Lee Con Ángel: Fostering Spanish Literacy in Bilingual
Students
By
Cynthia Chasteen, PhD, Lori Morris, & Bette Kish
According
to a 2015 report by the Instituto Cervantes (eldiae.es/wp, n.d.), the United
States is the second-largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico, with 41
million native Spanish speakers and 11.6 bilinguals. As the number of Spanish-speaking students in
US schools continues to rise, it is imperative that schools implement programs
to successfully foster Spanish literacy.
Lee Con Ángel
Backed
by research on the cognitive benefits of bilingualism (Bialystok, 2010;
Bialystok & Feng, 2009; Bialystok & Viswanathan, 2009; Kovács &
Mehler, 2009 a, b);
the impact of students’ proficiency/literacy in their native
languages on the acquisition of additional languages (Cummins, 1996; Krashen,
1996); as well as what the research duo of Collier and Thomas (2004) deem “The
outstanding effectiveness of dual language education for all” (p. 1), two
former bilingual teachers have answered the call and created an online Spanish
reading program for students in Pre-Kindergarten through Second Grade.
Lee
Con Ángel is an online Spanish reading program created by Kishmorr Productions,
LLC, a company founded by retired bilingual teachers Bette Kish and Lori
Morris. They have over 40 years of
combined experience with Bilingual, Special Education and Dual Language
students in the Elementary level. Lori
taught Spanish in High Schools for eight years, but finished her career with
elementary-aged children to help them develop literacy skills in Spanish.
Building
on their classroom experience, Kish and Morris were also influenced by Fountas and
Pinnell’s system of leveled texts as well as the Texas State Spanish Language
Arts and Reading Standards. As they
created Lee Con Ángel, Kish and Morris realized the impact and the increased
level of during computer time, and developed a program that is user friendly and
provides activities as well as assessments and resources for teachers and
parents.
Bette
Kish had the idea of creating an online Spanish Reading Program when there
weren’t any suitable computer resources for her Bilingual Special Education
Students. Using a childhood original
song as the inspiration for the parade song, Lee con Ángel began. Lori Morris was a colleague and Bilingual
Teacher for primary and secondary students.
The two began collaborating on games, songs and writing the 22 original
stories in Spanish in 2010. The duo took
ideas from written description, converted the tunes to sheet music, got two
copyrights, and took the power point ‘story boards’ to a web developer. The program’s original title was: Ángel, Mi Ayudante de Lectura and was released
in 2013 but was shortened to Lee con Ángel in 2015. Now, the complete program is in two formats
with the same content.
Both
teachers collaborated on the games and stories making sure the skills were ‘scaffolded’
to meet the needs of all students. For
example, the first story has only the vowel A and consonants that form open syllables,
then the second story has A and E, and so forth, adding one vowel at a time per
story so that students can learn to develop fluency and comprehension
independently. The focus is on giving
students the choice to practice skills that teachers introduce or chance to
review and develop the skills necessary but also have the option of following a
suggested path of structured learning.
This is done with the blinking icons that guide students through the
activities, games and songs that are based on a sequential path using
cumulative skills from basic phonemic awareness to higher-level reading of
texts up to a second grade level. While
the path of blinking icons is recommended, students are not locked into any one
activity. This is a unique feature of
Lee con Ángel.
The Setting/Participants
In January
of 2015, Kish and Morris conducted a four month pilot test of Lee con Ángel in
two elementary schools in a school district located outside a large city in
Texas. The students were in seven dual language classes with a 50/50 model of
simultaneous literacy.
Three Pre-Kindergarten and four Kindergarten classes
participated in this pilot study, with a total of 132 students. On average,
each class had five native English speakers and the rest were native Spanish
speakers.
Introductory Classroom Data for pilot of Lee con Ángel
January – May, 2015
|
Class Label
|
Lee con Ángel
Status
|
School
Description
|
Grade level
|
No.
of Students
|
English
Speakers
|
%
Correct on Pre-Test
|
%
Correct
on
Post-Test
|
|
A-
Teacher 1
|
Used program
|
Rural Setting
|
Pre-K-am
|
22
|
4
|
22
|
56
|
|
B-
Teacher 1
|
Control group
|
Rural Setting
|
Pre-K-pm
|
20
|
2
|
10
|
33
|
|
C-
Teacher 2
|
Used program
|
Rural Setting
|
Kinder
|
21
|
5
|
34
|
65
|
|
D-
Teacher 3
|
Control group
|
Rural Setting
|
Kinder
|
20
|
5
|
57
|
68
|
|
E-
Teacher 4
|
Used program
|
Suburban
|
Pre -K
|
15
|
9
|
4
|
26
|
|
F-
Teacher 5
|
Used program
|
Suburban
|
Kinder
|
16
|
3
|
64
|
91
|
|
G-
Teacher 6
|
Control group
|
Suburban
|
Kinder
|
18
|
9
|
47
|
93
|
Table 1
All classes were teaching children
to learn to read in both English and Spanish. The partner teachers chose one
class to use the program 15 minutes a day for 3-5 times a week.
The pilot study utilized an
experimental design, so there were control and experimental groups. Every class
was tested, but only half had access to the program (experimental group), while
the other half of the students were in the control group and did not have
access to Lee con Ángel. One Pre-Kindergarten teacher had a dual language class
but did not have a counterpart to act as a control group, so the group’s growth
is compared with the other Pre-Kindergarten classes.
Students accessed Lee con Ángel via
the internet with Chrome Books in classroom literacy stations. The children were given four tests in January
before starting to use the program, and then four more tests at the end. These tests were to evaluate the students’
ability to recognize letters, sounds, read words and show understanding of
concepts of print.
Demographics
of Two Participating Schools
|
School 1
|
School 2
|
|
Rural- outskirts of a major city in Texas
|
Suburban- outskirts of a suburb of a major city in Texas
|
|
913 students enrolled – Pre-K – 5th grade
|
578 students enrolled – Pre-K – 5th grade
|
|
Economically Disadvantaged 73.2%
English Language Learners 35.7% Special Education 6.6%
|
Economically Disadvantaged 27.0%
English Language Learners 18.3%
Special Education 5.5%
|
|
2 PK/2 Kinder: 83 students
|
1 PK/2 Kinder: 49 students
|
Table 2
In January, each student participant
was given a Pre-Test, the Letter Identification Test (LID Test). If a student could read, he/she took a timed
word test, in which students read as many words as possible in two
minutes. All tests were administered by
Kish and Morris. The Spanish Pre-Test assessed the following skills: upper/lower case letter identification,
vowel/consonant identification and initial letter recognition of common animal
names.
Post-Test
In May, the students were given a
Post-Test, LID Test, Word Test, and a Concepts of Print Test (Ángel Conceptos
de Impresa), all administered in Spanish.
The Spanish Post-Test assessed the same as the Pre-Test, and also
required that students identify words that were associated with pictures.
Results of Pilot Test
Pre-Kindergarten
School 1 To
begin the discussion of the data gleaned from the pilot test, we first turn to
the Pre-Kindergarten (PK) classes.
School 1 had two classes represented in the pilot study. Class A (see Table 1) was a morning section
of PK and an experimental group that used Lee Con Ángel while Class B was an
afternoon section and served as a control group, and the same teacher taught
both sections. School 2 only had one PK
classroom and this group also used the program.
School
1 was located in a rural setting and students who attended the school were from
a lower socioeconomic status (SES) than the students who attended School
2. The data revealed that the students
in the experimental group improved 34% on their Post-Test scores after the four
months of the study. Individual scores
indicated that students identified an average of four out of the 61 letters and
sounds on the LID test administered in January and then identified 48 out of 61
on the test given in May. Conversely, students
in the control group who did not have access to Lee Con Ángel correctly
identified 35 out of 61 sounds after the same four months of instruction.
Pilot
Program Overview of Results with Lee con Ángel
Online Spanish
Reading Program
|
School /Class
|
Letter ID
January- May
Results
|
Word Test
January Results
|
Pre-Test
Results
% correct
|
Word
Test
May Results
|
Post Test
Results
% correct
|
|
A- Used Program
Teacher 1- am
Pre-K- Rural
|
20/21 students improved
|
8/21 Students can read
|
22
|
15/21
Students can read
|
56
|
|
B- Control Group
Teacher 1- pm
Pre-K – Rural
|
15/ 20 students improved
|
2/20
Students can read
|
10
|
4/20
Students can read
|
33
|
|
C- Used program
Teacher 2-
Kinder- Rural
|
15/20 students improved
|
6/20 students can read
|
34
|
15/20 students can read
|
65
|
|
D- Control group
Teacher 3 –
Kinder – Rural
|
15/ 20 students improved
|
2/20 students can read
|
57
|
4/20
Students can read
|
68
(8 students made negative
progress)
|
|
E- Used program
Teacher 4-
Pre-K – Suburban *
|
28% of students improved
|
0/15
|
4
|
1% of students can read
|
26
|
|
F-Used program
Teacher 5-
Kinder – Suburban
|
97% knew all letters in
January
|
Students read 437 words
|
64
|
Students read 800 words
|
91
|
|
G- Control group
Teacher 6-
Kinder - Suburban
|
97% knew all letters in
January
|
Students read 412 words
|
47
|
Students read 850 words
|
93
|
Table 3
*Kishmorr researchers noticed
that students were not familiar with the program in the spring which indicated
to us that they didn’t get to use Lee con Ángel as much as we had expected.
School
2 There was only one Pre-Kindergarten class in School 2,
which was located in a more suburban area than School 1, and this class
received the Lee Con Ángel program. There were 15 students in the class
including 9 native English-speaking students. Individual analysis showed that
seven out of 15 children learned more than 15 letters; four students went from not knowing any
letters in the Pre-Test to being able to identify more than 30 letters or
sounds in the Post-Test. Also, all students in Class E made progress during the
study period.
Individual Results in School 1
After
careful analysis of individual results, the underlying story with Class A was
that all but one student showed significant gains in basic literacy skills.
After using Lee Con
Ángel, the lowest score on the LID Test was 12; however, everyone
improved. Fourteen students identified more than 50 of the 61 letters, and
three students knew 30-50 of the 61 Spanish sounds.
In Class A,
there were 22 tested students and 56% of the students passed the Post- Test.
Class B, the control group, had three students who improved more than 50% on
Post-Test scores as compared to the Pre-Test scores, five who improved more
than 20%, and six who improved by a range of 5-19%. There was one student whose
score decreased by 15% and one who did not take the Pre-Test. Only 33% of
students mastered the Post-Test, 57% could identify Spanish letters, and 38%
could tell six basic concepts of print in Spanish.
Table 4
Table
5
Kindergarten
School 1 The Kindergarten children at
School 1 had two teachers who team-teach in the dual language program. One
teaches in English while the other teaches only in Spanish. Students rotate
back and forth all week to divide their time equally between the two teachers
and two languages. The most notable results to report were the four students in
the experimental group who improved more than 61% on the Post-Test; their peers
in the control group who did not receive access to the online program Lee con
Ángel did not experience as much success.
Students in the experimental group were able to identify more letter
sounds than the students in the control group.
However, the most interesting finding was related to negative
results. Of the students who used the
program, only two
Scored lower on the Post-Test than they did on the Pre-Test;
however, the control group had nine who regressed during the same four month
period.
School
2 Like School 1, the Kindergarten classes at School 2 also
had two teachers. One taught in English, while the other taught all content in
Spanish, allowing students to acquire both languages as well as all of the
concepts required by state standards. The students at School 2 were more
diverse than those at School 1, with a few Asian and African-American students
in the study. Other students shared stories of grandparents coming from South
America or the Caribbean Islands.
Parents articulated the desire for their children to be biliterate, and
several of the parents were multilingual.
After the four month study period,
both groups of students improved; however, the group that used Lee Con Ángel
was able to read more words than their peers in the control group. Students in
the experimental group (Class F) showed improved Post-Test scores; 79% knew the
concepts of print when asked in Spanish, 55% could read words in 2 minutes, and
97% identified the majority of the 61 letters of the Spanish alphabet. Careful
analysis between the experimental and control groups revealed that the students
who used Lee Con Ángel knew 16 more sounds than the students who did not use
the program. One of the major differences between the two groups was the number
of students who could read words in a timed setting. Individual test scores
revealed that seven students in Class F (experimental group) could read 35 or
more words in two minutes while only four students in the control group (Class
G) could read that many.
It is important to note that these
two classes from School 2 had very high performing students and the benefits of
Lee con Ángel were more apparent in the scores of the students at School 1, who
began the program possessing fewer skills. Although all students benefitted
from the online reading program, Lee con Ángel is more effective with students
who need remediation or motivation to learn literacy skills.
Teacher Feedback
All the participating teachers
reported that students enjoyed using Lee con
Ángel.
Furthermore, one teacher gave a video testimonial where she described how a
non-verbal student gained enough confidence after using Lee con Ángel to begin
speaking to her and other students in his native Spanish, while another was
able to learn Spanish by using this program online. This is a testament to the
value of songs that engage the auditory learner, how interactive games engage
the tactile/ kinesthetic learner and visual cues engage the visual learner.
Future Directions
This four
month pilot provided a brief window into the potential of Lee Con Ángel in
fostering students’ Spanish literacy. Since
this inaugural pilot study, six more Elementary schools from all over the
United States and 14 additional classrooms have adopted Lee Con Ángel. In the future, Kishmorr Productions will
conduct longitudinal studies following students’ and schools’ progress and
engage in follow-up visits and interviews with administrators, students,
teachers and parents.
We would like to thank the
administrators, teachers, principals and children of this school district for
cooperating with Kishmorr Productions, LLC and allowing us to come into the
classrooms to test students. We know that interruptions to instruction should
be kept to a minimum as these are the types of things that vary instruction
from class to class and slow down progress. Despite variances in teacher
personality, priorities regarding instruction and differences in student
abilities, the data from this pilot does confirm overall that students who had
access to Lee con Ángel performed better on the Post-Test, recognized more
letters, read more words, and identified more concepts of print in Spanish than
those who were in the control groups.
For more information visit: www.leeconangel.com
Or email us at: contact@kishmorrproductions.com
References
Bialystok, E. (2010). Developmental Psychology, 46.
Bialystok, E. & Feng, X. (2009).
Brain Language, 109.
Bialystok, E. & Viswanathan, M.
(2009). Cognition, 112.
Collier, V. & Thomas, W. (2004).
The astounding effectiveness of dual language
education
for all. NABE Journal of Research and
Practice, 2(1).
Cummins, J. (1996). Negotiating
identities: Education for empowerment in a diverse
society.
(Ontario, CA: California Association for Bilingual Education).
Kovács, A.M. & Mehler, J.
(2009). Science 325, 611
Kovács, A.M. & Mehler, J.
(2009). Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 106, 6556
Krashen, S.D. (1999). Condemned without a trial: Bogus arguments
against bilingual
education.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
