The Missouri Reader Vol. 37, Issue 2 | Page 32

vocabulary. This instruction took place while
the majority of students were at independent
learning centers and the classroom teacher was
meeting with guided reading groups. The
services the English Language Learners received
was in addition to the one-on-one and small
group instruction they received from their
regular classroom teacher.
Achievement scores in reading and writing
using the Development Reading Assessment
and Marie Clay writing rubric were obtained
from a single classroom at the beginning and
end of the kindergarten school year. Scores
were compared between English Language
Learners and native English speaking students.
This was done for both the reading assessment
data as well as the writing scores. Means and
standard deviations of the data were calculated.
An Independent t-Test was used to determine if
there was a significant difference in the scores
of English Language Learners and native English

speakers in kindergarten. A significance level of
.05 was used to accept or reject the null
hypothesis that there will not be a significant
difference between the growth in reading and
writing of English Language Learners as
compared to native English speaking students in
kindergarten.

Findings
Table 1 shows the average beginning of the
year (BOY) and end of the year (EOY) scores for
English Language Learners and native English
speakers in kindergarten as well as each group’s
average growth. The scores reported include
every student’s reading and writing score in
both groups at the beginning and end of the
year in kindergarten and include the change
that occurred overall for each group in reading
and writing.

Table 1. Summary Data for Descriptive Statistics
Reading:
Variable

Mean

Standard Deviation

ELL Boy

1.18

.60

ELL EOY

4.64

1.86

ELL change

4.36

1.50

Native BOY

1.51

1.14

Native EOY

5.43

2.96

Native change

4.91

2.44

©The Missouri Reader, 37 (2) p.32