Development of early literacy skills and oral language abilities among Spanish-speaking English language learners in Opening Doors to Literacy
Date
2011
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
This study examines the development of early literacy skills and oral language abilities over one academic year for 201 children from three Head Start centers participating in the Opening Doors to Literacy (ODL) project. Of this sample, 129 children were Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELL). During a four week period between September and October of 2009 and April and May of 2010, participants completed a battery of assessments measuring early literacy skills and oral language abilities. Paired samples t-test analyses show that Spanish-speaking ELLs had significantly higher post-test scores than pre-test scores on all measures. Additionally, one-way repeated measures ANOVA analyses revealed significant effects of home language and years of enrollment in ODL. These findings suggest that Spanish-speaking ELLs made significant gains from pre-test to post-test. Home language yielded a significant effect on the PPVT-IV and TOPEL. Furthermore, results demonstrated a significant effect for years of enrollment on some measures of early literacy and oral language abilities. Implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.