| The purpose of this study was to measure the effects of providing native language support to second language learners during early English reading instruction. Four native language support techniques, which were used together as intervention, systematically targeted the development of decoding skills and language comprehension skills in English. Of particular interest in this study was the effect of providing native language support to accelerate the development of phonemic awareness, letter knowledge, and an understanding of the alphabetic principle.; Fourteen Spanish-speaking students in kindergarten and first grade participated in the study. The students were matched on three criteria: (1) Spanish was their native language, (2) language proficiency scores indicated that they were in the early stages of English language development, and (3) they were age six or seven and had completed kindergarten or first grade. The study was done with intact groups and did not involve random sampling.; The effect of the intervention was measured by combining the results of five standardized reading subtasks from Marie Clay's Observation Survey (Clay, 1993a). The composite scores for each student were used as the dependent variable for the study. These subtasks were (1) The Word Subtask, (2) The Letter Identification Subtask, (3) Concepts About Print Subtask, (4) Writing Words Subtask, and (5) Dictation Subtask. These five subtasks were used as pre-tests, followed by four weeks of intervention. The same five subtasks were then used as post-tests, and the composite scores of the treatment group and the control groups were compared. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used on the pre-test scores to determine the variability between the treatment and control groups. Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was used on the post-test scores using the pretest as the covariate.; Adjusted post-test scores on the five subtasks indicated that the students who received native language support made larger gains than the control group in their English language development of letter identification skills, phonemic awareness, and the alphabetic principle. This trend was established in all of the subtasks and became statistically significant when the results of the subtasks were combined.; The findings of this study concur with the previous research of Cummins (1991, 2000), Escamilla (1987, 1993, 1999), and Durgunoglu and Oney (2000) who found that for second language learners (1) the native language plays an important role in second language reading development, and (2) native language support can be used effectively to enhance second language reading development. This study provides a theoretical rationale for why native language support is beneficial, as well as practical suggestions for how monolingual English speaking teachers can organize human and material resources to provide native language support to enhance early literacy instruction. |
