ORAL NARRATIVE AND CULTURALLY RELEVANT LITERACY

INSTRUCTION FOR HMONG-SPEAKING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

A Thesis

Presented to the faculty of the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology

California State University, Sacramento

Submitted in partial satisfaction of

the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF SCIENCE

in

Speech Pathology

by

Tracy Stage

SPRING
2013
 ORAL NARRATIVE AND CULTURALLY RELEVANT LITERACY

INSTRUCTION FOR HMONG-SPEAKING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

A Thesis

by

Tracy Stage

Approved by:

__________________________________, Committee Chair

Robert Pieretti, Ph.D.

__________________________________, Second Reader

Ann Blanton, Ph.D.

____________________________
Date

ii
Student: Tracy Stage

I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University

format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to

be awarded for the thesis.

__________________________, Department Chair ___________________

Celeste Roseberry-McKibbin, Ph.D. Date

Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology

iii
 Abstract

of

ORAL NARRATIVE AND CULTURALLY RELEVANT LITERACY

INSTRUCTION FOR HMONG-SPEAKING ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

by

Tracy Stage

Statement of Problem

Research has demonstrated the overlapping and intertwining relationship between oral

language, oral narrative, and developing literacy skills, as well as the importance of

cultural relevance in English Language Learner (ELL instruction). The purpose of this

study was to examine and compare the effects of oral narratives as a component of

intervention programs for an understudied, but growing group: Hmong-speaking ELLs.

Sources of Data

The data analyzed to address the stated research questions were obtained through

research completed for a dissertation entitled Response to Intervention and Literacy: A

Bright Spot for Hmong Speaking English Language Learners? by Robert A. Pieretti. Dr.

Pieretti is a California licensed and credentialed speech-language pathologist with

thirteen years of work experience as a Language, Speech, and Hearing Specialist in

Public Schools in Northern California. He maintains a Clinical or Rehabilitative Services

Credential in Speech-Language Pathology with a Special Class Authorization, a

iv
California Clinical Rehabilitative Services Credential, and a Certificate of Clinical

Competence with the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. As Principal

Investigator, he led a research team that examined literacy instruction for first grade

Hmong- speaking ELLs exhibiting difficulties with reading and the possible benefits that

RTI programs may provide to these students. The participants were seen at four Title1

schools in an urban, inner-city school district in Northern California. Each participant

was a first grade student between six and seven years old whose primary language was

Hmong and who spoke English as a second language. Participants in each of the three

treatment groups participated in two or three group sessions (3 or 4 students per group),

depending on the week, for the last seven weeks of school for a total of 19 sessions. Each

group was comprised of students with differing levels of English proficiency, and

sessions were scheduled so that participants did not miss any of the language arts

instruction in their general education classroom. Session length varied by group. Literacy

Enhancement Group (LEG) sessions were approximately 25 minutes in length, Oral

Narrative Literacy Enhancement Group (ONLEG) sessions were approximately 40

minutes in length, and Culturally Relevant Literacy Enhancement Group (CRONLEG)

sessions were approximately 45 minutes in length.

Conclusions Reached

Speech-Language Pathologists and Special Education teams may wish to consider

developing RTI programs that incorporate some of the methods in Pieretti’s study that

appeared to be most successful in improving literacy skills for ELLs with language-based

v
reading difficulties. These include contextualized, language rich oral narrative activities

combined with explicit phonological awareness training, targeted contextualized

comprehension activities that include interactive story presentations with a vocabulary

emphasis, open-ended discussion of the text including scaffolded follow-up questions

that encourage elaboration and build meaning, and story retell activities that involve

identification and discussion of critical story elements and events. While Pieretti’s study

also included a specific culturally-relevant component, it was concluded that cultural

relevance may be more efficiently promoted by encouraging students’ engagement with

the text, the instructor, and each other through oral narrative activities.

_______________________, Committee Chair

Robert Pieretti, Ph. D.

_______________________
Date

vi
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was made possible with the help, guidance, and support of many people. I

am grateful to the faculty and staff of the Department of Speech Pathology and

Audiology at California State University, Sacramento for sharing their knowledge and

experience in the field of speech and language pathology, and particularly to Laureen

O’Hanlon for her continuous encouragement and energy. My sincerest thanks go to

Robert A. Pieretti, Ph.D. for providing access to his Dissertation, which served as the

foundation of this study, and for his constant optimism and tireless efforts to provide

assistance, guidance, and feedback. Special thanks also go to Candace L. Goldsworthy,

Ph.D. for her devoted work in the area of child language and literacy, and for her

insightful suggestions and guidance.

A warm thank you to Ann Blanton, Ph.D. for her brilliance and laughter.

Last, and most importantly, my deepest thanks go to the following individuals:

To my son, Scott Stage, for keeping me sane, for cheering me on, and for motivating me

in everything I do.

To my parents, Sally and Zeke Garelick, for their endless love, support, and faith in me,

and for helping me to find the strength and determination that was within me all along.

To my dear friend, Andrea McCoy, for setting the example and encouraging me to make

the sacrifices necessary to return to college to complete my Master’s degree.

vii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... vii

List of Tables .............................................................................................................. xi

Chapter

1. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE…...………………………………………… .1

Introduction ........................................................................................................1

Effective Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners ......................... 3

Explicit Instruction in Phonological Awareness ................................... 7

Development and Promotion of Oral Language ................................... 8

Student Engagement and Participation ................................................. 9

Contextualization .................................................................................10

Cultural Relevance in English Literacy Instruction for ELLs .........................11

Oral Narrative: Leveling the Language-Literacy Playing Field

for Hmong-Speaking ELLs………………………….……………………….16

The Speech-Language Pathologist and Response to Intervention………...…20

Statement of the Problem................................................................................ 23

2. METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................... 26

Initial Study Research Design and Methods ................................................... 26

Participants .......................................................................................... 27

Measures ............................................................................................. 28

viii
 File Review .......................................................................... 28

Questionnaires...................................................................... 28

Testing Battery ..................................................................... 28

Interventions ....................................................................................... 30

Current Study Research Design and Methods ................................................ 33

3. RESULTS ............................................................................................................ 35

Initial Study Results ........................................................................................ 35

Current Study Results ......................................................................................38

Elision (CTOPP) .................................................................................38

ROWPVT.............................................................................................40

Passage Comprehension (WJIII)….………………………………….41

Teacher Questionnaire…………….………………………………….43

4. DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................45

Question 1 ....................................................................................................... 46

Elision (CTOPP) .................................................................................47

ROWPVT.............................................................................................49

Passage Comprehension (WJIII)….………………………………….50

Teacher Questionnaire…….………………………………………….53

Question 2 ....................................................................................................... 54

4. IMPLICATIONS .................................................................................................. 60

ix
Appendix A. Letter of Confidentiality ...................................................................... 63

References ................................................................................................................... 65

x
 LIST OF TABLES
Tables Page

1. Groups demonstrating the largest mean standard score change pre- to post-

intervention on selected measures ………… .………………………………. 37

2. Number of participants demonstrating improvement on an item analysis of

selected measures ................................................ ……………………………. 43

3. Teachers’ perceptions of increased student engagement and participation by

intervention group ...................... ………….…………………………………. 44

xi
 1

Chapter 1

Review of the Literature

Introduction

The need to identify and implement practices that support and scaffold effective

literacy instruction for English Language Learners (ELLs) has been well documented.

Millions of students in America’s public schools come from homes where English is not

the primary language spoken, and, alarmingly, large numbers of these children are not

performing well in school (August, 2006). According to Kindler (2002), of the 41 states

reporting, only 18.7% of ELLs scored above the state-established norm for reading

comprehension. The National Center for Statistics reports that 31% of language-minority

students and 51% of language-minority students who spoke English with difficulty failed

to complete high school (August 2006).

In its 2007-2008 Education Analysis, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office

reported that the state of California has the largest and fastest growing ELL student

population, educating over 1.6 million of all the nation’s ELL students. Of these

students, 61% are in elementary school. Students in the United States speak over 450

different languages. Among ELLs, Spanish is the most commonly spoken language,

followed by Vietnamese. Hmong is the third most common, with over 70,000 Hmong

speaking students reported in 2002 (Kindler, 2002).

The Hmong population is of particular interest because it is one of the fastest growing

Asian groups in the United States, increasing by 88% over the past decade to an

estimated 260,000 (Moua, 2009). The Hmong first began to emigrate from the mountains
 2

of Laos and Southeast Asia to the United States in 1975, following the end of the

Vietnam War (McDermid, 1999). Historically, Hmong culture has maintained a strong

oral tradition (Ng, 1993), with written forms of the language only recently developed. A

system for the Romanization of the Hmong dialects was developed nearly 60 years ago,

resulting in the Roman Popular alphabet, which is the most commonly recognized system

of written Hmong language in the Unites States. Relatively few people have received

formal literacy instruction in Hmong, however (Kan and Kohnert, 2005). Furthermore,

Hmong students have not fared particularly well in K-12 public education in the United

States (Vang, 2004-05), which runs contrary to the “Model Minority” educational status

attributed by some to other Asian and Southeast Asian groups.

This review of the literature was completed through a search of education,

sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, language policy, and educational psychology

databases using a variety of keyword searches, including “literacy,” “literacy

instruction,” “ELLs and literacy instruction,” “oral narratives,” “language and literacy,”

and “Hmong language and literacy” to obtain abstracts, articles, books, and journals to

inform the research questions stated at the end of this chapter. It will focus on research

findings in the following areas: (a) effective literacy instruction for English Language

Learners, (b) cultural relevance in English Literacy Instruction for ELLs, (c) oral

narrative: leveling the playing field for Hmong speaking ELLs, and (d) the speech-

language pathologist and Response to Intervention.

 3

Effective Literacy Instruction for English Language Learners

Before discussing specific approaches to address the academic needs of Hmong

students, it may be helpful to consider the elements that constitute effective literacy

instruction for English monolingual children. According to Shaywitz (2004), “highly

effective prevention and early intervention programs are now a reality” for children at

high risk for developing reading difficulties (p. 261). While many such programs exist,

Shaywitz summarizes the essential components of any effective program as follows:

 Systematic and direct instruction in phonemic awareness

 Systematic and direct instruction in phonics

 Practiced applying phonics in reading and writing

 Fluency training

 Enriched language experiences

It is not surprising that many of these practices are also effective for ELLS, because

both groups of children “are ultimately faced with the same task” (Snow, 2006, p. 645).

Research does indicate, however, that instructional needs for ELLs necessarily differ

from those of fluent speakers of English. Snow (2006) acknowledges that while the

contributions to successful reading made by accuracy and fluency in word reading,

control over the requisite language skills (vocabulary, syntax, and discourse structures),

and world knowledge have all been amply documented for monolingual readers, the

individual differences among English-language learners greatly increase the task of

understanding the reading process for them. Gersten and Geva (2003) identified six

successful reading strategies implemented by teachers for first grade English language

learners: modeling skills and strategies, making relationships overt, emphasizing

 4

distinctive features of new concepts, providing prompts, using appropriate length of time

for literacy activities, and adjusting their own use of English during lessons. The authors

describe several ways to work these strategies into language arts instruction. For

example, it was found that using visuals or manipulatives to teach context, to provide

explicit instruction in English, and to encourage students to give elaborate responses was

particularly effective. Systematic instruction in phonemic awareness, letter-sound

correspondence, and decoding were considered to be effective for developing phonemic

awareness and decoding. Vocabulary development was considered most effective when

difficult vocabulary was presented prior to and during lessons, and when students were

provided structured opportunities to speak English and were involved in meaningful

interactions about the text. Effective literacy instruction for these students was also

found to include interactive teaching strategies, including securing and maintaining

student attention during lessons, and selecting and incorporating students’ responses,

ideas, examples, and experiences into the lesson.

Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, and Christian (2006) further highlight the

effectiveness of interactive learning environments for minority language students at risk

for reading and writing development. This includes “explicit and focused instruction in

the requisite skills that comprise reading and writing” (p. 111). Likewise, key findings in

the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language- Minority Children and Youth

indicate that “instruction that provides substantial coverage in the key components of

reading—identified by the National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) as phonemic

 5

awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension—has clear benefits for

language-minority students” (August, 2006).

In the Handbook of Reading Research, (Vol. 3), Wilkinson and Silliman (2000) note

four critical features of supportive scaffolding for language and literacy development:

 Competence in instructional language is a “metagoal” of all instructional

activities.

 Instructional practices are grounded in culturally meaningful experiences

that assist students in transferring classroom learning to other settings,

such as the home, community, and workplace.

 Effective teaching and learning occur in collaborative activities with

teachers and peers. Active learning contexts create classrooms where

individual differences are respected due to the construction of “multiple

zones of proximal development…through which participants can navigate

via different routes and at different rates. Collaboration as a process of

inquiry also enhances the motivation to learn.

 The basic form of teaching is dialogue through instructional conversations.

These dialogues integrate listening, speaking, reading, and writing as tools

of inquiry serving multiple communicative purposes.” (p. 345)

Klingner and Edwards (2006) support many of the same elements of effective literacy

instruction for ELLs based on observation in schools and classroom in which “culturally

and linguistically diverse students excel as readers…for instance, schools in which

students did well included a balance between skills and holistic instruction (e.g. reading
 6

complete texts, expository writing) and greater student engagement (students spent more

time productively reading and writing)” (p. 110). The authors also identified teacher

behaviors and strategies that were supportive of these students’ reading performance:

Teachers ensured that students were involved in tasks matched to their

competency level, and that they accelerated demands as students’ competencies

improved. …the most effective teachers had sophisticated knowledge of reading

instruction as well as second-language instruction. They were able to draw on the

prior knowledge of struggling readers, make connections with what they already

knew, and emphasize explicit instruction in word identification, phonological

awareness and vocabulary instruction. In addition, they provided structured

opportunities to practice English. Teachers provided supportive learning

environments in which students were highly engaged. (p. 110)

Likewise, Wilkinson and Silliman (2000) highlighted three assumptions about

classroom language and literacy learning:

1. Learning is a social activity – interpersonal behaviors, both observed and enacted in

the classroom, are the basis for new conceptual understandings in cognition and

communication.

2. Learning is integrated – strong interrelationships exist between oral and written

language learning.

3. Learning requires active student engagement in classroom activities and interaction –

engaged students are motivated for literacy learning and have the best chance of
 7

achieving full communicative competence across the broad spectrum of language and

literacy skills (p. 337-338).

In sum, the literature highlights some specific trends in approaches to effective

literacy instruction for ELLs, including explicit instruction in phonological awareness,

development and promotion of oral language, active student engagement and

participation, and contextualized instruction. These approaches warrant further

examination.

Explicit Instruction in Phonological Awareness

The connection between phonological awareness and reading has been well

established. Wolf (1999) states that “a major tenet of the best developed theory of reading

disabilities is that a core deficit in phonological processes impedes the acquisition of

word recognition skills, which, in turn, impedes the acquisition of fluent reading” (p. 1).

Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, & Christian (2006) explain that “the causal

relationship between reading and phonological awareness has been shown to be

bidirectional, with certain aspects of phonological awareness playing a fundamental role

in facilitating early reading acquisition, while reading acquisition itself facilitates the

emergence of yet other, more sophisticated aspects of phonological awareness” (p. 73)

These findings provide educators with powerful knowledge and tools to support and

scaffold effective literacy instruction for ELLs. “The National Reading Panel (as cited in

Hegde & Maul, 2006), has recommended that a component of phonological awareness

training be included in a balanced literacy program and, in fact, it is frequently cited as

the foundation of a variety of reading intervention programs” (Pieretti, p. 20). Cabel,

 8

Justice, Kaderavek, Turnbull, and Breit-Smith (2009) state that phonological awareness

“is an umbrella term that refers to children’s metalinguistic understandings about the

sound structure of language…” (p. 5). Torgeson and Mathes (2000) explain that

phonological awareness is “most commonly defined as one’s sensitivity to, or explicit

awareness of, the phonological structure of words in one’s language” (p. 2). Key aspects

of phonological awareness include rhyme, alliteration, words, syllables, onset-rime, and

phonemes.

The results from instructional studies suggest that phonological awareness in the

second language (L2) “can be developed through direct intervention, even if L2

development is itself somewhat limited, adding further evidence that phonological

awareness is a metalinguistic or common underlying proficiency” (Genesee et al., p. 74).

The authors further explained that “the crosslinguistic interdependence of phonological

awareness is supported further in a study by Roberts and Corbett (1997) that showed that

instruction in L2 phonological awareness significantly improved Hmong L1 phonological

awareness” (Genesee et al., p. 74).

Development and Promotion of Oral Language

“One of the main tasks facing young children in becoming literate is discovering the

interrelationships between oral and written language within their culture” (Sulzby and

Zecker, 1991, p. 175). The connection between oral and written language is widely

recognized. “Both oral and written language are considered to co-occur, in an

interrelated fashion, with aspects of both developing simultaneously rather than

 9

sequentially. Signs of oral language will certainly be found in the child’s performances

in written situations…” (p. 177).

Cabel et al. (2009) explained that children who do not develop adequate oral language

skills tend to lag behind their peers in literacy. Oral language, including vocabulary and

inferential language, were among those skills identified by the National Early Literacy

Panel (2004) (as cited in Goldsworthy, 2010) as the “best predictors of reading and

spelling achievement.” The work of several others also supports oral language

development and promotion as key components of effective literacy instruction for ELLs

(August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005; Gersten & Geva, 2003; Harper et al, 2008;

Pollard-Durodola, Mathes, Vaughn, Cardenas-Hagan, & Linan-Thompson, 2006).

Further, the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and

Youth states that “oral proficiency in English is critical as well—but student performance

suggests that it is often overlooked in instruction” (August, 2006). One study that

focused on low socioeconomic status Hispanic first grade students with low language

proficiency scores in both English and Spanish affirmed that “ELLs at risk for reading

problems and provided intervention in English increased scores considerably and on par

with their monolingual English peers on most subtests and performed better on reading

comprehension” (Vaughn et al., 2006, p.177). The authors attribute the reading

comprehension growth to a “story retell” component of the program.

Student Engagement and Participation

The literature demonstrates that student engagement and participation are important

factors in learning (Gersten and Gevea, 2003, Klingner and Edwards, 2006, Pritchard,
 10

1990). “Engagement in reading may substantially compensate for low family income and

educational background. …engaged readers from low income/education families were

higher in achievement than less engaged readers from high income/educational

backgrounds” (Guthrie & Wigfield, p. 404). Vaughn et al. (2006) concluded that English

language interventions including active engagement with text, among other factors,

resulted in significant outcomes in reading for ELLs learning English.

Li (2011) explains that children develop an understanding of literacy and the

sociocultural values attached to their culture’s literacy practices from a young age.

“Children’s continuous development of literacy is related to their motivation to learn, and

their beliefs, values, and goals about learning are crucial to their school achievement” (p.

518). Li cites Wigfield (1997) who points out that students’ engagement in learning

involves personal investment. They continuously reflect on who they are and how they

are connected with others through complex social relationships (p. 518). Student

engagement, therefore, is important in terms of motivation to learn and awareness of

connections between the student and a larger social context. “Learning requires active

student engagement in classroom activities and interaction – engaged students are

motivated for literacy learning and have the best chance of achieving full communicative

competence across the broad spectrum of language and literacy skills” (Wilkinson and

Silliman, 2000, p. 337-338).

Contextualization

The literature generally acknowledges the importance of contextualization in the

educational setting. For example, language that is contextualized has been shown to be
 11

more comfortable for preschool children (Wallach and Miller, 1988) and prior experience

with stimuli is thought to aid future processing of those stimuli (Whittlesea and Williams,

2000). Norris and Hoffman (1990) argue that strategies that emphasize learning language

by making sense or meaning out of experiences within communicative contexts, rather

than through meaningless drills or worksheet activities, allow language to emerge from

the interactions rather than attempting to target and teach specific elements of language.

Tharp (1989) identifies two conditions that do not vary across cultures and are

required for optimal educational outcomes regardless of culture. One is a focus on

language development, and the other is contextualized instruction” (August, 2006).

Context may be shared through common past experiences or through the immediate

setting in which the communication is taking place (Genesee et al., 2006). Pieretti (2011)

argues that a comprehensive reading intervention includes activities to strengthen

contextual processing, which is necessary to create a coherent interpretation of the text.

These activities include enriched language experiences, including listening to, talking

about, and telling stories.

Cultural Relevance in English Literacy Instruction for ELLs

In addition to the adoption and practice of specific instructional practices, effective

literacy instruction for ELLs must also be culturally relevant. “Many definitions of

culture exist, but they all generally have to do with the behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, and

practices of a group of people” (August, 2006, p. 251). Culturally diverse students come

to the classroom with different linguistic backgrounds. Likewise, these students have

background knowledge and experiences that may be very different, and at times, at odds
 12

with, American culture and educational practices and goals. “Membership in one or

another socially defined group influences behaviors, cognitions, motivational attributes,

values, beliefs, and assumptions that then influence the learning process and, ultimately,

learning outcomes. Children and youth from different sociocultural groups bring with

them different experiences that might shape their classroom experiences” (August, 2006,

p. 250).

This is important from the perspective of a sociocultural model of reading. Pritchard

(1990) theorizes that knowledge is stored in schematic structures, or schemata, which are

organized representations of one’s background experiences. “These schemata are

influenced by the culture in which one lives. Schemata provide an interpretive

framework which a reader may utilize when reading. Readers use their background

knowledge, the situational context, and the cues provided by an author to construct an

interpretation of the meaning of a text” (p. 275). Possession of accurate schemata related

to the texts ELLs read increases comprehension of that material compared with readers

who lack such schemata.

The sociocultural approach to reading defines the domain of reading achievement

broadly, and stresses the culture specific nature of classroom literacy practices, and the

relation of literacy to the broader curriculum. It also emphasizes oral language

development as part of its definition of literacy. This is particularly important for

learners who are meeting the school language as a second or additional language, as oral

language development will be particularly important for them (McNamara & Roever,

2006). Pritchard states, “The more knowledge students have regarding a particular topic
 13

prior to reading about it, the more likely they will be to comprehend it. Therefore,

readers must be provided with the opportunity to develop or activate schemata relevant to

their reading materials” (Pritchard, 1990, p. 292).

How do we bridge the apparent gaps between Hmong and American culture,

language, and literacy practices? Several authors speak to this, and provide insight and

findings to support the literacy development for ELLs. In their review of cultural

considerations with Response to Intervention (RTI) models, Klingner and Edwards

(2006) found that effective educators ensured that students were involved in tasks

matched to their competency level, and that they accelerated demands as students’

competencies improved:

The most effective teachers had sophisticated knowledge of reading instruction as

well as second-language instruction. They were able to draw on the prior

knowledge of struggling readers, make connections with what they already knew,

and emphasize explicit instruction in word identification, phonological awareness,

and vocabulary instruction. In addition, they provided structured opportunities to

practice English. Teachers provided supportive learning environments in which

students were highly engaged. (p. 110)

Culturally relevant literacy instruction involves interactions that “create a space” for

the varied behaviors, attitudes, and practices of culturally diverse students, and make

connections between the students’ cultural background and the cultural context of the

instruction within the classroom. “Thus, culturally responsive teachers make connections
 14

with their students as individuals while understanding the sociocultural-historical

contexts that influence their interactions” (Klingner & Edwards, p. 109).

For ELLs to acquire literacy in English, Dickinson and McCabe (1991) discuss the

need for “internalization of modes of discourse required for engaging texts in ways

consistent with those required by the culture in which the acquisition occurs” (p. 255).

The authors point out that the required cultural modes of discourse apply to oral as well

as written language. “Whereas there are several types of relationships between oral and

written language (Dickinson, 1987), it is clear that one important aspect of becoming

literate is acquiring the discourse forms required by one’s society for reading and

writing” (p. 256).

Sulzby and Zecker (1991) explain that in addition to developing the necessary

discourse to develop literacy in English, the manner in which the discourse is developed

is also an important factor. “Reading and writing are viewed as mutually influential and

interwoven aspects of the process that becoming literate entails and both reflect the

child’s developing understanding of oral and written language. Finally, for any given

child, the nature of emergent literacy will vary according to how literacy is used within

the culture and how it is communicated to the young” (p. 177).

In her acclaimed book, Ways with Words, Heath “stresses the importance of cultural

bridging between the school and the home to meet the needs of students whose linguistic

preparation for schooling differed from those students whose early years had been

steeped in linguistic activities that mirrored the academic literacies to come” (Pieretti,

2011, p. 18). Through mutual collaboration between students and teachers, both groups
 15

came to understand and appreciate the difficulties faced by students and educators in

cultural bridging between home and school discourses.

They (students) had to integrate new content from school into a reformulated

organizational pattern. The tightly interwoven nature of language and context

made it especially necessary for teachers to tease apart and make as specific as

possible aspects of the language and context of both home and school domains.

Critical in the thinking of these teachers was that their approach was not a

remedial one designed for poor learners. Instead, they felt that the attention given

to different ways of talking and knowing, and the manipulation of contexts and

language benefited all students. (Heath, 1983, p. 355)

This cultural bridging effected great changes in the students’ ability to make

connections between their home culture and that of the school. Students became engaged

individually and as a group in translating and organizing community knowledge into the

classroom and classroom knowledge into the community, demonstrating that “…facility

in articulating the ways their own home communities used language, and comparing

these with the ways of the school, weakened the boundary between the systems. They

learned to recognize where and how the materials and methods fit in either context, and

where they could be latched on to familiar concepts for comparison and contrast” (Heath,

1983, p. 355-356). Culturally relevant literacy instruction is also important in terms of

student engagement and participation. “Bridging home-school differences in interaction

can enhance students’ engagement and level of participation in classroom instruction”

(August, 2006, p. 256). A study by Pieretti (2011), for example, found that an added
 16

culturally-relevant story creation component did appear to improve engagement,

participation, and comprehension. It did not, however, correspond to noticeable

improvements in phonological awareness or vocabulary skills. This suggests that

educators may need to select intervention strategies that promote a variety of developing

literacy skills in a culturally-relevant environment. Oral narrative activity development

may be an important consideration in the development of such strategies.

Oral Narrative: Leveling the Language-Literacy Playing Field for Hmong-Speaking

ELLS

Previous research indicates that children who have difficulty developing language are

also at a disadvantage in acquiring narrative skills and age-appropriate reading and

writing abilities (Bishop & Donlan, 2005; Miniscalco, Hagberg, Kadesjö, Westerlund,

Gillberg, 2007). Davies, Shanks, & Davies (2004) concluded that children with a history

of delayed language development commonly struggle with understanding and telling

stories. The authors suggested that intervention that targets narrative weaknesses has

multiple benefits for students. Such intervention not only had positive impacts on

narrative skills, but it improved a child’s “ability to participate in, and benefit from,

mainstream classroom activities” (p. 271). McCabe and Bliss (2003) further cite the

research of Paul and Smith, suggesting that “storytelling, or narrative skills of children

before entering school have been found to be one of the best predictors of later school

outcomes for those children who are at risk for academic and language problems” (p.

180). The importance of developing oral narrative skills to encourage and support literacy

is reflected in the Common Core Standards (California Department of Education, 2013)

for first grade students, which include:

 17

 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

 Retell stories, including key details, and demonstrate understanding of their

central message or lesson.

 Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details.

 Identify the main topic and retell key details of a text.

 Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of

information in a text.

These standards are not surprising, perhaps, given that much of the material in books

read to and by children is narrative in one form or another (McCabe and Bliss, 2003).

Telling a story requires planning, organization, meaning generation, and self-monitoring,

which are all skills needed for literacy, and studies have illustrated that children’s

narrative skills are positively related to literacy skills (Cheatham & Jimenez-Silva, 2011,

p. 262). The problem solving, critical thinking, and social skills needed to exchange

ideas can be encouraged, in addition to reading and writing, through narrative

competence (Spitler-Kashuba, 2009, p. 3).

Additionally, children’s oral narratives are important in language socialization

(McCabe & Bliss, 2003). Cheatham and Jiminez-Silva (2011) asserted that children learn

culturally specific behaviors, including language use, starting from infancy. Adults’

interactions with their children serve as the basis for culturally appropriate language

acquisition and allow children to communicate, participate, and gain community

acceptance (Heath, 1986). Through narratives, children can reflect on, reshape, and
 18

understand their experiences, as well as represent themselves to other people (McCabe &

Bliss, 2003).

Due to the critical link between oral narrative skills and related literacy skills, “many

language interventions involve the use of scaffolded ‘story grammars’ (Moreau-Rooney

& Fidrych, 1994, 2002), which provide a formula for describing the internal structure of a

story. Stein and Glenn (as cited in Owens, 2010) include in their formula both the

individual story components and the rules underlying the relationships of these

components in these descriptions. “These include setting, characters, initiating events,

internal responses of characters, internal plans of characters, attempts for change, direct

consequences of these attempts, and reactions of characters” (Pieretti, 2011, p. 22). As

Smith (1984) explains, “Stories do not represent experiences for children; they are

experiences as immediate and as compelling as actual events” (Wolf & Heath, 1995, p.

207).

Oral narrative activities can provide ELLs opportunities to practice reading and

participate in discussions about their reading, thus promoting both participation and

engagement in the language arts curriculum. Heath found that “a major advantage of

these oral story-telling sessions was that they gave children opportunities to contribute

long stretches of speech, or extended discourse, in the classroom” (Heath, 1983).

Similarly, Klingner and Edwards (2006) stress that “culturally responsive literacy

instruction includes the skills deemed necessary for acquiring the ability to read … and

frequent opportunities to practice reading with a variety of rich materials in meaningful

contexts (p.109). García (2000) explained that educators must find ways to activate and
 19

build students’ background knowledge, and that ELLs should have ample opportunities to

hear rich, visually stimulating stories read aloud. It was also recommended that, when

possible, hands-on experiences should precede the reading of text. Oral narrative

activities provide these elements for creating language-rich instruction for ELLs (Bauer

& Manyak, 2008, p. 176). In providing opportunities for reading language-rich texts and

encouraging extended discourse, educators allow for bridging between the student’s

culture and that of the classroom. We acknowledge "the ways in which the environment

provides access to social engagement around the multiple genres and forms and

languages and literacies that students will need to master and perform” and we create “an

environment that values all students and languages and cultures they represent” (Klingner

& Edwards, 2006, p. 23).

Further, oral narrative literacy intervention strategies may be particularly appropriate

for some Hmong ELLs. Bliatout, Downing, Lewis, and Yang (1988) note that the

Hmong have historically placed an emphasis on oral skills because there was no written

form of the language. Hmong children have traditionally been encouraged to become

proficient in oral skills in order to achieve high social status. However, the Hmong

narrative style contrasts sharply with that of native English speakers. Whereas the

narrative style in English often uses formulaic structure to weave together characters,

events, and feelings in a plot that occurs in a variety of settings and frequently centers

around problems and attempts at solutions, the Hmong narrative style is not considered to

be succinct (Pieretti, 2011). In addition to differences in narrative style, there are distinct

differences between Hmong and English that Hmong ELLs need to negotiate if they are
 20

to become fluent in oral English and develop academic literacy skills in the language.

For example, the Hmong phonological system is decidedly different than its English

counterpart. Mastery of English morphology is dependent upon a strong grounding in

English phonology (Owens, 2010), because much of English inflectional morphology

relies upon small sound changes made to words that change their number and tense.

Several syntactical and grammatical differences are also apparent (Pieretti, 2011). While

one cannot assume that all Hmong-speaking ELLs come from a background that has kept

the Hmong oral-narrative tradition alive, oral narratives may provide the means to build

upon the existing oral skills of some Hmong-speakers and strengthen their facility in the

use of the more formulaic structures of the English narrative style. Likewise, oral

narratives may encourage participation and engagement in core literacy activities that

improve both language and literacy skills, including an awareness of the phonological

system of English, and by extension, English morphology. The contextualization

inherent in such oral narratives may also help strengthen English syntax and grammar, as

stories are read, analyzed, and discussed. Further, oral narratives may also have the

potential to promote engagement and participation through active interaction with the text

and with one another.

The Speech-Language Pathologist and Response to Intervention

The American Speech, Language, and Hearing Association (2001) includes the

following among the Scope of Practice for speech-language pathologists:

Providing prevention, screening, consultation, assessment and diagnosis,

treatment, intervention, management, counseling, and follow-up services for

 21

disorders of: …language (i.e., phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and

pragmatic social aspects of communication) including comprehension and

expression in oral, written, graphic, and manual modalities; language processing;

preliteracy and language-based literacy skills, including phonological awareness.

(p. 4)

Many, if not all, of the effective literacy instruction practices discussed in this chapter

are within the scope of practice and training of the speech-language pathologist.

Additionally, the six instructional practices in reading that are recommended by Gersten

& Geva (2003) (explicit teaching, promotion of English language learning, phonemic

awareness and decoding, vocabulary development, interactive teaching that maximizes

student engagement, and instruction that produces accurate responses with feedback for

struggling learners) “are inherent in the individual and small-group instruction provided

by the speech-language pathologist in the school setting who assists students with

language-based difficulties access the core language arts curriculum. Oral narrative

activities that include story grammar elements are also an integral part of the Speech and

Language Program at most school sites” (Pieretti, 2011, p. 46).

Children who are at risk for reading problems and children with known reading

problems should have access to a team of specialists who understand that oral language

deficits evolve into later reading problems, and that team must include the speech-

language pathologist as one of its key members (Goldsworthy, 1998). In addition to the

contribution of extensive knowledge of and experience in child language development,

“the speech-language pathologist is an integral member of the special education

 22

interdisciplinary team and is perfectly positioned on the school site for service delivery in

direct intervention, consultation, and collaboration models within the classroom and can

follow up and attempt to track long-term benefits and continued intervention needs in

both direct therapy and consultative/collaborative models” (Pieretti, p. 46).

Moore and Montgomery (2008) discuss a funding mechanism under the Individuals

with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) that allows up to 15% of a local

education agency’s allocation to develop and implement Early Intervening Services as

part of Response to Intervention (RTI). RTI programs provide short-term interventions

and track the response of struggling students to these interventions in the belief that the

system must adjust to the needs of the students and provide support when needed (Moore

& Montgomery, 2008). Students who make expected gains are said to respond to

instruction and are expected to continue to make progress when “adequate” instruction is

provided in the general education classroom. Students who make minimal gains are

described as not adequately responding to intervention and may require more specialized

long-term interventions or special education services (Linan-Thompson, Vaughn, Prater,

& Cirino, 2006).

The funding under IDEA allows for participation of members of the Special Education

Team, made up of a variety of service providers including resource specialists, special

day classroom teachers, and speech-language pathologists, in the creation of diverse,

multiple-modality interventions for public school students exhibiting significant

academic difficulties, often in the areas of language-based reading, writing, and spelling.

“These funds are intended to be directed at students who are not currently identified
 23

under IDEA, but who are ‘in need of additional academic and behavioral supports to

succeed in the general education environment” (Moore & Montgomery, 2008, p. 367).

IDEA established that “students may not be called disabled if they have not been

instructed.” This specifically applies to students with learning disabilities and speech-

language disorders, which are considered high incidence disabilities (Moore &

Montgomery, 2008). Under IDEA, RTI programs show promise for preventing

academic failure by providing support to culturally and linguistically diverse students

before they underachieve (Klingner & Edwards, 2006). RTI exists within a three-tiered

model of supports with the intensity of the interventions increasing based on student

need. The first tier involves general education core instruction. The second tier involves

strategic, targeted group instruction. The third tier involves more intense, individual or

group instruction. RTI programs provide short-term interventions at the second and third

tiers and track the response of struggling students to these interventions before assuming

that a disability exists. Students are, in effect, provided with assistance before they are

assessed in the belief that the system must adjust to the needs of the learners and support

them when they struggle (Moore & Montgomery, 2008).

Statement of the Problem

A review of the literature has established that acquiring literacy in a second language

is a complex process, and several components of effective and culturally relevant literacy

instruction have been examined. Common themes in the literature are the overlapping

and intertwining relationship between oral language and the development of literacy

skills, oral narrative skills as a predictor of later language arts success, and the
 24

importance of cultural relevance in ELL instruction. The Hmong population is of

particular interest to researchers. Vang (2004-5) highlights a range of academic

deficiencies demonstrated by K-12 Hmong students in the public schools related to well-

documented studies that indicate that only a small number of Hmong-American students

are academically ready to go beyond high school, concluding that “Hmong-American

students are in need of intense and meaningful academic curricula if they are to succeed

beyond secondary education….” (p. 2). The curricular demands of American classrooms

assume proficient English for academic purposes, and these demands continue to increase

with each additional grade level. Cummins (1980; 1984) introduced the terms Basic

Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS) and Cognitive Academic Language

Proficiency (CALP) that are sometimes used to discuss second language learning. In his

work, Cummins suggests that ELL students acquire BICS within two years of being

immersed in a second language. Acquisition of CALP, however, which relates directly to

the language used during academic instruction and needed for literacy, takes longer,

maybe as many as five to seven years. In “Response to Intervention and Literacy: A

Bright Spot for Hmong Speaking English Language Learners?,” Pieretti states, “it is

important to note that despite much recognition of the perceived plight of Hmong

students in K-12 schools, and given the amount of research that has been completed on

bilingual students from various backgrounds, little research has been done specifically on

the needs of K-12 Hmong students” (p. 2). Educators and Special Educators “not only

need to understand various evidence-based instructional approaches, they also need to

make appropriate accommodations to make the learning context culturally and

 25

linguistically meaningful for individual ELLs” (Xu & Drame, 2007, p. 310). The current

research was designed to answer the following questions:

1. How does the inclusion of an oral narrative component within an intense, short-

term RTI curriculum intervention designed by speech-language pathologists for

students with language-based reading difficulties whose first language is Hmong

support and scaffold effective literacy instruction.

2. Does the inclusion of the oral narrative component promote cultural relevance?
 26

Chapter 2

Methodology

Initial Study Research Design and Methods

Under IDEA, educational teams that include speech-language pathologists can design

and implement evidence-based interventions for students exhibiting academic difficulties.

The data analyzed to address the stated research questions were obtained through

research completed for a dissertation entitled Response to Intervention and Literacy: A

Bright Spot for Hmong Speaking English Language Learners? by Robert A. Pieretti. Dr.

Pieretti, the first reader on this thesis, has given explicit permission to this investigator to

reference, cite, paraphrase, and use direct text from his dissertation in order to completely

describe the initial study and its findings. Dr. Pieretti is a California licensed and

credentialed speech-language pathologist with thirteen years of work experience as a

Language, Speech, and Hearing Specialist in Public Schools in Northern California. He

maintains a Clinical or Rehabilitative Services Credential in Speech-Language Pathology

with a Special Class Authorization, a California Clinical Rehabilitative Services

Credential, and a Certificate of Clinical Competence with the American Speech-

Language-Hearing Association. As Principal Investigator, he led a research team made

up of five graduate student research assistants from the Department of Speech Pathology

and Audiology at California State University, Sacramento. One team member was a

fluent Hmong speaker raised in the community where the research was conducted. The

team examined literacy instruction for first grade Hmong- speaking ELLs exhibiting

difficulties with reading and the possible benefits that RTI programs may provide to these
 27

students. The study included three treatment groups and a Control group. Participants in

the Control Group participated in all testing, but did not receive any intervention beyond

that provided through regular school site programs. The current research examines data

from all three intervention groups, in an attempt to closely analyze and compare two of

the three levels of intervention included in the study, the Literacy Enhancement Group

(LEG) and the Oral Narrative Literacy Enhancement Group (ONLEG), and to examine

the definition of cultural relevance. A brief review of the original research methods and

findings is presented here.

Participants

The participants were seen at four Title1 schools in an urban, inner-city school district

in Northern California. Each participant was a first grade student between six and seven

years old whose primary language was Hmong and who spoke English as a second

language. All participants had received at least one year of instruction in English, had no

suspected primary language delay/disorder based on a primary language screening, parent

interview, and California English Language Development Test (CELDT) scores, had a

history of good attendance, and were enrolled in English Language Development

through onsite programs. There was no evidence of vision or hearing deficits, intellectual

disability, or emotional disorders. Each participant was considered “at-risk” for

academic failure or academic retention by his or her classroom teachers based on

language arts/literacy curriculum performance in the areas of reading and reading

comprehension.
 28

Measures

File Review

Selected students’ school records were reviewed to obtain the following data:

 Reading Lions (1995) Open Court Oral Fluency Assessment scores (Words Per

Minute-WPM-read) before the intervention (unit 5 and 6) and at the end of the

intervention (unit 10)

 Open Court End of Unit 10 Oral Fluency Assessment scores (WPM)

 Open Court Lesson Assessment scores for each of the anthology stories targeted

in the intervention. Selected subtest scores for analysis included Comprehension

(total correct out of 7), Vocabulary (total correct out of 4 or 5), and Phonics (total

correct out of 6).

This data was compiled in an attempt to measure any changes in each participant’s

performance in the school language arts/literacy curriculum, particularly in the areas of

reading fluency and reading comprehension.

Questionnaires

A short written teacher questionnaire was completed pre- and post- intervention. The

questions focused on participation in classroom literacy activities, observed

language/literacy changes, if any, in L2 and language arts classroom activities, and

perceived changes in each participant’s attitude towards reading/language arts activities.

Testing Battery

Norm-referenced pre-and post- testing batteries were completed in an attempt to

measure the effect of the interventions.

 29

1. The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP) (Wagner, Torgesen, &

Rashotte, 1999) assesses phonological awareness, phonological memory, and rapid

naming. The authors state that a deficit in one or more of these kinds of phonological

processing abilities is viewed as the most common cause of learning disabilities in

general, and of reading disabilities in particular. To assess phonological abilities, the

Phonological Awareness Composite was completed. This composite is made up of two

subtests, Elision and Blending Words, for students seven years of age and older. Students

younger than seven are required to complete an additional subtest, Sound Matching.

2. The Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement (WJIII) (Woodcock, McGrew, &

Mather, 2001) is a norm-referenced measure of academic achievement in the areas of

language, reading fluency, reading comprehension, writing, and spelling. To assess

reading abilities the Letter-Word Identification, Passage Comprehension, and Word

Attack subtests were administered because they measure skills that relate to a student’s

ability to understand printed language and to decode words.

3. The Receptive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (ROWPVT) (Brownell, R., 2000)

assesses receptive vocabulary by having a student point to a pictured item, object, or

concept when orally presented with its name. This test was selected to assess vocabulary

abilities because receptive vocabulary in the L2 is often believed to precede expressive

vocabulary, and the results, therefore, were judged to be a good predictor of the students’

English vocabulary development independent of decreased expressive language in

English.
 30

Interventions

Participants in each of the three treatment groups participated in two or three group

sessions (3 or 4 students per group), depending on the week, for the last seven weeks of

school for a total of 19 sessions. Each group was comprised of students with differing

levels of English proficiency, and sessions were scheduled so that participants did not

miss any of the language arts instruction in their general education classroom. Session

length varied by group. LEG sessions were approximately 25 minutes in length, ONLEG

sessions were approximately 40 minutes in length, and CRONLEG sessions were

approximately 45 minutes in length. Approximately 2.5 additional hours were required

per student for pre- and post- testing and the primary language screening. Three of the

trained research assistants conducted all assessment and intervention sessions. The

principal investigator was onsite at all times to ensure that the research assistants adhered

to the chosen curriculum and to answer any questions about its implementation.

The ultimate targets for each treatment group were improved decoding and reading

comprehension. As such, the three intervention groups began with phonological

awareness training to strengthen the participants’ abilities to manipulate phonemes and

rime patterns auditorily before working with them orthographically in phonics activities.

Onsets, rime patterns, and all of their possible combinations were then included in an

attempt to increase participants’ word recognition and retrieval abilities.

The activities in the LEG group were presented in a decontextualized fashion. The

participants were not exposed to the selected stories from which the activities were

drawn, nor were connections to prior knowledge, culturally relevant information, and
 31

story retells and comparisons included. The participants were only exposed to the stories

when they were later introduced during the course of the general education curriculum.

The ONLEG group added a contextualized element whereby the students were first

exposed to two first-grade Open Court (Adams et al., 2002) anthology stories from Unit

10 (Homes): Home for a Bunny and The Three Little Pigs. These stories were used as the

basis for the hierarchical phonological awareness/word recognition programs in which

the students participated. Participants were engaged in discussions about the author,

characters, and critical story elements before each story was presented. In particular, the

story-based meaning of six selected multiple meaning words containing target rime

families (e.g., spring, rock, stick) were discussed. The research assistants focused on

important text ideas during the oral reading of the story to scaffold the participants’

responses, and to highlight the previously introduced multiple meaning words as they

appeared in the text. An initial reading of the story was presented in the spirit of “Text

Talk” (Beck and McKeown, 2001). Pictures were initially withheld while the story was

read orally until open-ended questions about each section/page were asked and answered

by individual group members in turn (e.g., “Who is the story about?; “What do you think

the wolf is going to do next?”). The participants were asked scaffolded follow-up

questions to encourage further thinking about the text in order to encourage elaboration

and build meaning. This scaffolding was completed using oral narrative activities based

on Linking the Strands of Language and Literacy (Goldsworthy with Lambert, 2010) and

Story Retell And Literacy Activities For the School Aged Learner (Hussey, 2007), and

consisted of “activities around story theme, episodic summaries, literary language style
 32

(adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions), expository text features (characters,

setting, initiating event(s), feelings of the characters, main plan in the story, direct

consequences, and resolution), embedded episodes (individual attempts to accomplish the

plan and associated initiating event, feelings, plan, consequence, and resolution), and

expository text items (sequencing of the story, descriptions of the story, cause and effect

situations, and problem solution situations within the story)” (Pieretti, 2011, p. 62).

Participants were introduced to a storyboard that included 12 generic pictured icons and

words for the following sequenced story elements: Someone (Character), Somewhere

(Setting), Wanted, First, But, Next, But, Next, But, Next, Solution, Feelings. Scripted

discussions about each icon helped participants “highlight a limited set of critical

elements and create a simplified series of events to be used for later story retell (e.g.

“Every story is about someone or a character. Who is/are the someone(s) in this story?”;

“Every story happens somewhere. This is the setting of the story. Where does this story

happen?”)” (Pieretti, pgs. 62-63). The participants first retold the story as a group, taking

turns identifying the next element on the storyboard and placing story-specific pictured

icons on the storyboard as they were handed them by the research assistant. Participants

were then expected to select an icon from an array of three possible choices during a

subsequent retelling of the story to place on the board during their turn. Finally, each

participant retold the story individually by pointing to each icon on the storyboard with

feedback and help from the group.

The participants in the CRONLEG group were exposed to the same story activities

used in the ONLEG group. The CRONLEG group began by creating their own story
 33

through an activity tied to the narrative style of academic English found in California’s

schools in an attempt to build on participants’ prior knowledge and the Hmong traditional

of storytelling. The students were introduced to one of the critical themes in each story

(“Home” from Home for a Bunny and “Being Safe” from The Three Little Pigs). With

scaffolding provided by the research assistant, including the development of a word web

associated with each theme, the development of characters of the participants’ choosing,

and a given story starter that set up a scenario related to the problem in each selected

story, the participants developed a unique tale based on their own knowledge and

experiences that paralleled the Open Court stories not yet introduced. To this end,

participants were introduced to the concept of the storyboard and developed their story by

selecting the critical elements and sequence of events about the given concept. The

group used the storyboard to retell the story and each participant used the storyboard to

retell the story individually. The story created by the participants was written down and

the “book” they created was reviewed with the group on a subsequent session. At this

point, the target Open Court story was read to the participants and the group made

comparisons between the participants’ “book” and each target story. This was followed

by the oral narrative, phonological awareness, and word recognition components found in

the LEG group.

Current Study Research Design and Methods

The current study involves examination of the existing data from the initial study. In

order to conduct the item-analysis for each measure, each participant’s response to each

question pre- and post-intervention was recorded. Tables were created for each measure
 34

according to the specific test questions and the hierarchical language skills being tested

throughout the measure. Each participant’s response to test questions pre- and post-

intervention was then input into the tables to allow for an item-analysis. The primary

investigator developed a rubric for each of three selected measures to define and analyze

each participant’s improvement on specific language skills. The rubrics were developed

based on the increasing difficulty level of each measure’s test items and on the specific

language skill being tested at each level. An in-depth item analysis using the rubrics for

comparison and classification led to a new data set to be analyzed in this study.
 35

Chapter 3

Results

This study was designed to address the following research questions:

1. How does the inclusion of an oral narrative component within an intense,

short-term RTI curriculum intervention designed by speech-language

pathologists for students with language-based reading difficulties whose first

language is Hmong support and scaffold effective literacy instruction?

2. Does the inclusion of the oral narrative component promote cultural

relevance?

As previously explained, this study is a follow-up study to an initial study (Pieretti,

2011). In order to fully understand the importance of the findings from the current study,

it will be important to first discuss the findings of the initial study.

Initial Study Results

Seven dependent variables were initially identified for quantitative analysis based on

raw score data changes pre- to post-intervention: Elision Raw Score Change, Blending

Words Raw Score Change, Letter-Word ID Raw Score Change, Passage Comprehension

Raw Score Change, Word Attack Raw Score Change, Receptive Raw Score Change, and

Fluency High Change. The variable names were derived from the subtests and measures

from which these raw score changes were calculated: Elision and Blending Words from

the CTOPP, Letter-Word Identification, Passage Comprehension, and Word Attack from

the WJIII, the ROWPVT vocabulary measure, and the Open Court Reading Lions

Fluency measure. SPSS MANOVA analysis was conducted. The seven dependent
 36

variables were: Elision Raw Score Change, Blending Words Raw Score Change, Letter-

Word ID Raw Score Change, Passage Comprehension Raw Score Change, Word Attack

Raw Score Change, Receptive Raw Score Change, and Fluency High Change. The

independent variable was Treatment with four levels (Control, LEG, ONLEG, and

CRONLEG). Total N of 41 was reduced to 39 with the deletion of two cases with

incomplete data files because the participants moved. The N for each treatment level was

as follows Control (10), LEG (10), ONLEG (10), CRONLEG (9). The assumption of

independence of errors was established through the design of the study. Observation of

histogram data, skewness, and kurtosis revealed normally distributed data for the

following variables: Fluency High Change, Word Attack Raw Score Change, and

Receptive Raw Score Change. Other variables were somewhat normally distributed.

Specific outliers for removal from data were difficult to identify because of the small N.

Results of evaluation of homogeneity of variance-covariance were based on Levine’s

Test of Equality of Error Variances. The results for two of the dependent variables,

Letter-Word ID Raw Change and Passage Comprehension Raw Change were significant

(p<.05), indicating that the population variances for these scores may not be equal. Box’s

Test of equality of covariance matrices, however, was not significant at p<.001,

indicating satisfactory homogeneity of covariance.

A one way multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) with four levels was

completed. The results of the MANOVA revealed an F value of 2.913 that was

significant at p<.0571 for one dependent variable, Passage Comprehension Raw Score

Change. Further multiple comparison analysis suggested that this was the result of a
 37

significant (p<.05) mean difference between the performance of the Control and

CRONLEG on the Passage Comprehension Raw Score Change. Assumptions of

normality and homogeneity of variance were, however, not met for this variable. While

analysis of variance is robust to minor violations of its assumptions, further confirmation

with a larger number of subjects and a subject pool that does meet the requirements for

homogeneity of variance would strengthen this finding. Further multivariate analysis was

not considered appropriate.

Group characteristics did suggest certain trends for comparison across the variables,

however. Pieretti summarized the intervention groups demonstrating the largest mean

standard score changes pre- to post-intervention on selected measures, and noted that the

ONLEG group was associated with six of the nine measures, as shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1

Groups demonstrating the largest mean standard score change pre- to post-intervention
on selected measures
MEASURE LARGEST MEAN CHANGE

CTOPP Phonological Awareness Composite ONLEG

CTOPP Elision subtest ONLEG

ROWPVT ONLEG

WJIII Passage Comprehension subtest CRONLEG

WJIII Letter-Word ID subtest LEG

Teacher Questionnaire: Decoding ONLEG

Teacher Questionnaire: Comprehension LEG

 38

Teacher Questionnaire: Engagement ONLEG & CRONLEG

Teacher Questionnaire: Participation ONLEG & CRONLEG

Pieretti concluded that the trends suggested in the study seemed to indicate that the

inclusion of an oral narrative component of the type described in this thesis may enhance

the developing English literacy skills of ELL students whose first language is Hmong.

Current Study Results

In order to further analyze the potential impact of the specific oral narrative

component within Pieretti’s study, three measures were identified for an item analysis

based on noted raw score changes pre- to post-intervention highlighted in the original

study: Elision (CTOPP), Passage Comprehension (WJIII), and Vocabulary (ROWPVT).

Additionally, Likert Scale changes on the Teacher Questionnaire were analyzed. For each

participant within the LEG, ONLEG, and CRONLEG groups, pre- and post-intervention

responses to each test item on the above measures were documented and compared. The

Investigator developed a rubric for each measure to define and analyze each participant’s

improvement on specific language skills. The rubrics were developed based on the

increasing difficulty level of each measure’s test items and on the specific language skill

being tested at each level. An explanation of each rubric is provided in the paragraphs

below.

Elision (CTOPP)

“The Elision subtest is considered by many educators to be a particularly strong

measure of phonological awareness because it requires examinees to segment spoken

 39

words into smaller parts, namely isolated sounds/phonemes. This is an important

precursor to identifying how sounds map onto letters in words” (Pieretti, 2011, p. 98).

The authors of the CTOPP sate: “The items on the CTOPP Elision subtest were selected

so that the word segment the examinee must drop out represents the entire range of

segment size and level of linguistic complexity. Consequently, initial test items simply

require dropping a whole word from a compound word. Subsequent items require

dropping out increasingly smaller segments at increasingly higher levels of linguistic

complexity – from words, to syllables, to onset and rime units, to individual phonemes

within rime units, and finally to individual phonemes within consonant clusters (CTOPP

Manual).” Items 1-3 require that the participant remove one word from a compound word

(Say popcorn. Now say popcorn without saying corn). Items 4-6 require that the

participant remove the initial phoneme in a single-syllable word (Say bold. Now say bold

without saying /b/). Items 7 and 8 require removal of the final phoneme in a single-

syllable word (Say mike. Now say mike without saying /k/). Items 9-11 require that the

participant remove the onset at the beginning of the second syllable of a two-syllable

word (Say tiger. Now say tiger without saying /g/). Items 12-17 require removal of the

second consonant in consonant blends (Say snail. Now say snail without saying /n/).

Items 18-20 require removal of a consonant in consonant clusters (Say strain. Now say

strain without saying /r/).

An analysis of responses to these test items pre- and post-intervention was conducted

for the LEG, ONLEG, and CRONLEG groups. For the purposes of this analysis, a

participant was considered to have demonstrated improvement in overall phonological

 40

awareness skills if he was able to provide correct responses on items requiring higher

levels of linguistic complexity on post-testing when compared to pre-testing. For

example, if a participant’s last correct response during pre-testing was item #3, requiring

that the participant remove one word from a compound word, and during post-testing his

last correct response was item #10, requiring that the participant remove the onset at the

beginning of the second syllable of a two-syllable word, that participant demonstrated

improvement in phonological awareness skills. Six of the ten LEG participants improved

on the Elision subtest, nine of the ten ONLEG participants improved on the Elision

subtest, and two of the eight CRONLEG participants improved. Compared to the LEG

group, more ONLEG participants increased their ability to remove a word from a

compound word (Say popcorn. Now say popcorn without saying corn), to remove the

initial phoneme in a single-syllable word (Say bold. Now say bold without saying /b/),

and to remove the final phoneme in a single-syllable word (Say mike. Now say mike

without saying /k/). In addition, more ONLEG participants made greater gains overall,

compared to LEG. While five LEG participants improved by two or more skill levels (for

example, improving from Item #3 in pre-testing to Item #7 in post-testing), seven

ONLEG participants improved by two or more skill levels.

ROWPVT

The ROWPVT was chosen because it is considered to be a good predictor of the

participants’ vocabulary development in English without the effects of decreased

expressive language in English. This is because receptive vocabulary in the L2 is often

believed to precede expressive vocabulary. This test requires the participant to recognize
 41

and point to a picture that depicts the meaning of a stimulus word, and the test items

become more difficult as the test progresses. Starting points for test items are established

based on the age of participant, and if a basal is not established on the first eight items

administered, the participant works backwards until eight correct responses are made. A

ceiling is established by six incorrect responses out of eight consecutive items.

An analysis of responses to the test items pre- and post-intervention was conducted for

the LEG, ONLEG, and CRONLEG groups. For the purposes of this analysis, a participant

was considered to have demonstrated improvement in receptive vocabulary skills if a

ceiling was reached within a higher age level on post-testing when compared to pre-

testing. For example, if a participant’s last correct response during pre-testing was item

#56 (age 7:0-7:11), and during post-testing his last correct response was item #68 (age

8:0-8:11), that participant demonstrated improved overall receptive vocabulary skills.

Four of the ten LEG participants improved on the ROWPVT, six of the ten ONLEG

participants improved, and four of the eight CRONLEG participants improved on this

test. Compared to the LEG group, more ONLEG participants increased their ability to

understand vocabulary words expected to be mastered by children of increasing age.

Passage Comprehension (WJIII)

This subtest requires the participant to apply a variety of vocabulary and

comprehension skills in order to supply a missing word in a passage through the use of

syntactic and semantic cues. Items 1-4 involve symbolic learning, or the ability to match

a rebus (pictographic representation of a word) with an actual picture of the object. Items

5-10 are presented in a multiple-choice format and require the participant to point to the
 42

picture represented by a phrase. Items 11-19 require the participant to read a short

passage and identify a missing key word that makes sense in the context of that passage.

The items become increasingly difficult by removing pictorial stimuli (Items 20 and

beyond), and by increasing passage length, level of vocabulary, and complexity of

syntactic and semantic cues.

An item analysis of responses to these test items pre- and post-intervention was

conducted for the LEG, ONLEG, and CRONLEG groups. For the purposes of this

analysis, a participant was considered to have demonstrated improvement in passage

comprehension skills if he was able to provide correct responses on longer passages

requiring higher levels of syntactic and semantic cues on post-testing when compared to

pre-testing. For example, if a participant’s last correct response during pre-testing was

item #4 (matching a rebus with a picture), and during post-testing his last correct

response was item #10 (pointing to the picture represented by a phrase), that participant

demonstrated improvement in passage comprehension skills. Using this rubric, three of

the ten LEG participants improved on the Passage Comprehension subtest. Six of the ten

ONLEG participants improved. Two of the eight CRONLEG participants demonstrated

improvement on this subtest. Compared to LEG, more ONLEG participants were able to

read a short passage and identify a missing key word that made sense in the context of

that passage (Items 11-19). Additionally, more ONLEG participants (5) than LEG (3)

were able to complete items at the highest level of difficulty (Items 20 and beyond),

which involved increased passage length, level of vocabulary, and complexity of

 43

syntactic and semantic cues, without pictorial stimuli. Table 2 illustrates each group’s

improvement on selected measures pre- to post-intervention.

Table 2

Number of participants demonstrating improvement on an item analysis of selected

measures

Elision ROWPVT Passage

Comprehension
LEG 6 4 3

ONLEG 9 6 6

CRONLEG 2 4 2

Teacher Questionnaire

The teacher questionnaire was designed to capture the classroom teacher’s perceptions

about each participant’s changes in oral participation in the classroom during literacy

activities, perceived changes in attitude towards reading/language arts activities, and

observed language/literacy changes, if any, during L2 and Language Arts classroom

activities. Teachers were asked to respond using the following Likert scale developed by

the Research Team initially and then at the conclusion of the intervention, after the

classroom units on Home for a Bunny and The Three Little Pigs had been completed.

Likert Scale: (1) Never, (2) Rarely, (3) Sometimes, (4) Frequently.

Teachers were asked to use the above choices to respond to, among others, the following

questions:

 The student is engaged during discussions about literacy selections (Engagement)

 The student actively participates (volunteers to answer questions) during

discussions about curriculum literacy selections (Participation)

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Pre- to Post- intervention Likert changes were recorded as no points (0) if the question

was scored with the same Likert rating on both measures, as positive points (+1, +2, etc.)

for changes in a positive direction along the Likert scale, and as negative points (-1, -2,

etc.) for changes in a negative direction along the Likert scale.

An analysis of responses to these questions pre- and post-intervention was conducted

for the LEG, ONLEG, and CRONLEG groups and the scores were compared to the

specific language improvements noted in this study. Although no specific

correspondence between increased engagement and participation and improvement in

specific language skills was noted, in terms of engagement and participation, it is

important to note that teachers perceived that participants in the ONLEG and CRONLEG

groups were more engaged and actively participated more during discussions about

curriculum literacy selections than were participants in the LEG group. Table 3 illustrates

teachers’ perceptions of increased student engagement and participation post-intervention

for each group.

Table 3

Teachers’ perceptions of increased student engagement and participation by intervention

group

LEG ONLEG CRONLEG

Increased
2 4 3
Engagement
Increased
1 4 2
Participation
 45

Chapter 4

Discussion

This study was based on a prior study (Pieretti, 2011) that included 39 participants.

Each participant, a first grade ELL student whose first language was Hmong, was

considered “at-risk” for academic failure or academic retention by their classroom

teacher based on language arts/literacy curriculum performance in the areas of reading

and reading comprehension. Participants were randomly placed in three treatment groups

and a control group that were balanced according to linguistic ability. One treatment

group was referred to as the Literacy Enhancement Group (LEG), another was referred to

as the Oral Narrative Literacy Enhancement Group (ONLEG), and a third was referred to

as the Culturally Relevant Oral Narrative Literacy Enhancement Group (CRONLEG).

The fourth group was the Control group. The participants in this group participated in all

testing, but did not receive any intervention beyond that provided through regular school

site programs. Each participant in the three intervention groups participated in

approximately 19 sessions over seven weeks. The ultimate targets for each treatment

group were improved decoding and reading comprehension. To this end, all groups, with

the exception of the control group, began with phonological awareness training to

strengthen participants’ abilities to work with phonemes and rime patterns auditorily

before being presented with them orthographically in phonics activities. Timed activities

using materials imprinted with these onset and rime patterns and all of their possible

combinations were then included in an attempt to increase participants’ word recognition

and retrieval abilities. The ONLEG group added a contextualized element whereby the
 46

students were first exposed to the first grade Open Court curriculum selection from

which the phonological awareness and phonics activities were derived. These stories had

not yet been introduced in the classroom curriculum, so these groups began with

interactive presentations of each story with a vocabulary emphasis followed by

scaffolded story retelling using a storyboard. The CRONLEG group added a culturally-

relevant component that attempted to build on each student’s individualized prior

knowledge. With scaffolding provided by a research assistant, including the development

of a word web associated with each theme, the development of characters of the

participants’ choosing, and a given story starter that set up a scenario related to the

problem in each selected story, the participants began by developing a unique tale based

on their own knowledge and experiences that paralleled the Open Court stories that were

then introduced in the same manner as in the ONLEG group.

The results of the original study seemed to suggest that the inclusion of an oral

narrative component designed by speech-language pathologists enhanced the student’s

developing English literacy skills. The current study was designed to further analyze the

potential impact of the specific oral narrative component within Pieretti’s study. The

results of this study are best summarized and discussed in relation to the two research

questions the study was designed to address:

Question #1

How does the inclusion of an oral narrative component within an intense, short-term

RTI curriculum intervention designed by speech-language pathologists for students

 47

with language-based reading difficulties whose first language is Hmong support and

scaffold effective literacy instruction.

Elision (CTOPP)

Phonological Awareness: Comparing participants’ raw score changes pre-to post-

intervention for this subtest (Figure 1), all intervention groups demonstrated

improvement in phonological awareness skills. Six of the ten LEG participants improved

across skill levels on the Elision subtest, nine of the ten ONLEG participants improved,

and two of the eight CRONLEG participants improved. These results further indicate that

the inclusion of an oral narrative component within an intense, short-term RTI curriculum

intervention designed by speech-language pathologists for students with language-based

reading difficulties whose first language is Hmong supports and scaffolds effective

literacy instruction. While all interventions groups received explicit instruction in

phonological awareness, the higher ONLEG results suggests that contextualized,

language rich oral narrative activities when combined with explicit phonological

awareness training may have more impact for Hmong speaking ELLs. The phonological

awareness activities were presented in an attempt to increase phonological awareness in

English. “These activities included the enriched language experiences mentioned by

Shaywitz (2004), which involve work on vocabulary and concepts, reading

comprehension strategies, and enriched language experiences, including listening to,

talking about, and telling stories” (Pieretti, 2011, p. 21). In Pieretti’s study, explicit

phonological awareness training was combined with contextualized oral narrative

activities that included discussion and reinforcement of selected multiple meaning words
 48

containing target rime families that were used in the story (-ock, -ind, -one, -og, -ing, -

own for Home for a Bunny; –uff, -ig, -ouse, -in, -ick, -ow for The Three Little Pigs)..

Participants were also presented with letter-word identification activities targeting

improved reading fluency through sound-symbol correspondence and phonic

strengthening. Pieretti concluded that these activities appeared to help “ground” many of

the students in the phonology of the L2 (English). For example, one student had stored

the word “climb” in her English lexicon as “cline.” When she was corrected after

completing an exercise that required her to isolate the final consonant phoneme /m/, she

was able to isolate it correctly on the post-testing administration of the same item. This

increased “grounding” appeared to carry over into these students’ spontaneous speech as

many demonstrated fewer L1 related vowel differences and fewer instances of final

consonant deletion in their spontaneous speech at the end of the study. The ONLEG

results from the current study, therefore, support the argument that strategies that

“emphasize learning language by making sense or meaning out of experience within

communicative contexts, rather than meaningless drills or worksheet activities….allow

language to emerge from the interactions” (Norris and Hoffman, 1990, p.223). It appears

that key elements of oral narrative activities, such as hearing “rich, visually stimulating

stories read aloud,” (Garcia (2003, 2008) and “opportunities to contribute long stretches

of speech” (Heath, 1983, p. 305) may have contributed to the ONLEG participants’

increased phonological grounding and subsequent abilities to process and manipulate

increasingly complex phonological tasks.

 49

ROWPVT

Receptive Vocabulary: Comparing participants’ raw score changes pre-to post-

intervention for this test (Table 1), all intervention groups mastered increasingly complex

receptive vocabulary. Four of the ten LEG participants improved in this manner on the

ROWPVT, six of the ten ONLEG participants improved, and four of the eight CRONLEG

participants improved. These results further indicate that the inclusion of an oral narrative

component within an intense, short-term RTI curriculum intervention designed by

speech-language pathologists for students with language-based reading difficulties whose

first language is Hmong supports and scaffolds effective literacy instruction. While the

LEG intervention focused solely on improved word decoding through phonemic

awareness activities at the word, syllable, and sound levels and phonics activities

designed to promote decoding, the ONLEG and CRONLEG groups further targeted

comprehension through a contextualized element that included interactive story

presentations with a vocabulary emphasis. In a review of vocabulary teaching practices,

research found that some of the most effective teachers “integrated vocabulary instruction

with phonological awareness activities, whereas others used pictures from big books”

(Gersten, R., & Geva, E. (2003). These methods are consistent with the contextualized

element of the oral narrative activities that included a vocabulary emphasis within

interactive story presentations. The higher ONLEG and CRONLEG results reflect

Roessingh’s assertion that “early literacy program for ELLs… must also include a strong

emphasis on vocabulary acquisition…This information needs to be taught in contexts that

are personally relevant and meaningful to young ELLs …” (Roessingh, 2011, p. 129)
 50

These results may also stem from the activation of background knowledge and

experiential learning through oral narratives, which provided “scaffolds for learning,

actively engaging learners through adult input and talk in small group settings,

negotiating meaning, and co-constructing knowledge”( p. 129). It was noted that while

only story-specific vocabulary was targeted during the oral narrative activities, several

participants were able to correctly identify many of the same items during post-testing

that were not directly targeted during intervention. For example, five participants who

were initially unable to identify “twig” were able to correctly identify this item during

post-testing. Interestingly, the story-based meaning of “stick” from The Three Little Pigs

(“A woody piece of a tree or shrub”) was discussed during the activities. It may be that

during the open-ended discussions about the meaning of “stick,” the word “twig” was

also introduced, thereby resulting in several participants incorporating this word into their

vocabulary. Perhaps ONLEG’s discussions involving contextualized, multiple-meaning

words and word associations promoted the participant’s overall semantic growth and

flexibility. Making sense and meaning out of experiences within communicative contexts

may have increased these participants’ ability to use context and schema to learn new

vocabulary, allowing language to emerge from the interactions.

Passage Comprehension: (WJIII)

Passage Comprehension: Comparing participants’ raw score changes pre-to post-

intervention for this subtest (Figure 1), all intervention groups were able to accurately

respond when presented with longer passages requiring higher levels of syntactic and

semantic cues. Three of the ten LEG participants improved in this manner on the
 51

Passage Comprehension subtest. Six of the ten ONLEG and two of the eight CRONLEG

participants also improved. These results further indicate that the inclusion of an oral

narrative component within an intense, short-term RTI curriculum intervention designed

by speech-language pathologists for students with language-based reading difficulties

whose first language is Hmong supports and scaffolds effective literacy instruction. The

results also suggest that an “oral narrative component that attempts to build the cultural

bridges suggested by Heath (1983) through contextualized oral narratives that provide

opportunities for English vocabulary expansion, connections to prior knowledge and life

experiences, and increased understanding about the literacy practices of the language of

instruction may further strengthen Hmong speaking ELLs text comprehension” (Pieretti,

2011, p. 99). For example, the oral narrative activities completed by the ONLEG and

CRONLEG groups may have provided such a bridge for these participants. Specifically,

before reading the first story, discussions about the author, characters, and critical story

elements were initiated. These discussions may have helped build the participants’

understanding about the literacy practices of English. In addition, the participants

responded to specific open-ended questions which required the participants to describe

and explain the story, and these questions evolved into scaffolded follow-up questions

that encouraged the participants to think about the text in order to encourage elaboration

and build meaning. This scaffolding was completed using oral narrative activities around

story theme, episodic summaries, literary language style (adjectives, adverbs,

conjunctions, and prepositions), expository text features (characters, setting, initiating

event(s), feelings of the characters, main plan in the story, direct consequences, and
 52

resolution), embedded episodes (individual attempts to accomplish the plan and

associated initiating event, feelings, plan, consequence, and resolution), and expository

text items (sequencing of the story, descriptions of the story, cause and effect situations,

and problem solution situations within the story). The participants also completed story

retell activities using specific icons from the story, with feedback and help from the

group. The ONLEG results support Pritchard’s view that “possession of accurate

schemata related to the texts ELLs read increases comprehension of that material

compared with readers who lack such schemata” (Pritchard, 1990, p. 289). These

activities may have enhanced the participants’ ability to use schemata, or their

background knowledge, the situational context, and the cues provided by the authors, to

better analyze and interpret the meaning of passage comprehension items of the type

found on the WJIII. For example, item #6 requires the participant to silently read the

words “big house” and point to a corresponding picture of a big house (given a choice of

four pictures). The concept of “house” was discussed during the oral narrative activities

for Home for a Bunny and The Three Little Pigs, both in terms of expository text features

(ex: setting) and expository text items (sequencing of the story, descriptions of the story,

cause and effect situations, and problem solution situations within the story). These

activities may also have increased the participants’ background knowledge of different

types of houses, thereby providing them with the schemata to analyze and interpret the

phrase “big house” and correctly identify the corresponding picture.

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Teacher Questionnaire

Engagement and Participation: Comparing teachers’ changing perceptions pre-to post-

intervention (Figure 2, Figure 3), all intervention groups demonstrated increased

classroom participation and engagement. However, increases were overall more positive

for both the ONLEG and CRONLEG groups compared to the LEG group. These results

further indicate that the inclusion of an oral narrative component within an intense, short-

term RTI curriculum intervention designed by speech-language pathologists for students

with language-based reading difficulties whose first language is Hmong supports and

scaffolds effective literacy instruction. Active engagement was promoted and facilitated

through open-ended discussion of the text, and scaffolded follow-up questions that

encouraged the participants to think about the text in order to encourage elaboration and

build meaning. Participation was encouraged through the oral narrative activities as they

were scaffolded through retelling the story as a group and, ultimately, individually.

Vaughn et al. (2006) concluded that English language interventions including active

engagement with text, among other factors, resulted in significant outcomes in reading

for ELLs learning English. Such engagement with text is a key component of oral

narrative activities. The ONLEG results resonate with Wilkinson and Silliman’s (2000)

assertion that “learning requires active student engagement in classroom activities and

interaction – engaged students are motivated for literacy learning and have the best

chance of achieving full communicative competence across the broad spectrum of

language and literacy skills” (p. 337-338).

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Question #2

Does the inclusion of the oral narrative component make the literacy instruction, by

nature, culturally relevant?

The three groups in this study received unique intervention approaches that allow for

insightful interpretations of the efficacy of distinct features of each intervention. The

LEG group, which received decontextualized phonological awareness training,

demonstrated corresponding improvement in phonological awareness skills (6 of 10

participants), and to a lesser extent, improvement in receptive vocabulary (4 of 10) and

passage comprehension (3 of 10).

In contrast, the ONLEG and CRONLEG groups added a contextualized element

whereby the students were first exposed to two first-grade Open Court (Adams et al.,

2002) anthology stories from Unit 10 (Homes): Home for a Bunny and The Three Little

Pigs, which were used as the basis for the hierarchical phonological awareness/word

recognition programs in which the students participated. Participants were engaged in

discussions about the author, characters, and critical story elements before reading the

first story. The participants were then encouraged to think further about the text in order

to encourage elaboration and build meaning through scaffolded follow-up questions. This

scaffolding was completed using oral narrative activities based on Linking the Strands of

Language and Literacy (Goldsworthy with Lambert, 2010) and Story Retell And Literacy

Activities For the School Aged Learner (Hussey, 2007), and consisted of “activities

around story theme, episodic summaries, literary language style (adjectives, adverbs,

conjunctions, and prepositions), expository text features (characters, setting, initiating

 55

event(s), feelings of the characters, main plan in the story, direct consequences, and

resolution), embedded episodes (individual attempts to accomplish the plan and

associated initiating event, feelings, plan, consequence, and resolution), and expository

text items (sequencing of the story, descriptions of the story, cause and effect situations,

and problem solution situations within the story)” (Pieretti, p. 62). The participants in the

CRONLEG group were exposed to the same story activities used in the ONLEG group.

However, this group began by creating their own story in an attempt to develop a

scenario that drew upon the Hmong tradition of storytelling while simultaneously tying

the activity to the narrative style of the academic English found in California’s schools.

ONLEG demonstrated greater linguistic improvement on all three measures identified

for analysis in the current study: Elision (CTOPP), Passage Comprehension (WJIII), and

Vocabulary (ROWPVT). It is noteworthy that this occurred without the addition of the

component that drew upon the Hmong tradition of storytelling. These findings raise an

important question. Does the inclusion of the oral narrative component have the potential

to make the literacy instruction, by nature, culturally relevant?

It has been well documented that Hmong students are in particular need of culturally

relevant literacy instruction to make connections between their home culture and that of

the school, thereby providing them with greater access to the language arts curriculum.

The trends in this study indicate that an added instructional component intentionally

designed to be culturally relevant may not be as effective as oral narrative activities in

conjunction with explicit instruction in phonological awareness and with the curriculum.

Pieretti hypothesized that the story creation component designed to reinforce connections
 56

to prior knowledge in the contextualization process may have shifted some of the group’s

focus away from the other components of the intervention, such as the explicit

phonological awareness instruction and oral narrative activities. Oral narrative activities

provide ELLs opportunities to practice reading and participate in discussions about their

reading. Heath found that “a major advantage of oral story-telling sessions was that they

gave children opportunities to contribute long stretches of speech, or extended discourse,

in the classroom” (Heath, 1983, p. 305). Similarly, Klingner and Edwards stress that

“culturally responsive literacy instruction includes the skills deemed necessary for

acquiring the ability to read … and frequent opportunities to practice reading with a

variety of rich materials in meaningful contexts” (p.109). The opportunity to practice

reading contextualized materials and to contribute long stretches of speech may enhance

explicit instruction in phonological awareness and strengthen students’ “sensitivity to, or

explicit awareness of, the phonological structure of words in one’s language” (Torgeson

and Mathes, 2000, p.2). While both the ONLEG and CRONLEG groups participated in

the oral narrative activities, CRONLEG’s modest improvement in phonological

awareness skills (Elision) compared to ONLEG may indicate that the story creation

component based on the Hmong storytelling tradition did not contribute to improved

phonological awareness skills. The ONLEG results indicate that Hmong-speaking ELLs

benefitted from phonological awareness activities contextualized through oral narratives

that allow them to make connections between their home culture and that of the school.

Likewise, ONLEG’s larger gains in vocabulary over CRONLEG may also indicate that

the inclusion of the oral narrative component makes literacy instruction, by nature,
 57

culturally relevant. Vocabulary development is most effective when teaching strategies

incorporate presentation of difficult vocabulary prior to and during lesson, structured

opportunities to speak English, and engagement in meaningful interactions about the text.

(Gersen and Geva, 2003) The added culturally-relevant component in the CRONLEG

group did not correspond to a greater improvement in vocabulary than that attained by the

ONLEG, which suggests that the contextualized, language-rich oral narratives may have

been the most beneficial element with regard to vocabulary development.

Oral narrative activities encourage students to participate in contextual activities in

which they interact with the text, rather than just reading it, using their background

knowledge, the context of the story and activities, and the linguistic and nonlinguistic

cues provided by the author to construct interpretations and create meanings. In

discussing the creation of language-rich instruction for ELLs, Bauer and Manyak (2008)

cite Garcia (2003, 2008) as stating, “The central element of all instruction for ELLs

should be to make rich language comprehensible.” The higher ONLEG results in

Passage Comprehension suggests that the contextualized, oral narrative activities allowed

ONLEG to “construct interpretations and create meanings” more effectively than the

added culturally-relevant component in the CRONLEG group. In her article “Family

Treasures: A Dual-Language Book Project for Negotiating Language, Literacy, Culture,

and Identity,” Roessingh (2011) discusses a dual language book project undertaken in

partnership with an elementary school to provide a framework for addressing ELLs’

needs to negotiate language, culture, and identity as they transition and make meaning

from their home language (L1) to English and the language of school (L2). Kramsch
 58

(1993) “illustrates how the framework can be applied in negotiating language, culture,

and identity in what he has termed ‘the third space’ (p. 235). This shared space, between

the first language and culture and the second language and culture, can represent a site in

which children can negotiate meaning” (Roessingh, p. 124). In this work, she highlights

broad principles of learning that “emphasize the importance of activating background

knowledge, experiential learning, providing scaffolds for learning, actively engaging

learners through adult input and talk in small group settings, negotiating meaning, and

co-constructing knowledge”( p. 129). Kramsch’s “third space” resonates with Heath’s

“cultural bridges” and Pritchard’s sociocultural model of reading.

The trends in this study indicate that perhaps language-rich, contextualized oral

narratives inherently create this “third space.” The results of Pieretti’s study indicated

that the ONLEG group demonstrated the largest mean standard score changes pre- to

post-intervention on six of the nine measures selected for analysis. The results of the

current study indicate that contextualized, language rich oral narrative activities, when

combined with explicit phonological awareness and phonics training, may support and

scaffold effective literacy instruction while simultaneously making the literacy

instruction, by nature, culturally relevant. These oral narrative activities facilitate

construction of multiple zones of proximal development for ELLs, “through which

participants can navigate via different routes and at different rates” (Wilkinson and

Silliman, 2000). The CRONLEG intervention added a component that attempted to

create cultural-relevance by building on each student’s individualized prior knowledge.

An item analysis of responses to specific test items on Elision, Passage Comprehension,

 59

and vocabulary appears to indicate that this component, while helpful, may have

inadvertently and inefficiently shifted some of the CRONLEG group’s focus away from

explicit literacy instruction.

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Chapter 5

Implications

A qualitative analysis of improvement in specific literacy skills within Pieretti’s study

has indicated some important trends suggesting that the inclusion of an oral narrative

component within an intense, short-term RTI curriculum intervention designed by

speech-language pathologists for students with language-based reading difficulties whose

first language is Hmong does, in fact, support and scaffold effective literacy instruction.

The results also suggest that the inclusion of the oral narrative component inherently

promotes cultural relevance, as evidenced by increased participation and engagement by

ONLEG and CRONLEG participants. The ONLEG and CRONLEG groups both received

explicit phonological awareness training, and participated in contextualized oral narrative

activities. The CRONLEG group also developed a unique tale based on their own

knowledge and experiences that paralleled the Open Court stories that were then

introduced in the same manner as in the ONLEG group. The addition of this component

did not result in improved literacy skills, or increased engagement and participation. On

the contrary, the contextualized oral narrative activities seemed to have the most impact,

while CRONLEG’s story creation component, designed to encourage cultural relevance,

appeared to have shifted some of the group’s focus away from the explicit phonological

awareness training and the oral narrative activities. Overall, a specific item analysis

indicates that ONLEG made more gains in critical literacy skills, including phonological

awareness, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension, and also demonstrated

greater gains in classroom engagement and participation.

 61

These trends suggest powerful implications for Speech-Language Pathologists and

Special Education Teams in the development and delivery of RTI programs for students

with language-based reading difficulties whose first language is Hmong, and may

potentially benefit other culturally and linguistically diverse students. Under IDEA, RTI

programs show promise for preventing academic failure by providing support to

culturally and linguistically diverse students before they underachieve (Klingner &

Edwards, 2006). Speech-Language Pathologists and Special Education Teams may

consider developing RTI programs that incorporate some of the methods in Pieretti’s

study that appeared to be most successful in improving literacy skills for ELLs with

language-based reading difficulties. These include contextualized, language rich oral

narrative activities combined with explicit phonological awareness training, targeted

comprehension through a contextualized element that includes interactive story

presentations with a vocabulary emphasis, open-ended discussion of the text, scaffolded

follow-up questions that encourage elaboration and build meaning, and story retell

activities that involve identification and discussion of critical story elements and events.

While Pieretti’s study included an activity targeted to be culturally-relevant, the current

study concluded that cultural relevance was likely promoted more effectively through the

students’ natural engagement with the text, the instructor, and each other. Future RTI

programs may include similar activities that promote engagement and participation in the

classroom.

The trends demonstrated in this study also suggest the value of a larger study

contrasting similar therapy methods using the same general design to look at the most
 62

important findings – namely the pre-to post-therapy changes in phonological awareness,

vocabulary, passage comprehension, and student engagement and participation between

the LEG and ONLEG groups. The reason for this is that data gathered from large

experiments are amenable to statistical analysis in which probabilistic conclusions and

broad generalizations can be made (Solso, Johnson, & Beal, 1998). This study raises

another question. Namely, is ONLEG type therapy appropriate for all ELLs with

language-based reading difficulties? In other words, would it be beneficial to students

with language-based reading difficulties whose first language is Spanish? Vietnamese?

Russian? A future study might contrast the performance between different ELL students

receiving traditional literacy intervention and ONLEG type therapy, particularly in terms

of cultural relevance as demonstrated by increased engagement and participation in the

classroom.
 63

Appendix A

Letter of Confidentiality

To whom it may concern,

I am a Graduate student in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, and

Dr. Robert Pieretti is my Graduate Advisor. Dr. Pieretti is also the First Reader for my

Graduate thesis. Following is a brief summary of my research proposal, which concerns,

in large part, the data that was gathered for Dr. Pieretti’s Doctoral Dissertation through

UC Davis.

The current research was designed to answer the following questions:

1. Does the inclusion of an oral narrative component within an intense, short-term

RTI curriculum intervention designed by speech-language pathologists for

students with language-based reading difficulties whose first language is Hmong

support and scaffold effective literacy instruction?

2. Does the inclusion of the oral narrative component make the literacy instruction,

by nature, culturally relevant?

The data analyzed to address these questions were obtained through research

completed for a dissertation entitled Response to Intervention and Literacy: A Bright Spot

for Hmong Speaking English Language Learners? by Robert A. Pieretti. Dr. Pieretti is a

California licensed and credentialed speech-language pathologist with ten years of work

experience as a Language, Speech, and Hearing Specialist in Public Schools in Northern

California and he maintains a Certificate of Clinical Competence with the American

Speech-Language-Hearing Association. As Principal Investigator, he led a research team

 64

that examined literacy instruction for first grade Hmong- speaking English Language

Learners exhibiting difficulties with reading and the possible benefits that Response to

Intervention programs may provide to these students. The current research focuses

particularly on the results of two of the three intervention groups, the Literacy

Enhancement Group (LEG), and the Oral Narrative Literacy Enhancement Group

(ONLEG).

Each participant in Dr. Pieretti’s study was assigned a number (1, 2, 3, and so on), and

all the documents and records to which I will have access is identified solely by these

numbers. I will not have access to any identifying information about particular students,

teachers, or schools. In addition, all documentation will remain in Dr. Pieretti’s office at

all times. Furthermore, I understand that student privacy and protection of confidential

information is of utmost importance, and I will make every effort to ensure that all such

information is safeguarded.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Tracy Stage
 65

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