Standards-based Instructional Strategies for English Language Learners with Disabilities

ELLs with Disabilities Report 18

Deb Albus • Martha Thurlow • Ann Clapper

All rights reserved. Any or all portions of this document may be reproduced and distributed without prior permission, provided the source is cited as:

Albus, D., Thurlow, M., & Clapper, A.  (2007). Standards-based instructional strategies for English language learners with disabilities (ELLs with Disabilities Report 18). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes. Retrieved [today's date], from the World Wide Web: http://education.umn.edu/NCEO/OnlinePubs/ELLsDis18/

Introduction

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 requires that students with disabilities and English language learners be held to the same content standards and assessed on the same grade level achievement standards as their peers. As a result, educators and advocacy groups for each of these student groups have seen increased attention paid to the instruction of these students and their opportunity to learn grade level academic content. Students in the intersection of these groups who are both learning English and who have disabilities may require even more attention via instructional supports and strategies to help them get there. This raises an important question as to what guidance, in the way of instructional strategies, do states recommend to educators to help these students achieve grade level standards along with their peers?

Given the current emphasis on research-based instructional methods, states and educators need guidance for these students. Yet, there are very few research studies on the instruction of English language learners with disabilities either as a group or by specific learner challenges. Although the literature base that addresses instructional strategies for diverse populations of students with various language proficiency levels and disability types is limited, some foundational work has been done in synthesizing the separate research on English language learners (ELLs) and students with disabilities to best address the needs of these students (Artiles & Ortiz, 2002; Cloud, 2002; Gersten & Baker, 2000; Gersten, Baker, & Marks, 1998; Müller & Markowitz, 2004).

Even though there is a small literature base, it is still important to look at what states are currently recommending, alone or in partnership with regional resource centers or research entities, to address these educational challenges and to share that information. For example, do states suggest instructional strategies in their standards or supplementary instructional documents based on synthesized research on students with disabilities and English language learners? If they make recommendations for strategies, what are they? Are they communicated in a user-friendly way for educators who work with these students, students who may vary greatly in learner characteristics? How are strategies defined? This is an important question because there are different ways to understand what constitutes a strategy in instruction. The term has been used to refer to practices anywhere from "principles of good instruction" to broad educational approaches.

The National Center on Educational Outcomes designed a document review of state standards and supplementary instructional documents to help answer these questions and to share this information across states. We asked these specific questions:

• Do states recommend instructional strategies in reading, mathematics, or science for ELLs with disabilities?

• What is the nature of the instructional strategies being recommended in general, and for ELLs with disabilities?

• How are the strategies communicated to educators?

Method

Steps in this study included (1) collecting standards and supplementary instructional documents, (2) verifying the accuracy and completeness of the state documents, (3) coding the documents, and (4) analyzing the results.

We started by collecting state standards documents and supporting documents (e.g., frameworks, teaching resources, etc.) from the Web sites of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Because the number of documents collected was quite large (N=742) and time was limited, we decided to limit the scope of our analysis to the 10 largest and 10 smallest ELL populated states (N=20); further, there are unique issues faced by states with very large and very small numbers of English language learners. State standards documents did not tend to have instructional information, and because our time was limited, many of these basic documents were dropped. However for three states that did not have any supporting documents, the standards documents were retained and analyzed. Additional documents were dropped if they focused on writing only, or were lesson plans.

After documents were collected, we contacted state education directors by email and by phone to verify that we had the most recent and comprehensive standards and supporting documents for each state for reading/English language arts (ELA), mathematics, and science. We also asked states to provide the location of any documents not already gathered. Queries focused on documents available for general students, students with disabilities, and English language learners, although the particular focus for the study was English language learners with disabilities. Of the 20 states that were contacted, all but one provided a response to our query to either confirm or provide additional documents. States provided information on eight documents to add to the twenty state review. Our study analysis included a total of 205 documents (see Appendix A).

Before documents were collected, the project adopted a specific definition of instructional strategy to use consistently across state documents. This helped ensure some standardization. This definition of instructional strategies was informed by a literature review of how strategies are defined in academic literature (Barrera & Liu, 2005):

To further clarify the definition, a list was provided to clarify what an instructional strategy was not:

Because the definition of an instructional strategy had been shaped to exclude strategies that are taught for their own sake, some of the metacognitive strategies we found would fit that profile, but not all. If a strategy was being employed to target content it was included. We used this narrowed definition because educational literature supports a very broad interpretation of what constitutes a strategy, and the project required a specific focus.

One of the authors and another staff member individually coded the state documents. We coded documents for strategies that fit the project definition for instructional strategy, and then coded each of these by grade, content area (i.e., reading, math, and science), academic content (i.e., content skill, concept, and rule), the manner in which it did or did not reference state standards, and whether it was recommended for a certain group (e.g., students with disabilities, ELLs, children at risk, etc.). Then we recoded a fourth of each other’s half of the total documents as an accuracy check. This check was 100% accurate.

A different check was conducted to ensure consensus that each potential strategy met the project criteria. This check resulted in a final list of 69 strategy passages. After this, final coding was added to indicate whether strategy passages had visuals (e.g., formulas, graphics, etc.), whether there was cited research to support use of the strategy, and how strategy steps were presented (e.g., additional description of how steps should be done, model for demonstrating steps, description and model, or neither). Other specific characteristics about strategy passages were coded to indicate how steps were communicated (e.g., sequential in text, bulleted, number, or none), whether there was any student involvement in the strategy, whether they contained student practice of the strategy (e.g., learning to use the strategy on their own), whether they provided examples, and whether they had visuals. We also noted whether strategy passages had presented alternate ways to do the strategy, or had given optional steps. After we coded these and consensus was reached, an attempt was made to analyze the strategy passages further by what content skill, concept, or rule each was addressing.

The analyses for this study were run using NVivo software. Other informal observations of instructional practices were noted during the process of collecting and coding the data, including observations of principles and activities that did not fit the project’s definition of a strategy. We discuss these observations following the results from the NVivo analyses.

Results

Overall, we found 69 instructional strategy passages. Of these, we found 1 strategy recommended for use with ELLs with disabilities, 11 for use with ELLs, 36 for students with disabilities, and 21 for use with students generally. By content area, there were 40 reading strategies, 22 math strategies, and 7 additional strategies recommended for combined content areas of science and math.

Six states had documents with at least one identified strategy (California, Illinois, Mississippi, New York, Texas, and Washington). Table 1 shows the number of strategies recommended by each state for each subgroup. Among the largest ELL populated states, Illinois was the only state to recommend an instructional strategy specifically for ELLs with disabilities. This strategy was in reading:

New York and Texas recommended strategies for ELLs, also in reading. Washington recommended instructional strategies for students with disabilities, and did so for both reading and math. California and Mississippi recommended strategies for general students, for both reading and math. Texas also had instructional strategies recommended for a combination of Math/Science in their sheltered instruction documents for ELLs.

Of the 69 strategy passages, 48 clearly connected the recommended strategy with a specific state standard. All other strategies were in documents that referenced state standards but did not specifically recommend a strategy in support of a particular standard. Rather than say these strategies were not standards-based, we qualified the apparent intent to support standards apart from the clarity of doing so and described the difference as either a direct or indirect reference. Of those states that clearly linked strategies to standards, we note that Washington’s most current documents recommended for students with disabilities, with 37 strategies, were no longer linked to the current version of the state’s essential academic learning requirements (see Table 1).

Washington had a disproportionate number of strategies that did not specify a grade (N=18). Otherwise, across states that designated grades, the tendency was to see fewer strategies recommended specifically for higher grade levels. Strategies decreased from 6th grade (N=18) to 7th grade (N=8), with only one strategy for 8th grade. Other strategies indicated a range of middle school grades (N=11). These were determined either by being in a document specifying "middle" grades, or by explicitly citing more than one middle range grade in its description.

Tables 2–4 present those strategies that had studies cited to support their use listed in the order they appear in the documents (also see Appendix B for full citation references). On very few occasions, a strategy named in a document was familiar to researchers, but because the document did not indicate a citation, these were not coded as having a research reference. Table 2 presents the reading strategies by state. Of the four states that named at least one strategy, two did not cite research in their documents. Washington, in its document for students with mild disabilities, cited supporting research and usually provided short synopses of the studies with brief descriptions of the grades or ages of the study populations. Although the state confirmed that particular documents were intended to address students up to 6th grade, we found that strategies needed to be considered on a case by case basis, as some of the research studies had only younger grades or ages in the study populations. If a strategy in a document had a cited study population of 5th grade and below, the strategy was not included. If a study did not specify a grade, and a document indicated the strategies were to include grades within our study range, we included the strategy. Also, we note that we are citing the research here only as a description of what states had provided and have not evaluated the quality of the research.

Table 3 shows that three of the six states did not have research cited for mathematics strategies. Compared to reading, mathematics had less formally identified strategies overall. Table 4 presents the recommended strategies for mathematics/science. There was only one state that had research cited for strategies recommended for mathematics/science, and all of these strategies had cited research.

Table 1. Reading, Math, and Math/Science Strategies by Clarity of Reference to Standards 

 Note: Dashes indicate no project defined strategies were found.
¹ Standards-based means a document clearly connected a specific state standard to a strategy.
² Unclear means a document mentioned state standards in the text, but there was no direct connection between a specific standard and strategy.

Table 2. Reading Strategies with Cited Research for Top and Bottom ELL Populated States