silverman, Rebecca D; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    A large body of research identifies the positive association between family literacy and reading outcomes for children. However, much of this research focuses on children in the emergent reading stage. Research aimed at family literacy for families with English language learners (ELLs) is further limited. Due to the dearth of family literacy program (FLP) literature for children in grades three through five, the current study investigated the experiences and attitudes of three parent–child focal pairs who participated in a bilingual family literacy program. This qualitative study of a family literacy program investigated the following two research questions: (1) What are families’ experiences and attitudes related to a family literacy program, implemented as part of an existing reading intervention, to support children’s reading development?; and (2) How does what families learn in a family literacy program align with at–home literacy interactions? Three parent–child focal pairs who were ELLs and had children in fourth grade, served as the participants to investigate these questions. Data sources for analysis included parent and student interviews, parent questionnaire, and audio/video recordings of the program. The constant comparative method (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) was used to analyze all data, both within and across the focal families. The analysis culminated in the development of an emergent theory that summarized the findings from the experiences of the focal families included in this study. Analyses of data revealed the three focal families desired to support their children’s literacy development through participation in family literacy programming, and they added to their skills with practical strategies to use with their children. Further, participation in family literacy programming deepened Spanish family literacy interactions related to texts children read in English through oral discourse. Finally, families’ implementation of strategies learned in an FLP extended their existing home literacy environment. A discussion of the findings, implications for families, home–school partnerships, and future FLPs, limitations of the current study, and future areas of research are then explored.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    READING COMPREHENSION STRATEGY INSTRUCTION IN UPPER-ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS WITH ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: A STUDY OF PRACTICES AND OUTCOMES
    (2015) Doyle, Candice Briece; Silverman, Rebecca D; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between reading comprehension strategy instruction (explicit or skills-based) in general education settings and third through fifth grade students' reading comprehension outcomes. In addition, I was interested in whether relationships between instruction and outcomes differed for students from English only (EO) and English language learner (ELL) backgrounds. To address these goals I conducted a secondary data analysis of 59 Reading/Language Arts classroom observation transcripts. These represented observations of 19 teachers at three time points (fall, winter, spring). I analyzed transcripts by employing an iterative coding process including open, axial, and selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). I coded teacher talk at the utterance (Crookes, 1990) level for either explicit instruction (instruction that included all of the following: introduction, modeling, collaborative practice, guided practice, independent practice) or skills-based practice (teacher practice in which students were asked to apply a comprehension strategy absent of instruction of how to do so). In addition I coded for separate parts of the explicit instruction model (introduction, modeling, collaborative practice, guided practice, independent practice). Then, I quantitized (Tashakori & Tedlie, 1998) the instructional code data into average frequency counts across observations in order to conduct multiple regression analyses with student reading comprehension outcome measures. I found no statistically significant results related to the explicit instruction model (as a whole), or skills-based practice and students' outcomes. However, when analyzing separate parts of explicit instruction, results suggested that more guided practice was associated with higher scores on one outcome measure. In exploring interactions between language background and instructional codes, I found no differences in relationships between instructional codes and reading comprehension for EOs versus ELLs.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    A quasi-experimental evaluation of reading and special education outcomes for English Language Learners in Instructional Consultation Teams schools
    (2007-07-10) Silva, Arlene E.; Rosenfield, Sylvia; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The present quasi-experimental study used hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) to investigate whether the Instructional Consultation (IC) Team model differentially influences fourth and fifth grade state reading achievement test scores, and English Language Learner (ELL) student scores in particular. Correlations among student-, classroom-, and school-level variables and special education placement were also explored using HLM. Archival data from 11 IC Teams "treatment" schools and 17 nonequivalent "control" schools in a mid-Atlantic state were analyzed in both students-within-schools and classrooms-within-schools multilevel models, with appropriate controls specified for classroom and school compositional effects. Although students-within-schools HLM models of reading achievement were not significant, classrooms-within-schools models indicated that classrooms in IC Teams schools had significantly higher class average reading achievement test scores (ES = .36) compared to classrooms in control schools. Neither the students-within-schools nor classrooms-within-schools HLM models found IC Teams to differentially influence reading achievement for ELL students. In addition, classrooms-within-schools results indicate that classrooms in general and classrooms with higher percentages of ELL students tended to have lower percentages of students placed in special education in IC Teams schools. The presence of significant effects at the classroom level may indicate that the classroom is a better unit of analysis for investigating the effectiveness of the IC Team model during the first two to three years of implementation, when its greatest impact may be on teacher, as opposed to student, improvement. Despite its limitations, the present study represents the most rigorous investigation of the effect of IC Teams on student reading achievement to date, and serves as a foundation for future research using HLM to investigate the effects of the IC Team model on student and classroom outcomes.