# Presentation: 516687

## Routh Roach Elementary SchoolGarland, Texas

- Jeanette O’Neal, Principal
- Carolyn Knott, Literacy Specialist

**One Nation Undivided**
**English Language Learners:**
**Teaching to Their Strength**

## School Facts

- Urban Elementary School (EC – 5)
**379**** **students
- African American, **18%**
- Anglo, **25% **
- Hispanic, **57%**
- LEP, **44.7%**
- BE, **39%**
- ESL, **4.6%**
- %FEDL & LEP, **91.5%**

- Located in North Texas (Dallas County)
**31** faculty members        (**20** classroom units)
- Assessments
- TPRI & Tejas Lee
- ITBS & Logramos
- TAKS
- TOP & RPTE
- District Benchmarks &   Unit Assessments

**Notes:**
Routh Roach is an urban elementary school located in North Texas, Dallas County.  Garland ISD is the 13th largest district in Texas and 11th in terms of LEP student enrollment.  In Garland ISD, 37% of the students have indicated that they speak a language other than English with 66 languages accounted for in our student data management system.  There are approximately 379 students attending Routh Roach Elementary, which offers early childhood programs through fifth grade.  The demographic breakdown is as follows:  African American, 18%; Anglo, 25%; Hispanic, 57%; LEP, 44.7%; BE, 39%; ESL, 4.6%, and % Federal Lunch (FEDL) & LEP, 91.5%.   Instructional programs offered at Routh Roach include:  General Education, Bilingual Education, English as a Second Language, and Special Education.  Supplemental instructional support services include, but are not limited to:  Literacy Intervention Programs, Independent Reading Programs, Extended-day Programs, Tutorials, and Computer-assisted learning.  There are thirty-one (31) faculty members instructing students across twenty (20) classroom units.  Specifically, there are twenty (20) classroom teachers and eleven (11) other professional educators that support instruction.  Assessments administered at Routh Roach are those required at the federal, state, and local levels and include:  TPRI (Texas Primary Reading Inventory), an English reading diagnostic assessment; Tejas Lee, a Spanish reading diagnostic assessment; ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills), an English norm-referenced assessment;  Logramos, a Spanish norm-referenced assessment; TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills), the state criterion-referenced assessment evaluating students’ mastery of the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills in reading, writing, math and science administered in Grades 3-5 and available in English and Spanish (passing TAKS Reading at 3rd required for promotion and passing TAKS Reading and Math at 5th required for promotion); TOP (Texas Observation Protocol), Texas’ response to NCLB in regards to the assessment of LEP students’ English language proficiency in listening, speaking, reading and writing determined by trained raters and informed by a rubric listing proficiency indicators across the four language domains; RPTE (Reading Proficiency Test in English), also a response to NCLB as a means of assessing LEP students’ reading English proficiency; and, finally, locally-developed district benchmarks and unit assessments.

## TAKS Student Performance Data (LEP)

## TAKS Student Performance Data (LEP)

## BE Program Implementation Highlights

- Instruction in core subjects provided exclusively in _Spanish_ (K-2)
- _Academic language__ _in** **Spanish developed across all grade levels and core subjects
- Students expected to demonstrate advanced _grade level skills_ in Spanish
-    prior to transitioning into
-    English

## BE Program Implementation Highlights

- Formal literacy instruction in _English_ typically introduced in Grade 3
- _ESL lessons_ integrated daily to promote students’ acquisition of basic interpersonal communicative skills (Cummins, 1979)

## BE Program Implementation Highlights

- _Commensurate rule_:  Students are instructed in both English and Spanish commensurate with their level of proficiency in both languages and their level of academic attainment
- _Academic self-esteem_:  The program is successful as it honors the students’ heritage, language and culture.  The students are validated and acquire self-worth.

## Research Base for BE Program Design

- A series of studies find that the _best entry into literacy_ is through the use of a child’s _native language_ (Clay, 1993; Snow, Burns, and Griffin, 1998)
- The _strongest predictor_ of L2 (English) _student achievement_ is amount of formal      L1 (Spanish) schooling (August and Hakuta, 1997)

## Research Base for BE Program Design

- More than 100 empirical studies show a positive association between _additive bilingualism_ and students’ linguistic, cognitive, or academic growth                         (Cummins, 2000)

## Research Base for BE Program Design

- English language learners _immersed in the English_ mainstream because their parents refused bilingual/ESL services showed _large decreases__ _in reading and math achievement by Grade 5          (Collier and Thomas, 2002)

## Research Base for BE Program Design

- Bilingually schooled students are able to _sustain the gains_ in L2 (English) and in some cases, to _achieve even higher_ than typical native English speaker performance as they move through the _secondary years of school_
- 	(Collier and Thomas, 1997)

## Summary Points

- Key Concepts:
- One nation undivided is a reality when we _teach to our students’ strength_
- Focus on _long-term academic achievement_ and commit to abandoning any practice that requires that LEP students acquire English    		at the expense of their education
- _English proficiency_ is an                     _inevitable outcome_ of                           academic success

## One Nation:  Shared Challenge

- School districts frequently compound the academic challenges that LEP students face by introducing English literacy in the primary grades prior to students demonstrating mastery of basic reading skills in Spanish.                      _**A consistent approach is critical.**_
- LEP students are more likely than their English-speaking peers to drop out of high school as a result of their inability to demonstrate academic proficiency in either language.                   _**Elementary BE Programs are in a position to change that statistic.**_