De la Torre Research

Back to Inspiration

De la Torre Home Learn More Standards Inspiration About the Author

Research into Bilingual Transliteracy

The purpose of the study in round one, was to use a technology tool to explore engagement with bilingual students and effects on reading comprehension scores. In the classroom observed in this study, the teacher researcher found numerous students who struggled with reading comprehension. In a bilingual classroom, students struggled with both English and Spanish reading comprehension. Using a bilingual technology tool to engage them in reading might help them increase their reading comprehension scores in English and Spanish. After the collection of data, results showed no significant difference in English reading comprehension scores; and large drop in Spanish reading comprehension scores. The results had the researcher look into something a little different to achieve the desired results.

In round two the researcher used a variety of GLAD strategies and embedded technology strategies into the two units. Students were engaged in the pictorial process since the picture was done in front of them. Information put on the actual pictorials was a combination of student input and information gathered from OCDE Project GLAD materials on these units. Embedding the technology was a big part of engagement as well. In the first unit with Cesar Chavez students were able to watch a short biography video on Cesar Chavez. The teacher was able to add multiple choice comprehension questions into this video that students had to answer along the way. Students then had to create a handwritten product as well as include a technology piece to each unit.

Round 1
Question: How does technology affect bilingual student engagement with reading comprehension?

The purpose in this study was to try a technology tool to examine whether students do better on their weekly reading comprehension tests. The school where the research was conducted was a Spanish dual immersion classroom and they alternated English and Spanish using a 40-60 model (40% English and 60% Spanish). During Spanish instruction some of the EO’s struggled and on English instruction some of the EL’s struggled. The goal was to find a technology tool to engage the students no matter in which language they worked with so that they might increase their reading comprehension scores.

In the first round of the research the teacher wanted to use a technology tool that would engage students in reading and thus increase comprehension scores. The researcher looked at a technology tool that students had never used in class before called Istation. This is a bilingual online program that offers a variety of digital stories embed with games and quizzes. As a pre-test students read one English book and one Spanish book at the same reading level of 3.3 and took an Accelerated Reader quiz after each book. Then Istation was used in English for one week and in Spanish for the second week during reading time, for a total 2 weeks. For those two weeks students did not use their anthology text books nor did they take their regular comprehension tests from the anthology. Once the two weeks of using Istation was done students read a different English and Spanish book and took an Accelerated Reader quiz for each book. This data was collected and was used as the posttest. The researcher was then was able to compare students pre and post AR comprehension test scores. After comparing the pre and post tests, results showed that in English post test, students scored very similar to their pre test scores. However in Spanish students' post tests were significantly lower than their Spanish
pre tests.

Round 2
Question: Will the use of the multi-modal teaching strategy GLAD combined with some strategies using technology improve transliteracy skills in bilingual students?

In the second round the researcher decided to modify the driving question to incorporate multi-modal strategies using GLAD and different technology strategies to increase reading comprehension. Students worked on two units using GLAD and technology strategies for a 6 week period. The first 3 weeks students worked on the Cesar Chavez unit. In the first week the researcher did a Spanish narrative input using the book called “Cosechando Esperanza” by Kathleen Krull. The researcher also used “edpuzzle” where students watched a video on Cesar Chavez biography and answer comprehension questions throughout the video. The second week the researcher did a Cesar Chavez pictorial in English using OCDE Project GLAD material. The third week students worked on their Cesar Chavez handwritten biography in English. In addition to the handwritten biography students had to tell his biography using a digital storyboard, on storyboardthat.com.
The second unit students worked on was the animal unit. The first week the teacher used the “Leopardo de la Nieve” pictorial in Spanish. Student then had to pick an animal of their own they could research about. Students used the “Leopardo de la Nieve” pictorial as a reference as to what they needed to find out about their own animal. The second week students wrote their animal reports in Spanish. In the third week students presented their reports in Spanish in front of the class. In addition students that to make a Google Slide presentation of their animal report in their language of choice.

This is my capstone poster.

Background and Need

The National Assessment of Educational Progress scores for reading showed that there has not been much growth in 4th and 8th graders in 2015 scores compared to 2013 reading scores. In fact 8th grade scores from 2015 have dropped compared to 2013. The results showed that the following group of 8th graders dropped their scores: males, females, white, black, hispanic, suburb, town, rural. It seems that almost all 8th graders, regardless what ethnicity or where they live, have dropped their reading scores. Both grades have only gained small amount of points from the first ever scores in 1992 (6 points for 4th grade and 5 points for 8th grade). In 23 years 4th and 8th grade students have only gained 6 points in reading comprehension scores since first implementing this test.
As a nation, educators have adopted the new common core standards to hold students and teachers to a higher level of education. Students are still not reaching benchmark and educators are looking into different tools in order to have students reach grade level. Students still need to be pushed to achieve bench mark and educators are still searching for better ways to get their students at grade level.
According to the CAASPP English Language Arts/ Literacy reports in the state students scores from 2017 have slightly increased from the 2016 scores. In 3rd and 4th grade their scores combined increased 1.96%, in 5th and 6th grade their scores combined dropped by 3.43%, and in 7th, 8th, and 11th grade their scores combined increased by 2.77% compared to 2016 scores (California Department of Education, 2017). Thus there was a slight 1.30% increase in total from all grades 2017 scores compared to 2016.
The district where this study took place is located in Northern California. Smarter Balanced test results for the district of study, reveal that the percentage of students meeting or exceeding the English standard on the English Language Arts smarter balanced assessment have increased 0.32% from the 2016 scores. At the school where this study took place, the percent has increased in the number of students meeting or exceeding the standard by 0.97% from last year (EdSource, 2017).

Research Paper

Please scroll down to go through my research paper.

Literature Review

Design Process

Support and Next Steps