Research-based strategies for teaching LEP students

with disabilities in standards- based

instruction Kristin Kline Liu

National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO)

http://education.umn.edu/NCEO/

OUR RESEARCH QUESTIONWhat instructional strategies do teachers recommend for delivering grade-level, standards-based instruction to ESL students with disabilities?

Multi-Attribute Consensus Building (MACB) Model

Weighting Scale

0-20 Very Unimportant

21-40 Unimportant

41- 60 Neither unimportant nor important

61-80 Important

81-100 Very important

Staying Warm in Minnesota

Weighting

85

100

100

Strategy

Wear a hat

Dress in layers

Wear good boots

Gersten,R., Baker, S., & Marks, S. (1998). Teaching English-Language Learners with Learning Difficulties: Guiding Principles and Examples from Research-Based Practice. ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education, Reston, VA.

Our definition of a strategy

"A purposeful activity to engage learners in acquiring new behaviors or knowledge. To be useful for our purposes, an instructional strategy should have clearly defined steps or a clear description of what the teacher does”.

Research Subjects

Draft instrument: 5 schools, 30 educators

Frozen instrument: app. 8 schools, 42 educators

Total: 72 educators, 13+ schools

Top recommendationsReading1. Teaching pre-, during- and post-reading strategies2. Fluency building (high frequency words) 3. Direct teaching of vocabulary through listening, seeing,

reading and writing in short time segmentsMath1. Tactile, concrete activities2. Problem solving instruction and task analysis strategies3. Daily re-looping of previously learned materialScience1. Hands-on, active participation2. Use visuals3. Use pictures to demonstrate steps

Types of teachersALL

# %

FROZEN ONLY

# %

ESL/Bilingual 24 33.4% 17 40.5 %

Special Education

18 25.0% 10 23.8 %

Other 30 41.6% 15 35.7 %

Total 72 100% 42 100 %

Teachers’ Experience

2.40%

19.00%

28.60%

50.00%

Less than a year1-5 years5-10 yearsMore than 10 years

Overall weighting of content areas

0102030405060708090

100

All ESL/BilEd

Spec. Ed Other

Types of teachers

Ave

rag

e W

eig

hti

ng

Reading

Math

Science

Specific StrategiesReading—All participants

1. Teaching pre-, during-, and post- reading strategies

2. Fluency building (high frequency words)

3. Directly teach vocabulary through listening, seeing, reading and writing in short time segments

Specific StrategiesReading– Special Educators

1. Teaching pre-, during- and post-reading strategies

2. Fluency building (high frequency words)

3. Chunking and questioning aloud (reading mastery)

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

All ESL/Bil Spec. Ed Other

Type of teacher

Ave

rag

e w

eig

hti

ng

vocab

strategies

fluency

chunking

Reading

Specific strategiesMath – All participants

1. Tactile, concrete experiences of math

2. Daily re-looping of previously learned material

3. Problem solving instruction and task analysis strategies

Specific StrategiesMath – Special Educators

1. Tactile, concrete experiences of math

2. Problem solving instruction and task analysis strategies

3. Daily re-looping of previously learned material

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

All ESL/Bil Spec. Ed Other

Type of teacher

Ave

rag

e w

eig

hti

ng

Tactile

Relooping

Problem

Math

Specific strategiesScience—All participants

1. Hands-on, active participation

2. Using visuals

3. Using pre-reading strategies in content areas

Specific strategiesScience– Special educators

1. Hands-on, active participation

2. Using visuals

3. Use pictures to demonstrate steps

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

All ESL/Bil Spec. Ed Other

Average Weighting

Typ

e o

f te

ach

er

Active

Visuals

Steps

Pre read

Science

Some well known strategies mentioned but not rated in top 3

Reading – All

Think Aloud (82.8)

KWL (79.5)

Cooperative Learning (71.7)

Curriculum-Based Probe (65.7)

Math – All

Curriculum-based probe (71.6)

Reciprocal peer tutoring (74.6)

Teacher think aloud (87.4)

Model-lead-test (MLT) (80.1)

Student think aloud (86.6)

Some well known strategies mentioned but not rated in top 3

Science - All

Cooperative learning (86.4)

KWL chart (83.8)

Peer tutoring (80.34)

Venn diagrams (80.2)

Curriculum Based Probe (63.5)

Familiar strategies in reading by type of teacher

0102030405060708090

100

All ESL/Bil Spec. Ed Other

Type of teacher

Ave

rag

e W

eig

hti

ng

CBP/CBM

Coop. Lrng

KWL

Think Aloud

Familiar strategies in math by type of teacher

0102030405060708090

100

All ESL/Bil. Spec. Ed Other

Type of teacher

Ave

rag

e w

eig

hti

ng

CBP/CBM

RPT

T think aloud

MLT

S think aloud

Familiar strategies in science by type of teacher

0102030405060708090

100110

All ESL/BilEd

Spec. Ed Other

Type of teacher

Ave

rag

e w

eig

hti

ng

CBP/CBM

Peer tutor

Coop lrng

KWL

Venn

Observations

High stress year for schoolsRelationships between special education and ESL/Bilingual departments affected participationTiming affected special educator participationTeachers had a hard time thinking about a child who was both an ELL and had a disability unless they had taught one who had an identified disability.Setting in which educators teach appears to affect their responses (e.g., self contained class vs. pull out)

Conclusions

Not all teachers have the same understanding of what a strategy is. Could be topic for staff development.

As a group, teachers tended to be neutral or positive about all strategies. Individually, they were often negative about some.

Use of the native language did not frequently come up – teachers may not see it as a strategy

Conclusions

Not a lot of variation in the top three strategies chosen in a content area across types of teachers.

Teachers tended to weight what they used highly

Curriculum-Based probes or Curriculum Based Measurement seemed to have the widest variability in weighting