Carol Booth Olson

Research Study on a Cognitive Strategies Approach to Reading and Writing Instruction for English Language Learners Receives Alan C. Purves Award

Irvine, Calif., August 21, 2007

The article, "A Cognitive Strategies Approach to Reading and Writing Instruction for English Language Learners in Secondary School," reports findings from a study conducted by members of the UC Irvine Writing Project in partnership with the Santa Ana Unified School District, where 93% of the students speak English as a second language and 69% are designated Limited English Proficient. Over an eight-year period, a relatively stable group of 55 secondary teachers, engaged in ongoing professional development in a program called the Pathway Project, implemented a cognitive strategies approach to reading and writing instruction, making visible for approximately 2000 students per year the thinking tools experienced readers and writers access in the process of meaning construction. The purpose of the study was to assess the impact of this approach on the reading and writing abilities of English language learners (ELLs) in all 13 secondary schools in the district. Students receiving cognitive strategies instruction significantly out-gained peers on holistically scored assessments of academic writing for seven consecutive years. Treatment-group students also performed significantly better than control-group students on GPA, standardized tests, and high-stakes writing assessments. For example, the training in academic literacy students received in the Pathway Project was reflected in their California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) scores, with 93% of 10th graders passing the 2004 exam as opposed to 66% of control students and 62% of the district overall.

Findings from the study reinforce the importance of having high expectations for ELLs; exposing them to a rigorous language arts curriculum; explicitly teaching, modeling and providing guided practice in a variety of strategies to help students read and write about challenging texts; and involving students as partners in a community of learners. The consistency of positive outcomes on multiple measures strongly points to the efficacy of using this approach with ELLs.

In reflecting upon the success of the study, Olson and Land noted, "Our experience has led us to believe that long-term, positive, professional relationships among teachers, researchers, and school administrators are necessary for successful school reform. Equally necessary, we believe, are the teachers' regard for the identity of their students and the reformers' regard for the professionalism of teachers." Indeed, the success of this particular intervention owes much to the teachers-teaching-teachers model of the National Writing Project, with its inherent respect for the capacity of practitioners to generate and use knowledge to improve their practice. As Jamie Salafia-Bellomo, a 6th grade teacher at Villa Intermediate remarked,

My seven years of participation in the Pathway Project have provided me with vital strategies, methodologies and materials in the fields of teaching reading and writing. I think what has been the most inspirational to me as an educator is that these strategies emphasize teaching our students what good readers and writers do naturally that make them effective interpreters in reading and communicators in writing. To quote another Pathway colleague, we strive to make the "invisible visible" to our students. My participation as a teacher in the Pathway Project has been a pleasure, a privilege and has provided this twenty-year veteran of teaching with a renewed enthusiasm and pride in my role as an educator.

Olson and Land will accept the Alan Purves Award at the National Council of Teachers of English Convention in New York City in November 2007.

Olson and Land's research was funded by the U.S Department of Education Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA). With a new 2.9 million dollar grant from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES), they are currently implementing a randomized field trial in SAUSD designed to attempt to replicate the efficacy of the earlier study.