st nd Friday

Friends: Literacy Growth Among 1 and 2 Grade ESL Students

Belmont Elementary School Lauren Greenhill, NELA Cohort II

PROBLEM OF PRACTICE

LOGIC MODEL: GOALS, OBJECTIVES, AND STRATEGIES

FRIDAY FRIENDS OVERVIEW

Over a period of seven weeks, all of Belmont Elementarys 1st and 2nd grade ESL students par;cipated in Friday Friends. During these interven;on sessions on Friday aLernoons, each of our three reading coaches would work with a small group of 4-6 students around vocabulary development and literacy skills. The specic ac;vi;es varied each week, but were focused on: Preparing students for the next weeks vocabulary words connected to their classroom guided reading story Prac-cing with func-onal, daily vocabulary word recogni-on Understanding vocabulary in the context of a story

RECOMMENDATIONS/NEXT STEPS
Further integra-on of PLCs not just by grade-level and posi-ons, but also by skills being addressed Allow students to take their Friday Friends materials back to their classrooms to use throughout the week Implement Friday Friends on a day other than Friday, for logis-cal purposes Establish consistency and crossover of vocabulary strategies between ALL teachers of ESL students Streamline interven-ons for ESL students Structure more -me for collabora-on among classroom, ESL, and reading teachers

In the mission statement of Belmont Elementary School, we state that we will provide students with opportuni;es to learn and succeed. Over the past few years, however, Belmont has experienced an inux of ESL students, and the reading EOG test scores of this popula;on have fallen. So, we wanted to try and address this issue in a meaningful way. Our theory of ac-on around this problem focused on preparing ESL students with stronger early literacy skills and knowledge in 1st and 2nd grades, believing that this would be the best way to lay the founda-on for con-nued reading growth. In addi;on, our research indicated that the development of vocabulary and background knowledge are two of the largest areas of need for ESL students. Therefore, we decided to hone in primarily on vocabulary development in our interven;on, which we chose to name Friday Friends.

SAMPLE EVALUATION QUESTIONS

To what extent did the classroom teachers collaborate and plan with the ESL teacher and reading coaches during PLC mee;ngs? In what ways was vocabulary instruc;on for ESL students integrated into the classroom? To what extent do you believe that Friday Friends is helping students further develop their vocabulary? Explain. How many ESL students demonstrated growth on DIBELS ORF or NWF progress monitoring over the past three weeks? What about TRC?

SUMMARY OF RESULTS
Only 33% of classroom teachers surveyed indicated that they collaborated somewhat oGen or very oGen with the ESL teacher, and 100% of the reading coaches indicated no collabora;on with the ESL teacher. 100% of classroom teachers surveyed indicated that they were neutral or needed more informa;on about whether or not the Friday Friends interven;ons were helpful for their ESL students, while 100% of reading coaches surveyed indicated that the Friday Friends sessions were somewhat or very helpful in developing ESL students vocabulary. 57% of ESL students demonstrated growth on ORF or NWF skills over the course of the interven-on, and 55% demonstrated growth on TRC.

LESSONS LEARNED
Eec-ve evalua-on requires asking the right ques-ons, at the right -mes, of ALL of the right people. Quality AND quan-ty ques-ons are equally important, in dierent ways. Transparency and communica-on are hugely important throughout the implementa-on and evalua-on of a program.

TEMPLATE DESIGN 2008

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