A CRITICAL REVIEW OF A JOURNAL
J.
Ashdown and O. Simic (2000). Is Early
Literacy Intervention Effective for English Language Learners? Evidence from
Reading Recovery. New York University
Nowadays, researchers
continue to do some experimental researches upon some techniques to teach
English as additional language to find the most effective instructional
approaches to provide a meaningful education. When talking about teaching
English as foreign language, it should be considered about the inequality
achievement between native and non native speaker of English in the class. Based on Haager (2001), students whose
primary language is other than English and are learning English as a second
language, often experience particular challenges in developing reading skills
in the early grades. Conducting instruction in English, regardless of whether
it is students' native language, makes it critically important to develop
strategies for addressing students' unique literacy learning needs. There is a
considerable urgency to develop teaching strategies for all students within
English immersion programs and provide appropriate professional development for
teachers.
Seeing the effect of Reading Recovery toward
students’ reading achievement is the concern of
Ashdown and Simic’s research Is Early Literacy Intervention Effective for
English Language Learners? Evidence from Reading Recovery. Furthermore, their
research explores a question whether Reading Recovery is effective for children
who are learning English as an additional language. In the beginning Ashdown
and Simic review two kind of studies about reading achievement that conduct
using different instruction, first one by using classroom literacy instruction
and the second one by using Reading Recovery.
The writers’ review of research addressing the
effectiveness of classroom literacy instruction for English language learners
shows that the field is dominated by questions regarding the use of a language other
than English for instructional purposes. In particular, researchers have
compared the academic achievement of students with English as a second language
who have received classroom instruction in a variety of first and second
language settings. Moreover, Ashdown aand Simic show a strong evidence of the
positive impact on reading achievement of initial literacy instruction being
conducted in a child’s native language by their review. However, they also find
that the reviewed research also suggests that where native language literacy
instruction is not available, instructional practices that best support the
literacy achievement of English language learners must be identified if
inequalities in reading achievement are to be reduced.
In reviewing the studies about Reading Recovery,
Ashdown and Simic state that many school systems want to address the needs of “at-risk”
literacy learners including those children who speak languages other than
English by implementing Reading Recovery as an early intervention and
prevention program (delivered in English) that supplements classroom literacy
instruction during first grade. Skilled teachers, specifically trained for the
purpose, provide daily, 30-minute lessons to those children identified as
having serious literacy learning difficulties and are the lowest performing
readers in the cohort. The aim of Reading Recovery is to ensure that children
receiving this individual tutoring catch up as quickly as possible with their
classmates, usually in 16 to 20 weeks, so they can continue to make progress in
reading and writing in a variety of classroom instructional contexts without
needing further special assistance.
After reviewing those two studies, the researcher
restate their purposes of study are finding whether there are differences in
outcomes, rate of completion, and delivery of Reading Recovery as a literacy
intervention for children who are English language learners, as compared to
native English speakers and whether Reading Recovery narrow the gap in reading
achievement between English language learners and native English-speaking
children in first grade.
The data used by the writers in this study were
drawn from the Reading Recovery Data Sheet, produced by the National
Data Evaluation Center at The Ohio State University. This is a national
questionnaire used to record reading and writing scores, demographic
information, and other data on all children selected for Reading Recovery, as
well as on a sample of children randomly drawn from the general first grade
classroom population. Ashdown and Simic describe their success indicator in
Reading Recovery based on the combined judgments of the child’s Reading Recovery
teacher and the classroom teacher and test at exit from the program using all
six tasks on An Observation Survey of Early Literacy Achievement that taken from Clay. The writer have three
groups of participants in this study, Reading Recovery Group, Random Sample
Group, and Comparison Group. Ashdown and Simic use the database that
spans six years of Reading Recovery implementation (school year 1992-93 to
school year 1997-98) at 37 Reading Recovery sites affiliated with New York
University. They analyze the data in the first research question, which
concerned the outcomes, completion rates, and delivery of Reading Recovery, was
answered by a comparison of the proportion of children of different language
backgrounds who were selected to receive Reading Recovery services, who
completed full Reading Recovery instruction, and who were deemed successful in
Reading Recovery. Pearson’s Chi-square tests were used to report on the
statistical significance of the differences between two groups of English language
learners (LEP and fluent ESL) and native English speakers (English). To answer
our second question, whether Reading Recovery closes the literacy achievement
gap between native-speakers and English language learners in first grade,
proved a challenging task, considering that our data derive from a field
implementation of Reading Recovery in a variety of educational settings. To
search for differences we used analysis of variance, with language (English,
Fluent ESL, and LEP) and sample group (Reading Recovery, Random Sample,
and Comparison) as fixed factors; Reading Recovery Site as a randomly
varying factor; and Text Reading Level as a dependent variable.
Ashdown and Simic therefore conclude that the
one-to-one tutoring offered in Reading Recovery constitutes an appropriate
setting, in addition to the classroom, to support language and literacy
development for children with limited English proficiency.
The authors of the research can therefore be
criticized here for invariant sentences that are used in this report. The
reviewer sometimes found that there are some repetitions of some sentences. It
seems like they are less active in producing sentence to present their data smoothly.
It is better to have a more variation sentences to make the report more
interesting.
Another questionable aspect of this article is whether
the success of the implementation of Reading Recovery in early literacy
children is only a matter of the method used or affected by other aspects. Although
the authors do not state that the methods that is used to solve the problem in
early literacy is the best one, this is what is implied from their way to state
their argument about Reading Recovery. Whereas it is suggested that the
researcher should be more balance in reviewing some evidence to support their
data, not only showing the strength but also the weaknesses. Furthermore, it
should be notice that the successfulness of the implementation of Reading Recovery
in early literacy reading also affected by other factors inside the children,
such as characteristic of the students and characteristics of their educational
environments. It will be bias of the data. This same bias can also be found in
the background of the population of the research where they came from high
socio economic status and the native English speaker come from low socio
economic status. Those environments of study really affected the result of the
study.
Despite these criticisms, Ashdown and Simic’s
article still has some value and we need to judge it in terms of the authors'
purpose in writing it. It is not intended to be a accurate piece of academic
work, but is intended mainly to proof whether Reading Recovery is the best
method in solving risk in early literacy reading achievement. We can therefore
understand why the authors choose to be positive about Reading Recovery for
early literacy intervention, and why they mostly show about the strengths of
Reading Recovery.
How great experimental research, can this result be
an evidence of how useful Reading Recovery in solving problem of early literacy
children? First of all we need to consider the evidence Ashdown and Simic draw
on to support this evidence. The results of the research presented seem
persuasive where they can show some strengths of using Reading Recovery in
early literacy reading. They show the data in an appropriate portion, so that
the reader can understand the result easily. In my view, the writers have
already served the data in the systematic and comprehensive way, so that they
can compose any firm conclusions in the end of their chapter.
It would be interesting to read this result of
research, where Ashdown and Simic opened it with a big topic, so that the
reader can generalize their mind about the issue before they go focus on the
topic. The way they respond to the big issue can make the reader really want to
continue to read their brilliant idea about that big issue. Moreover, from the
beginning the writers also started to present their data by addressing some
references to support their statement, it looks like they are really know the
rule of a researcher. It make it as a kind of a good introduction.
References
Haager, Diane. (2001). Early Reading Intervention for English Language
Learners At-Risk for Learning Disabilities: Student and Teacher Outcomes in an
Urban School. http://www.colorincolorado.org
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