Examining the Effectiveness of Biliterate Reading/Writing Strategies in a Two-Way Bilingual Program

• In Event: Education Research Service Project Invited Poster Session

Abstract

This study will examine the effectiveness of the “Lotta Lara” and “theDictado” strategies (Escamilla et al., 2014) to develop the biliteracy of students at the Mario Umana Academy, the only dual language school in East Boston. The dual language program at the Umana, which is a Two-Way Immersion program, started its fourth year of implementation in Fall 2017, serving children in K-3. Students at the Umana are predominantly Latinx learners, over 50 percent of whom are classified as English Language Learners. The partners wonder: Are “Lotta Lara” and “theDictado” effective strategies to support our students’ literacy in both Spanish and English? How do we go about successfully implementing these strategies within and across grade levels? How can we determine that the strategies are effective and whether we should implement them school-wide as the program grows? The researchers will help the faculty to collect and analyze data on the implementation of Lotta Lara/theDictado to aid their decision-making. Specifically, the researchers will a) model the strategies and train teachers to implement Lotta Lara and theDictado in their classrooms; b) support lesson planning to integrate strategies with culturally sustaining children’s literature; c)conduct classroom visits to support teachers in improving their execution of the strategies before starting data collection; d) conduct observations, grade level meetings, focus groups and interviews with the participating teachers to identify and address implementation challenges; e) conduct one pre and one post-assessment to determine student reading/writing development; f) collect and analyze samples of student work to determine progress over time. The findings from this research will benefit not only the study site; they will also inform the growing literature on the promise of strategies that integrate oracy, reading, and writing skills

Authors

• Ana Solano-Campos, Georgia State University

• Meg Burns, Lesley University