Educational Research and Reviews Vol. 5 (6), pp. 329-337, June 2010 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/ERR2 ISSN 1990-3839 © 2010 Academic Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Supporting young second language learners’ reading through guided reading and strategy instruction in a second grade classroom in Lebanon Darine Chaaya1 and Irma-Kaarina Ghosn2* 1
Lebanese American University, Beirut, Lebanon. Lebanese American University, Byblos, Lebanon.
2
Accepted 17 March, 2010
Learning to read in English still developing literacy in one’s mother tongue is a challenge facing many young English language learners (ELLs) around the world. Reading progress of six young language learners was followed in a second grade classroom in an urban English-immersion school in Lebanon. Two of the six children were identified as at-risk, not only because of their low reading levels but also, because of their negative attitudes toward reading. An individualized reading program comprising trade books (‘real books’) and homogeneous small-group instruction in specific reading strategies was implemented in the class. At the beginning of the school year, the six children observed in the study were reading at levels ranging from mid 1st grade - 3rd grade. The two lowest readers, the main focus of this paper, were reading at low first grade level. After eight months of explicit strategy instruction, children’s reading levels ranged from 2nd - 6th grade level, the two lowest readers reaching mid and high second grade levels. Children’s perceptions about reading and themselves as readers also changed considerably during the eight months. Findings have implications in contexts where young ELLs must learn school subjects in English. Key words: Second language reading, reading strategies, guided reading, leveled books, small-group instruction, Lebanon. INTRODUCTION Since the 1980s, there has been increasing attention in research literature on young learners’ second language reading. Studies have shown that, young language learners face significant challenges particularly, where school subjects are taught in English. One of the main challenges is learning to read in the new language (Cardenas et al., 1988; Thomas and Collier, 1989), as limited reading ability hinders academic achievement in other school subjects. Guided reading with explicit instruction in reading strategies has been employed in the United States with native English-speaking struggling readers and is promoted
*Corresponding author. E-mail:
[email protected]. Tel: +961-9547254/ext. 2325; +961-9-790132. Fax: +961-9-547256.
promoted, for example, by Reading Recovery Council of North America (http://www.readingrecovery.org) for teaching at-risk readers. The present study explores the viability of guided reading and explicit strategy instruction in a Lebanese second grade classroom where children are learning English as a second language and studying also school subjects in English. Strategy instruction Since the late 1990s, studies on young second language learners’ reading instruction have focused on the role of instructional methods in learning outcomes. Story-based, reading-focused instruction has been found to help English English language learners acquire new vocabulary and improve their reading comprehension (Elley, 1989; 1991;
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2000; Elley and Mangubhai, 1983; Elley et al., 1996; Ghosn 2001; 2009). Colina et al. (2001) have identified three particularly beneficial instructional practices: (a) repeated reading, (b) teacher/expert modeling and (c) teaching students to self-monitor their progress. Bergeron and Wolff (2002) recommend some specific reading strategies that will help young ELLs. These include use of picture cues to construct meaning; chunking words into decodable parts; making predictions; self correcting, summarizing, thinking aloud, monitoring comprehension by asking questions; and making text-to-text, text-to-self and text-to world connections. In Clay’s (1991) words, strategies are ‘a network of unobservable in-the-head’ operations that enable the reader to ‘attend to information from different sources’ (p. 328). Fountas and Pinnell (1996) point out that, reading strategies can neither be directly observed or directly taught. However, based on their extensive experience working with scores of teachers and hundreds of children, they argue that the teacher can, through frequent and close observation of children’s reading behaviour, develop insight into their reading processes, and, using that information, structure instructional activities to provide young readers the experiences they need to develop as strategic readers . The prevailing whole-class approach to reading instruction (e.g. Taylor et al., 2002; Taylor et al., 2000) does not provide sufficient opportunities for students to develop an understanding of the reading process and practice new skills. This is particularly the case with struggling learners (Chard and Kameenui, 2000; Greenwood et al., 2003). During small-group instruction, teachers are able to observe their students more closely in order to understand their individual needs better and to provide scaffolding (Taylor et al, 2002; Taylor et al, 2000). For instance, teachers’ knowledge of students’ reading fluency is closely associated with 1st graders decoding development and 2nd graders’ oral reading fluency growth (Lane et al., 2009). Guided reading The guided reading (GR) approach incorporates the above recommended practices (Figure 1) while explicitly modeling the strategies. Research suggests that GR in small groups is an effective way to enhance primary school children’s reading skills (Duffy, 2001; Short et al., 2000; Fountas and Pinnell, 1996). The approach was originally developed for reading recovery of native English-speaking children, and the present study aimed at determining whether it would also facilitate young second language learners’ reading development. The paper focuses on how the guided reading and strategy instruction helped two young at-risk learners develop as readers.
The context In Lebanon, the national language and the mother tongue of majority of the population is Arabic. The national curriculum mandates that children must learn two foreign languages (typically English and French), the first one being introduced at the onset of schooling (ages 4 - 5) and serving also as the instructional language in much of the general curriculum. The majority of the Englishmedium schools in the country are to all practical purposes, English-immersion programs, with only Arabic language and civic education being taught in children’s mother tongue. Thus, developing good reading skills in the instructional language is of crucial importance if children are to make satisfactory academic progress in their school subjects. There is little evidence regarding the success of the language program, because of the paucity of published research in Lebanon about primary school children’s English language development in general and their reading achievement in particular. Two studies (Ghosn, 2001; 2010b) compared reading achievement of 5th grade children enrolled in traditional language teaching courses and children enrolled in literature-based, reading-focused programs, finding in favour of the latter. According to 2004 International Labour Organization report, 14% of primary school children in 2003 were more than one year behind, and 20% of 4th graders were retained. Failing once or twice for many students resulted in dropping out of school (Ghosn, 2010a). While many factors contribute to school failure, the foreign instructional language undoubtedly plays a role; failure in the instructional language implies failure in other subjects. Therefore, it is of great importance to identify instructional approaches that would support children’s learning of the instructional language including reading. METHODOLOGY The present study is an exploratory case study (Hitchcock and Hughes, 1995) with the instrumental aim (Stake, 2006) of observing the participants to understand how they respond to the guided reading approach. The methods employed included explicit strategy instruction in small groups, participant and non-participant observations with detailed recordings/field notes, monthly measurement of reading skills, and interviews. Selection of the participants The children in the study were 7 - 7.5 years old and enrolled in second grade in an English immersion school in Lebanon. They had begun learning both Arabic and English literacy in kindergarten, at age 4, and were receiving
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Recommended approaches
Repeated reading
Teachers/expert modeling of strategies
Teaching students how to self-monitor their progress
Specific strategies: use of picture cues; chunking of words into decodable parts; making prediction; self correcting; summarizing; thinking alond; monitoring comprehension by asking question; making text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to word connection. Figure 1. Recommended approaches, practices found effective and strategies recommended. Compiled from Colina et al (2001) and Bergeron and Wolff (2002).
5 daily hours of instruction through English in reading and language arts, math, science, social studies, arts and physical education. One 50-min lesson period a day was allocated to Arabic literacy. Children had developed good verbal communication skills, but varied considerably in their English vocabulary and literacy skills. Their situation is not very different from that of the scores of young immigrant children in English-speaking countries. At the beginning of the academic year, children’s reading levels in this second grade class ranged from low rd first grade to high 3 grade as measured by Nelly and Smith’s (2000) ‘PM Benchmark’ reading records. Based on their reading levels, the 19 children in the class were divided into three groups: high readers who were reading
above 2nd grade level; average, grade-level readers; and low readers reading below 2nd grade level. We selected six children for observation, two of the highest readers, two from the middle of the grade-level group, and two of the lowest readers, a boy and girl from each group. This purposive, criterion-based sampling enabled us to explore how the guided reading approach and strategy instruction might work for children of different reading abilities. Based on the PM Benchmark reading records, Heba and Hani were the highest readers, reading at 3.9 and 2.9 grade levels (the decimal indicates the month in a 9-month academic year), respectively. Amira and Ali represented average readers, reading at 1.9 grade level, while Leith (age 7.3) was at level 1.4, and Lama (age 7.4)
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at 1.5 level. The PM Benchmark kit provides detailed instructions on how to calculate the levels from the reading record. This paper will focus on Leith and Lama (pseudonyms). Both were identified by their teacher as at-risk for reading failure, not only because of their reading level, but also because of their negative attitude towards reading. Lama was a native speaker of Arabic. She started the year as very shy and soft-spoken. She demonstrated fairly good oral English skills but lacked good phonemic awareness that would have helped her with reading. Leith was a lively boy with good oral English skills, with Armenian as his home language. He enjoyed story telling, but when it came to reading, he preferred to look at pictures rather than to read. The approach Assessment of reading levels Continuous assessment of children’s reading levels constituted a key part of the program. The classroom teacher and one of the authors, Chaaya (an assistant teacher in the classroom), were trained in taking reading records, which were collected once a month. The Nelly and Smith (2000) reading record kit contains thirty texts, each representing a specific reading level, and copies of i the texts for the teacher to mark . There are four key elements in the Nelly and Smith assessment procedure: “retelling, reading records, analysis of reading behaviour, and comprehension questions”. To collect data, the recorder and the student sat next to each other in a quiet corner of the classroom. First, the recorder introduced the text by reading the title and engaging the student in a brief discussion about the cover. The student then read the text silently and when finished, was invited to re-tell it to the recorder. Because reading is more than decoding and involves ‘making sense of what is read’ (Blachowicz and Ogle 2008, p. 1), the level of comprehension was scored based on accuracy and completeness regarding main characters, setting, events, and sequence, on a scale of 0 - 3. The child then read the text aloud, and the recorder marked each word read as ‘correct’, ‘incorrect’ or ‘attempted’ on a standardized record sheet. Omissions, repetitions, insertions and self-corrections were also recorded. When the student self corrected, the recorder noted whether student appeared to use ‘meaning’, ‘language structure’ or ‘visual cues’ for correcting. The teacher then asked literal and inferential comprehension questions (three to five questions, depending on the level of the text). The responses were also recorded, as were specific comprehension strategies observed; e.g. ‘summarizes information’, ‘connects ideas of text to other texts, to self or to world’, and ‘uses fix-up strategies to monitor compre-
hension’. The record sheet had also a checklist for noting specific reading behaviours for later analysis. The reading records were scored immediately after the recording to increase reliability. The record enables to determine rate of accuracy and self correction, use of any semantic, syntactic, and visual cues, fluency, and strategies used to decode unknown words. Based on Clay (1991), the accuracy rate was arrived at, by subtracting the number of errors from the total of running words, dividing that by the number of running words and multiplying the result by 100. For example, if a child read an eighty-word text with five errors (with understanding), the calculation was [(80 - 5) ÷ 80] x 100 = 93.7. Clay’s (1991) formula was used when assigning books for guided and independent reading: independent level 98 - 100% accuracy; instructional level 90 - 97% accuracy; frustration level < 90% accuracy. Books at children’s instructional level were selected for the guided reading sessions. Observations The target children were observed during 30 guided reading group sessions (of 20 - 25 min each) once a month between September and April, as well as during independent reading and other reading activities occurred in the classroom. Guided reading sessions were recorded in detail and observation notes were collected randomly during other reading activities. Children were interviewed in September and in April about their attitudes toward reading and their perceptions about themselves as readers. Materials ‘Leveled books’ were used throughout the study. The term refers to a collection of literally thousands of trade books (‘real books’), classified into levels of difficulty from A to Z by Fountas and Pinnell (2002) using text features, vocabulary, sentence length and complexity, content, story structures and language features to determine their difficulty levels (Table 1 for text samples). The collection includes fiction, non-fiction, and content area readings. Guided reading procedure Small groups of four to six children of similar reading levels and reading needs worked through texts at their instructional level. These teacher-led sessions lasted approximately twenty minutes and were divided into three phases. In the pre-reading phase the teacher introduced a new book (or reviewed a previously read book). Picture storybooks were introduced by a ‘picture walk’; children examined the illustrations and tried to predict what the book might be about and relate the content to their prior knowledge and experiences. Chapter booksii were introdced
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Table 1. Characteristics of leveled books.
Book Level C (grade 1 )
J (grade 2)
N (grade 3)
Characteristics of text Simple story lines Familiar topics to children 2 - 5 lines of text on a page Pictures are important Patterns and repetition are used Stories are longer and more complex Most concepts are familiar Beginning chapter books Variety of texts- nonfiction, folktales, realistic stories… Complex language structures Challenging vocabulary Highly detailed and descriptive Chapter books that are about 100 pages and more
Examples of book titles All Fall Down (Brian Wildsmith) Can you see the eggs?(PM starters) What can you be?(Tiger cub)
Henry and Mudge (Cynthia Rylant) Danny and the Dinosaur (Syd Hoff) The Doorbell Rang (Pat Hutchins)
Amber Brown(Paula Danziger) The Magic Finger(Roald Dalh) The Enormous Crocodile(Roald Dalh)
Sample of text characteristics and examples of titles at grade levels 1, 2 and 3. Adapted from Fountas and Pinnell (1996).
by reading the title, examining the cover illustration and reading the summary of the book when available. Teacher engaged children in a conversation, inviting them to raise questions and/or to notice particular features of the book such as chapter headings. The teacher then introduced and modeled the targeted reading strategy. For example: You can look at the illustrations in the book to predict, to guess, what a word might mean. Let’s see…it says here Charlie ‘really needed a new cloak’. If you look at the picture on this page, you can guess what a cloak might be. Look at Charlie. What can you see? Children then read the book silently or in a low voice, while the teacher observed them closely, noting how they utilized reading strategies, guiding individuals and affirming children’s attempts or successful use of strategies. After reading, the teacher led a discussion about the book, inviting personal responses and asking comprehension questions. She invited children to return to the text to revisit some problem areas or to find evidence for their predictions. Children were invited to make connections between the text and their own experiences and ideas, which enhances comprehension and enables activation of the new vocabulary. Children were also engaged in ‘working with words’, examining closely some of the words with which they had struggled while reading. References to the reading strategies were made throughout the session. The following excerpt was recorded during one guided reading session in Lama’s and Leith’s group (LG = Lama;
LB = Leith: LR = Rami, another low reader in the group): T: Today’s story is a tale called “The sky is falling, written by Katie Knight. It is about a nut that falls from a tree, hitting Rabbit on the head. Rabbit tells one friend that the sky is falling, and the story goes on. LG: He knows and he thinks he saw a video like it. LB: Can the sky fall? T: We will have to read to find out, but keep your thought. Let’s do a book walk, pausing on each page to point out what is happening and call attention to picture details and new words. (Children look through the pages). LR: What are those? (Points to quotation marks). T: The quotation marks in this story tell us that someone is talking. LB: So Bear’s words are in quotation marks because he is speaking to Squirrel? LG: Yes. (After the ‘book walk’) T: Now we will start reading the book. But what do you think I can do when I come to a word that I can’t read? LR: (Shrugs shoulders) I don’t know. LB: Oh I know you can sound it out. Read the letters in the word. LG: Yeah you can do that, it helps you. Also you can look at the picture and try to look for details to help you.
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Table 2. The six children’s progress.
Child Month Heba Hani Amira Ali Lama Leith
September 3.9 2.9 1.9 1.9 1.5 1.4
November 5 3.9 2.7 2.9 1.8 1.7
February 5 4.8 2.7 4.3 2.2 1.8
April 6 5 3.3 4.3 2.7 2.4
Children’s grade levels in September, November, February and April.
Reading records were collected monthly to note any progress and to determine whether children’s reading levels had changed and whether they needed to change reading groups. While the teacher worked with a guided reading group, the other children in the class engaged in independent reading for the 20-min period. They chose books from their ‘book bag’, a file box containing three or four books, both fiction and non-fiction, at their independent reading level as indicated by their most recent reading record. One book was children’s own choice, selected from a basket of titles at their independent reading level. Children’s reading progress Table 2 shows the PM Benchmark scores and instructional reading levels of the six children in September, November, February and end of April. By the end of April, the two highest readers, Heba and Hani, had gained two full grade levels each, reading at 6th and 5th grade levels, respectively. The two average readers, Ali and Amira, had gained 2.3 and 1.3 grade levels, with Amira reading at low 3rd grade level and Ali at low 4th grade level. Leith had gained one full grade level, reading at mid 2nd grade level. Lama had progressed twelve levels, reading at high 2nd grade level. While the progress made by all the six second language learners is noteworthy, we will direct the discussion on the progress made by Leith and Lama, the two at-risk readers. At-risk Leith At the beginning of the year, Leith was reading at BM Benchmark level 7 (grade 1.4; level D books) and said reading was hard for him, explaining that “sometimes there are big words” that he doesn’t “know how to spell” and sometimes he “would not know how to say a word.” He had poor decoding skills and minimal letter-sound knowledge and did not see himself as a good reader. During the first month, Leith demonstrated high frustration levels during reading, frowning and even crying. After one or two unsuccessful attempts at a word, he
would shrug his shoulders and refuse to continue reading. Two months into guided reading, Leith had advanced three reading levels from 1.4 to level 1.7, that is, from low first grade t high first grade. He was sounding out and chunking words and used illustrations as a scaffold to help him ‘pretend-read’. He was making slow, yet steady progress. By December he was making predictions from the title and cover art. For example, before reading ‘Josh gets Glasses’ by Allard, he thought the cover showed Josh getting ready for school, but after looking at the title he said, “Oh, maybe Josh getting [sic] glasses, so, maybe this is the doctor not his mother.” He added “Josh reminds me of to see the eye doctor also.” He was building fluency by ‘reading like you talk,’ checking picture cues for meaning, and continuing to chunk words into decodable parts. His fluency improved as he read predictable books and simple, familiar pattern books at his independent reading level. He was also demonstrating a much improved attitude towards reading. He was now looking forward to reading, inquiring when reading time would begin, or for how long he could stay reading. The following two except illustrate progress Leith made from level 7 - 18 (level K books) over the eight months: Level D. ‘The sky is falling’ by Knight (2002, n/p): A nut falls from a tree. The nut hits Rabbit. Rabbit runs to tell Fox. “The sky is falling,” says Rabbit. Fox runs to tell Bear. “The sky is falling,” says Fox. Bear runs to tell Squirrel. “The sky is falling,” says Bear. Squirrel runs to tell Deer. “The sky is falling,” says squirrel. Level K. ‘Frog and Toad are friends’ by Lobel (1970, n/p): Frog walked into the house. It was dark. All the shutters were closed. “Toad where are you?” called frog. Go away,” said the voice from a corner of the room. Toad was lying in bed. He pulled all the covers over his head. Frog pushed Toad out of bed. He pushed him out of the house and onto the front porch. Toad blinked in the bright sun. “Help!” said Toad. “it cannot see anything.” At the end of April, when Leith was asked what he thought of reading, he said (with a big smile on his face) “that can read
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better” and “know a lot of words.” He said he had learned strategies, such as sounding out words, chunking words, and using picture clues to get at the meaning to help him read and “understand what the story is about.” He added that now he did not have to pick only “easy books” but could read “harder books” as well. Clearly, his attitude toward reading had changed. At-risk Lama In September, Lama was at level 8 (low 1st grade), reading level E books, which featured repeated language patterns, such as the following except from Wishy Washy’ by Cowley (1999, n/p): “Oh, lovely mud,” said the cow, and she jumped in it. “Oh, lovely mud,” said the pig, and he rolled in it. “Oh, lovely mud,” said the duck, and she paddled in it. She stated that she did not like reading because it was “kind of hard, because new books have hard words and it is hard to sound them.” She only liked easy books and concluded she does not know how to read well. In the beginning of the year in September, Lama would pick a book and go directly to the first page, without pausing to look at the cover or trying to read the title. However, she soon began employing the ‘chunking’ strategy when she encountered difficult words. She would chunk the letters and sound them out such as “bis…bis..ku..it” for ‘biscuit’ and “ca...cas...t...le” for ‘castle’. However, there was no fluency in her reading and she read in a monotonous voice. By December Lama began to show increased motivation to read. Although, she still relied heavily on the illustrations to ‘read’ new stories, she began to pick up familiar words from the text and memorized some of her favorite stories. She was making steady progress in her use of reading strategies, beginning to make connections between the text and her experience. For example, when reading about a boy’s first day of school, she noted that her mother came with her on the first day of school, just like the mother in the story. By March, Lama was browsing through books independently and enjoyed sharing with others books she found interesting. She had acquired many sight words and utilized both print and illustrations to make sense of texts. Although, she still often read aloud word by word during guided reading, particularly new texts, she was gaining fluency with books that she had explored repeatedly. By April, she was at level 19 (high 2nd grade) reading level L books, including beginning chapter books and short series books. The following except from Denton’s (1993, n/p) ‘Pee Wee Scouts’ illustrates the type of language of these books: The two boys began to fight, and Sport squirmed deeper into the grass. “Get him!” yelled Sonny as he
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wrestled with Roger. No one wanted to touch Sport… Molly bit her bottom lip. If here dad went prowling around the basement checking the chimney, he might find her homeless pets! Even though she’d hidden them behind the furnace where they’d be nice and warm. Lama summed up her feelings about reading by saying that she was “good at reading now,” adding that she liked to read more, because “even if there is a hard word she will still know how to read it.” Her statement resonates with the findings of Kush et al. (2005); children are motivated to read when they have a positive attitude toward reading. Conclusions Leith and Lama started the year at low 1st grade level with only the early basic reading skills, placing them at risk not only for reading failure but also for academic failure. However, after eight months in the guided reading program, both were reading at grade level and demonstrated a much improved perception about themselves as readers. Although, it is not clear to what extent the improvement in children’s performance was but, due to the instructional approach or simply resulting from exposure and practice, and no generalizations are attempted here, children’s use of the taught strategies clearly helped them develop as readers. Both Lama and Leith stated that, the strategies helped them to read. The findings suggest that, the guided reading approach can provide appropriate scaffolding for young second language learners’ reading development. The small homogeneous groups, explicit strategy instruction, and ‘real books’ at appropriate levels of difficulty make it possible to differentiate instruction. The small-group discussions provided children also with an opportunity develop their oral vocabulary, a prerequisite for reading proficiency. The small-group work enabled the teacher to observe and continuously asses the children and thus, to provide individual scaffolding. It also provided a context for warm social, language-mediated interaction and meaningful joint activities between the teacher and the children, a key element in Vygotsky’s (1976) social learning theory that is so challenging to realize within a whole class setting. The differentiated instruction, made possible by the leveled books and homogeneous small-group instruction served not only the needs of the at-risk readers but also the needs of all the children in the class who were able to continue at their own pace. In typical language and reading programs in Lebanon, the whole class is instructed using one grade level textbook. Had that been the case in this classroom, the average, grade level readers might have made satisfactory progress, while the low readers would have been left further behind. The
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more proficient readers, being limited to reading material below their level, might have lost motivation and not made the kind of progress they were able to make with the differentiated instruction. While the ‘leveled’ approach can be overdoneSzymusiak and Sibberson (2001) refer to ‘leveling mania’ (p. 16) and, in fact, hinder progress of the more proficient readers (Routman 2000, p. 84), children in the class were not rushed through levels. Rather, the guided reading approach was employed to differentiate instruction and help children develop as independent readers. This resonates with McLaughlin and McLeod (1996) findings from exemplary schools in the United States in terms of English language learners’ achievement: flexible programming, curriculum and instruction adjusted to student needs. To conclude, this case study does not attempt to draw any causal relationships or make generalizations. However, the findings do show that the guided reading approach, developed for struggling first language readers, worked remarkably well for the two English language learners at-risk as readers (as well as the other four, as Figure 3 illustrates). Finally, the two at-risk readers’ new positive attitude toward reading is likely to assure that, they will continue to read more and thus, become better readers. As Cunningham (2008) notes, attitude toward reading is strongly positively correlated with children’s literacy development and early reading attitudes predict later reading attitudes (Kush et al., 2005). Positive attitude is associated with motivation to read, and the more children read the better they read. The attitude change is of particular significance in contexts where young second language learners must learn school subjects in the new language and access information in their subject matter textbooks. The findings are sufficiently interesting and positive as to merit replication with larger numbers of participants. Notes: (i) Rigby PM Ultra Benchmark (Harcourt Achieve, 2007) kit contains sixty texts, two for each of the 30 levels. (ii) In this context, ‘chapter books’ refers to transitional books for children who are beyond easy readers but not yet ready for traditional middle-grade fiction. Early chapter books range from 50 pages to over a hundred, has illustrations, and contains plenty of dialogue. Examples of good chapter books include ‘The Hundred Dresses’ by Eleanor Estes and ‘Sarah Plain and Tall’ by Patricia MacLaughlan. REFERENCES Bergeron BS, Wolff MB (2002). Teaching Reading Strategies in the Primary Grades. New York, NY: Scholastic Professional Books. Blachowicz C, Ogle D (2008). Reading comprehension. Strategies for
independent learners (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press. Cardenas J, Robledo M, Waggoner D (1988). The under education of American youth. San Antonio, TX: Intercultural Development Research Association. Chard DJ, Kameenui E (2000). Struggling first-grade readers: The frequency and progress of their reading. J. Special Educ. 34(1):28. Clay M (1991). Becoming literate: The construction of inner control. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Publishers. Colina MG, Parker IR, Hasbrouck JE, Alecio RL (2001). Intensive intervention in reading for at-risk beginning Spanish readers. Bilingual Research J. 25(4). Cunningham DD (2008). Literacy environment quality in preschool and children’s attitudes toward reading and writing. Literacy Teaching and Learning, 12(2): 19-36. Duffy A (2001). Balance, literacy acceleration, and responsive teaching in a summer school literacy program for elementary school struggling readers. Reading Research and Instruction 40(2): 67-100. Elley WB (1989). Vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. Reading Research Quarterly 24: 174-87. Elley WB (1991). Acquiring literacy in second language: The effects of book-based programs. Language Learning 41(3): 375-411. Elley WB (2000). The potential of book floods for raising literacy levels. International Review of Education 46(3/4): 233-255. Elley WB, Mangubhai F (1983). The impact of reading on second language learning. Reading research Quarterly 14(1):53-67. Elley W, Cutting B, Mangubhai F, Hugo C (1996). Lifting literacy levels with story books: Evidence from the South Pacific, Singapore, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Paper presented at the World Conference on Literacy, Philadelphia, March 12-15 (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED416441). Fountas IC, Pinnell GS (2002). Leveled books for readers. Grades 3-6. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Fountas IC, Pinnell GS (1996). Guided reading: Good first teaching for all children. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Ghosn IK (2010). Quest for national unity: The rhetoric and reality of school curricula in Lebanon. In Kirylo, J. and Nauman, A. (Eds.). Curriculum development: Perspectives from around the world Chicago, IL: Association for Childhood Education International (in press). Ghosn IK (2010). Five-year outcomes from children’s literature-based programs vs. programs using a skills-based ESL course. The Matthew and Peter Effects at work? In Tomlinson, B., Masuhara, H. (eds) Research on the effects of materials development for language teaching. London: Continuum (in press). Greenwood CR, Tapia Y, Abbott M, Walton C (2003). A building-based case study of evidence-based literacy practices: Implementation, reading behavior, and growth in reading. J. Special Educ. Vol. 7, Num. 1. Hitchcock G, Hughes D (1995). Research and the teacher. London and New York: Routledge. Kush JC, Watkins WM, Brookhart MS (2005). The temporal interactive influence of reading achievement and reading attitude. Educational Research and Evaluation 11: 29-44. Lane HB, Hudson RF, Leite WL, Kosanovich ML, Strout MT, Fenty NS, Butler TW (2009). Teacher knowledge about reading fluency and students’ reading fluency growth in Reading First schools. Reading and Writing Quarterly 25(1). McLaughlin B, McLeod B (1996). Educating all our children: Improving education for children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Impact statement and final report on the accomplishments of the National Center for Research on Cultural Diversity and Second Language Learning, submitted to the US Department of Education. Nelly E, Smith A (2000). PM benchmark kit 1. UK: Nelson Thomson Learning. Routman R (2000). Conversations. Portsmouth, NH:Heinemann. Short R, Kane M, Peeling T (2000). Retooling the reading lesson: Matching the right tools to the job. The Reading Teacher 54(3): 284295. Stake R (2006). Multiple case study analysis. New York and London:
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Guilford Press. Szymusiak K, Sibberson F (2001). Beyond leveled books. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers. Taylor BM, Pearson D, Clark K, Walpole S (2000). Effective schools and accomplished teachers: Lesson about primary-grade reading instruction in low-income schools. The Elementary School J. 101(2): 121-130. Taylor BM, Peterson DS, Pearson D, Rodriguez MC (2002). Looking inside classrooms: reflecting on the ‘how’ as well as the ‘what’ in effective reading instruction. The reading Teacher 56(3): 270-279. Thomas WP, Collier V (1997). School effectiveness for language minority students. Washington, DC: National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education. Vygotsky L (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Children’s books mentioned Allard S (2002). Josh gets classes. Tucson, AZ: Learning Page. Cowley J (1999). Mrs Wishy Washy. New York: Wright Group. Denton J (1993). Pee Wees’ piles of pets. New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell Books. Knight K (2002). The sky is falling. Tucson, AZ: Learning Page. Lobel A (1970). Frog and toad are friends. New York: Harper Collins. McNamara M (2005). First day of school. New York: Scholastic Inc.
