Cross-language relationship between Spanish and English oral reading fluency among Spanish-speaking English language learners in bilingual education classrooms

CROSS-LANGUAGE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SPANISH AND ENGLISH ORALREADING FLUENCY AMONG SPANISH-SPEAKING ENGLISH LANGUAGE

LEARNERS IN BILINGUAL EDUCATION CLASSROOMS

ROMILIA DOMÍNGUEZ DE RAMÍREZ

University of Houston

EDWARD S. SHAPIRO

Lehigh University

This study examined whether oral reading fluency in a child’s first language (Spanish) as assessedby Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) was related to oral reading fluency in a secondlanguage (English) and whether Spanish oral reading fluency probes administered in the fallwere predictive of English oral reading fluency outcomes for spring of the same academic year.A total of 68 bilingual education students across grades 1 through 5 were assessed in Spanish andEnglish during the fall, winter, and spring. Results showed that reading in Spanish and Englishacross grades and time periods correlated moderately high with the exception of fourth grade. Inaddition, Spanish oral reading fluency at the beginning of the year significantly predicted Englishreading outcomes at the end of the year. These findings suggest that CBM can be a valuable toolfor evaluating the relationship between oral reading fluency in both the first and secondlanguage. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The United States is becoming a more ethnically and linguistically diverse society than everbefore and this diversity is projected to increase in the decades to come. The percentage of limitedEnglish language learners (ELLs) enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade nationwide from1994–1995 through 2004–2005 has increased 61%, from 3,184,696 students to 5,119,561 students(U.S. Department of Education, 2006). Spanish-speaking students constitute the largest propor-tion (79%) of English language learners in the United States (Kindler, 2002).

Typically, Hispanic or Latino students perform significantly below general education stan-dards as compared to non-ELLs. For instance, a report from the National Center for EducationStatistics (2003) suggests that, although Hispanic students had higher reading scores in 1999 thanin 1975, their performance remained lower than White students. Identifying the causes ofunderachievement of Latino students is complicated because it is difficult to distinguish studentswho struggle in reading English because of second language acquisition versus those who strugglebecause of underlying learning disabilities.

The assessment of English language learners poses serious challenges to professionals whomust know how to tease apart phenomena associated with normal second language reading acqui-sition from genuine signs of reading failure (Geva, 2000). In response to the problems and con-cerns associated with assessment practices of English language learners, there has been an increasedinterest in the development of assessment measures that are sensitive and better reflections of firstand second language literacy processes.

The assessment of English language learners requires an understanding of how one lan-guage may impact the other and whether the interrelationships have positive or negative conse-quences for readers. There is some evidence to suggest that languages develop interdependently,which means that the level of proficiency in one language has an effect on the level of profi-ciency in the other language (Cummins, 1979, 1984). Cummins’ (1984) theory suggests thatliteracy skills learned in the first language transfer to the second language. The process of transfer

Correspondence to: Romilia Domínguez de Ramírez, Department of Educational Psychology, 491 Farish Hall,University of Houston, Houston, TX 77004-4996. E-mail: [email protected]

Psychology in the Schools, Vol. 44(8), 2007 © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/pits.20266

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is possible because the acquisition of a second language is thought to be mediated by thelevel of linguistic competence in the first language. As such, low competence in the first lan-guage leads to low competence in the second language, and high competence in the firstlanguage can predict a similar high level of performance in the second language.

Support for the interdependence theory comes from research suggesting that reading skillstransfer across languages, particularly those languages that have similar writing systems. Forinstance, there is growing evidence for cross-language transfer of phonological awareness tasks(August, Calderón, & Carlo, 2001; Durgunoglu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993), word recognitionskills (Geva, Wade-Woolley, & Shany, 1997), syntactic awareness (Geva & Siegel, 1991), con-cepts about print, quality of formal definitions, reading comprehension, and other cognitive read-ing processes (Abu-Rabia, 2001; Durgunoglu, 2002; Hardin, 2001; Quiroga, Lemos-Britton,Mostafapour, Abbott, & Berninger, 2002). These studies suggest that transfer of skills is possible,even in languages that are dissimilar (Abu-Rabia, 2001). Thus, proficiency in the native languageis viewed as a valuable resource for learning English (Cummins, 1991).

An important component of literacy is oral reading fluency or the ability to read connectedtext with speed and accuracy. Oral reading fluency has been found to be a good indicator ofgeneral reading outcomes, including reading comprehension (Hintze, Shapiro, Conte, & Basile,1997; Shapiro, Keller, Santoro, & Lutz, 2004; Shinn, Good, Knutson, Tilly, & Collins, 1992).

Despite the growing interest in cross-language relations to support a hypothesis of mutualinfluence, empirical investigation into oral reading fluency among Spanish speakers learning Englishand its connection to English reading has generally been lacking. In her unpublished dissertation,Ramírez (2001) examined the contributions of decoding skills, English language vocabulary pro-ficiency, English reading fluency, and Spanish reading proficiency on reading comprehension bycomparing the amount of variability explained by variables in four competing models of readingcomprehension. The results showed that English reading fluency explained 75% of the variance ofreading comprehension. In addition, Ramírez (2001) found that students who read fluently inSpanish also tended to read quickly and accurately in English (r � .72). Such a moderately strongcorrelation lends support for Cummins’ (1981) theory of linguistic interdependency.

Geva et al. (1997) studied the development of accurate and fast reading processes in a group ofchildren learning to read simultaneously in English, their first language, and Hebrew, their secondlanguage. Children’s speed and accuracy were compared in grades 1 and 2 on equivalent first andsecond language tasks of letter naming, reading isolated words, and reading words. Results indi-cated that speed and accuracy across the two languages were highly correlated. Geva et al. (1997)concluded that their study supported previous research on common underlying individual differ-ences in reading development and reading skills in the first as well as the second language.

Beyond the Geva et al., (1997) and Ramírez (2001) studies, very little has been reportedregarding cross-language relations of reading fluency. Most studies of cross-language relation orcross-language transfer have focused on phonological awareness. Hence, it is of interest whetheroral reading fluency operates cross-linguistically and whether oral reading fluency in the firstlanguage is predictive of a similar task in the second language.

One way to assess oral reading fluency is through Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM).CMB is the collection of ongoing data through multiple, brief (e.g., 1 min) assessments thatrequire students to read unfamiliar grade level passages aloud. Student performance is scored forspeed and accuracy to determine reading proficiency. Studies conducted with English languagelearners suggest that CBM is sensitive to the reading progress of bilingual students (Baker &Good, 1995; Domínguez de Ramírez & Shapiro, 2006). Likewise, a few studies provide additionalsupport for the validity of CBM as a measure of English reading proficiency including readingcomprehension (Baker & Good, 1995; Gersten & Baker, 2003; Ramírez, 2001). Indeed, Baker and

796 Domínguez de Ramírez and Shapiro

Psychology in the Schools DOI: 10.1002/pits

Good (1995) concluded that CBM was as reliable and valid for bilingual students as for English-only students.

Purpose of the Present Study

Given the limited number of studies examining the oral reading fluency of Spanish-speakingELLs in bilingual education classrooms in both Spanish and English, the present investigation isan attempt to gain further insights regarding the cross-linguistic relationship between reading inthe two languages among students whose first language is Spanish. In addition, this study exam-ined whether the reading skills in the student’s native language (Spanish) were predictive of lateroutcomes of reading in the second language. To our knowledge, the present study is the firstattempt to detail the relation of oral reading fluency across Spanish and English using CBM.

Two main questions were addressed in this study: (a) whether oral reading fluency in a child’sfirst language (Spanish) was related to oral reading fluency in a second language (English) and (b)whether Spanish oral reading fluency probes administered in the fall were predictive of Englishoral reading fluency outcomes for spring of the same academic year. For the school psychologistfunctioning in the educational setting, the primary goal of assessment typically is to inform instruc-tion. Measures that depict reading growth in English or/and Spanish can provide a means toevaluate the effectiveness of reading interventions for Spanish-speaking ELLs because of the clearevidence that many of these students experience reading problems. Support for the notion thatstudents who fail to develop adequate levels of reading proficiency in their primary language mayfail to develop adequate levels of reading proficiency in the second language should suggest adifferent approach to intervention. Furthermore, school psychologists could make important pre-dictions about cross-language relations by assessing Spanish reading skills as an indicator offuture English reading skills. Thus, it may be possible to use cross-language transfer as a diag-nostic tool to identify children who are at risk for difficulties in learning to read in a secondlanguage (Durgunoglu, 2002). This may provide some additional information to determine if theexisting problems are the result of the typical complexities of second language acquisition or dueto an underlying cognitive/academic deficit that is likely to affect reading performance in both thefirst and second language.

Method

Participants and Setting

The present study took place in one school located in the southwestern United States servingapproximately 694 students in grades K–5. The ethnic distribution of the school as a whole was59% Hispanic, 25% White, 8% Asian, and 8% African American. No information was availablewith respect to the country of origin for students in the sample. However, the school populationwas primarily from a Mexican-American community. A total of 68 students across grades 1–5 ina transitional bilingual education program participated, with approximately 93% qualifying forfree or reduced-price lunch. Of the 68 students, 36 (53%) were girls and 32 (47%) were boys. Noinformation was available regarding the initial degree of English proficiency skills of the partici-pants. However, given the nature of the transitional bilingual education program, it can be inferredthat students in our sample were not fully competent in English. Teachers in the bilingual programhad bilingual education certifications. State law requires teachers assigned to teach in bilingualprograms in Texas to have appropriate bilingual teacher certification.

Transitional bilingual education is the most common type of bilingual education programsupported by Title VII funds (Baker, 2001). The bilingual education program at the participating

Cross-Language Relations between Spanish and English 797


school consisted of content-area instruction in Spanish, providing the opportunity to acquire Englishliteracy skills with the intent to give sequenced access to the curriculum until students were fullyfunctional in English. At the participating school, the bilingual education program provided content-area instruction in Spanish, while English was introduced gradually. In kindergarten, studentsreceived instruction in Spanish 90% of the time but as they moved up in grade, the amount ofinstruction they received in their native language gradually decreased and that shift was accom-panied by an increase in the amount of instruction they received in English. By grade 5, theamount of instruction received in English was greater (e.g., 80%) than the amount of instructionreceived in Spanish (e.g., 20%). It is possible that students in fifth grade had 4 or more years ofexposure to English, whereas the first graders only had 1 year of exposure to English. Thus, it canbe hypothesized that the more exposure a student has to English, the better she will perform ontasks that require her to use her English skills.

A timeline of the proportion of instruction received in English and Spanish is shown inTable 1. Recently arriving students receive additional language support. It should be noted thatbilingual education labels are rather broad, with individual teachers implementing the programs indiffering ways. Bilingual education is an intricate phenomenon (Baker, 2001), and despite guide-lines provided by districts, it can be speculated that sometimes it is hard to adhere to theseguidelines because new immigrants keep arriving to classrooms throughout the year and teachersmay have to do respond to different degrees of English or Spanish language proficiency to fulfillthe students’ academic needs. Although bilingual education labels have value for conceptualclarity, there are wide variations within a model (Baker, 2001).

Table 1Timeline for English and Spanish Instruction

GradePercentage of

Spanish instructionPercentage of

English instruction Subject

Kingergarten 90% 10%

1st grade 80% 20% Read Aloud PoemsEveryday Counts (Calendar)

2nd grade 60% 40% Read AloudSpellingSight WordsEveryday Counts (Calendar)

3rd grade 50% 50% SpellingSocial StudiesEveryday Counts (Calendar)

4th grade 30% 70% SpellingSocial StudiesVocabularyMath

5th grade 20% 80% SpellingSocial StudiesMathScience



Measures

Curriculum-based measures in reading (CBM-R). Oral reading fluency was determinedthrough calculation of the total number of words read correct aloud in 1 min from a readingpassage. The number of words read correctly was calculated by subtracting words read incorrectly(i.e., mispronunciations, omissions, substitutions, 3-s pauses) from the total words read. Standardprocedures outlined by Shinn and Shinn (2002) were used. That is, students were given a set ofthree graded and equivalent passages for establishing fall, winter, and spring benchmarks. Thesame set of passages was administered each testing period. All passages were read on the same dayand all reading aloud was monitored individually by an examiner who recorded the number ofwords read correctly in 1 min from the passage. The median score across the three alternate probesserved as the dependent measure in this study. The technical properties of CBM are extensivelydocumented (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1998) and are used to establish academic growth rates in the area ofreading (Deno, Fuchs, Marston, & Shin, 2001).

A secondary measure also obtained from student performance was the accuracy of the student’sreading performance. This secondary measure was necessary because many English languagelearners struggle with reading accuracy (Li & Nes, 2005). The limited English vocabulary may notonly slow down their speed of word recognition but also their reading accuracy. This measure wascalculated by dividing the total number of words read correct by the number of possible wordsread correct in the 1-min reading passage.

English passages were selected from AIMSweb (www.aimsweb.com), a commercially avail-able program that provides grade-based reading passages for use in conducting CBM. These pas-sages had comparable means in words read correct per minute and standard deviations, had highalternate form reliability (�.70), and had adequate Lexile scores, a method of estimating readingpassages difficulty (Howe & Shinn, 2001). The participant school purchased the rights to use thepassages. Spanish passages were drawn from stories selected from various grade-level trade booksused in the guided literacy reading curriculum of the participating school. These books wereidentified by teachers and school staff familiar with the teaching of reading and how students learnto read. The Crawford formula (Crawford, 1984) and a Spanish adaptation of the Fry formula(Gilliam, Peña, & Mountain, 1980) were used to calculate the readability of Spanish passages.Both formulas are designed to check surface structure features, an indication of level of difficulty.All probes had readability scores within the grade level indicated by the book. The practice ofcalculating Spanish readability levels is not as common or as accessible as the practice of calcu-lating English readability levels. Because the syllable count in 1980 Spanish passages is muchhigher than it would be for the same passage in English (Gilliam et al.), the calculation of reada-bility passages in Spanish entails an adjustment in the syllable count. For instance, Gilliam et al.(1980) adapted the Fry graph (Fry, 1968) to measure Spanish readability at the primary level. Theprocedure involves counting the number of words and the number of syllables in a sentence as itwould be on English material. Before plotting this information on Spanish passages on the Frygraph, the first author subtracted the number 67 from the average number of syllables (the number67 produces the closest equivalencies between Spanish and English for reading materials; Gilliamet al., 1980). This new index was plotted on the graph to determine the grade level of the readingmaterial.

Procedures

Sampling procedures. A stratified sample was used to assure that the student sample repre-sented the overall population with respect to reading performance based on district standards (i.e.,TAAS or DRA scores). To develop the stratified sample, two measures were used to assess their



reading level in the Spanish language, the Texas Assessment Academic Skills (TAAS)1 readingscores (grades 3–5) and the Developmental Reading Assessment scores (DRA; Beaver, 1997)(grades 1–2). The TAAS is a criterion-referenced testing program based on the state’s criticalreading elements. A passing score in the TAAS is a scale score of 1500 or above. DRA is de-signed to assist teachers determining students’ reading accuracy, fluency, and comprehensionlevels. While the student reads a passage selection orally, the examiner records the student’serrors/miscues, self-corrections, strategies used, reading rate, phrasing, fluency, and other impor-tant information. This information translates into a score that assists teachers in the selection ofbooks most suitable for the student to read. Interrater reliability and internal consistency coeffi-cients for the DRA appear to be moderate to high (.74 to .98; Williams, 1999). Correlationsbetween the DRA instructional levels and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills Subscales were moderate(r � .67 for Reading Comprehension, r � .67 for Vocabulary, and r � .71 for Total Reading;Williams, 1999).

To select a sample from the bilingual education classrooms, students were divided into twogroups: students who met district reading standards and students who did not. After students weredivided into subgroups, a random sample of each subgroup was taken to represent the sample ofthe overall bilingual education population. For example, if the population consisted of 10% of“students who failed the TAAS” stratum, and 90% of the “students who passed the TAAS” stra-tum, then the relative size of the two samples (one that passed the TAAS, one that failed theTAAS) would mirror these percentages. For grades 1 and 2, where no TAAS scores were avail-able, DRA scores were used to group students into two categories: those who had met districtstandards and those who had not.

Special education students were excluded from the database because the sample was designedto reflect exclusively the achievement of general education students (Shinn, 1989). Students whowere absent during the assessment periods were replaced randomly by other students who were inthe same classes as those initially sampled. The data collection process was initiated by the districtand approved through district-based procedures. The data were collected as part of the routinemeasurement of outcomes at school.

Examiners’ training. Approximately 7 or 8 examiners per testing session collected the data.The data collectors included school psychologists, school psychology interns, teachers, diagnos-ticians paraprofessionals, school volunteers, and related service personnel (i.e., a speech pathol-ogist). Spanish probes were administered by native speakers of Spanish with the exception of twoof the examiners, who were fluent in Spanish. Standardized instructions were translated into Span-ish by the first author, a native Spanish speaker. The examiners read the instructions in Spanish tobilingual education students.

The first author trained the data collectors. During training, data collectors had to showaccurate administration and scoring of the probes with at least 85% accuracy. Training lastedapproximately 2 hr. During the first hour, the trainer covered topics related to administration andscoring procedures, and this was done with the aid of a training and practice videotape that mod-eled CBM testing as well as gave practice opportunity. The videotape was supplied by AIMSwebas part of the licensing agreement. During the remaining time, data collectors conducted practiceexercises with school-age children. To ensure the quality of the data collection process, the firstauthor was available for supervision and opportunities for clarification throughout the data col-lection process.

1The TAAS was replaced by the TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) in 2003.



Data collection. Students were individually tested in specially designated areas for assess-ment during regular school hours, and the testing time per student was approximately 15 min. Datacollection took approximately one and a half days. Data were collected across grades at three timeperiods during the year, fall (October), winter (February), and spring (May).

Research Design and Data Analysis

The research questions were investigated by first calculating the correlation between oralreading fluency in Spanish and English at each assessment period and across grades. A secondanalysis was conducted to examine the predictive relationship between oral reading fluency inSpanish in the fall and subsequent oral reading fluency performance in English in the spring of thesame academic year. The aim of the second analysis was to determine the degree to which readingat the beginning of the year predicted outcomes as the bilingual instructional process proceeded.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Table 2 shows a summary of the basic descriptive statistics for the Spanish and English oralreading fluency scores corresponding to fall, winter, and spring data. Students were found toread at a faster rate on the Spanish task than on the English task. Also, the scores in both Spanishand English showed improved performance across increasing grades, suggesting that reading inboth English and Spanish was sensitive to expected growth across grade levels. Accuracy scoresshowed that students’ performance on the Spanish probes reached a ceiling by grade 2, withsecond graders making less than 5% errors on the Spanish probes and remaining consistentlyaccurate across subsequent grades (e.g., over 95%). Conversely, students’ performance on theEnglish probes were less accurate than the Spanish probes but showed a progressive increasewith increasing grade. By grade 5, students were making less than 10% errors on the Englishprobes. This finding suggested that accuracy and speed did not emerge concurrently in the twolanguages and that reading speed continued to develop even when high accuracy rates had beenachieved (Geva et al. 1997).

Table 2Bilingual Education Students Assessed in Spanish and in English

Fall Winter Spring

Grade Language Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

1st English 6.83 9.17 14.83 18.20 26.08 24.34Spanish 28.50 29.31 57.16 38.86 69.27 41.23

2nd English 40.08 12.84 50.67 28.40 58.17 22.47Spanish 68.83 18.86 79.58 17.68 83.00 20.83

3rd English 61.50 32.97 69.21 30.92 77.64 29.79Spanish 75.50 20.42 84.21 18.48 86.07 16.47

4th English 61.50 26.32 67.69 22.54 75.92 30.71Spanish 84.16 17.54 92.97 19.75 97.75 23.12

5th English 89.00 26.45 103.83 25.93 116.58 30.38Spanish 103.83 32.22 109.00 30.21 120.41 33.36



Bilingual Education Students Assessed in Spanish and in English

Correlations between English oral reading fluency and Spanish oral reading fluency are reportedin Table 3. Collapsed across grades, the correlations between reading in Spanish and English werestatistically significant ( p � .001) and moderately high (.79, .73, and .71 for fall, winter, andspring). Examination of the correlations within grades across times periods showed that all cor-relations were statistically significant and moderate to strong, except for fourth grade where thecorrelations were both low and nonsignificant.

Correlations among Spanish and English Reading Probes

To determine the extent to which Spanish oral reading probes administered in the fall pre-dicted English oral reading fluency in the spring, a simple regression model was computed foreach grade with English oral reading fluency probes administered in the spring as the criterion andSpanish oral reading probes administered in the fall as the predictor. The results of the simpleregression analysis indicated that Spanish oral reading probes administered in the fall accountedfor 68.6% of the variation in the English oral reading probes administered in the spring, F(1,56) �122.12, p � .01. That is, fall Spanish oral reading fluency was a significant predictor of springEnglish oral reading fluency.

Discussion

The present study evaluated whether Spanish oral reading fluency was related to English oralreading fluency. Two research questions were addressed in this study: whether oral reading fluencyin a child’s first language (Spanish) was related to oral reading fluency in a second language(English) and whether Spanish reading fluency at the beginning of the year was predictive ofEnglish reading fluency at the end of the year.

In line with past studies investigating cross-linguistic transfer of various literacy processes(Durgunoglu, 2002; Durgunoglu et al. 1993; Hardin, 2001; Quiroga et al. 2002), results revealedpositive and significant correlations across languages and across grades, except for fourth grade.Children who read more fluently in Spanish were more likely to read more fluently in English. Thecorrelations reported in this study collapsed across grades (r � .79, .73, and .71 for fall, winter,and spring, respectively) between reading fluency in Spanish and English were strikingly similarto the correlation reported by Ramírez (2001) in her unpublished dissertation (e.g., r � .72). Takentogether, these results indicated that reading fluency was significantly related across languages,supporting the notion of mutual influence of first and second language. The fact that Spanishreading skills were not correlated to English reading skills for students in fourth grade was intriguing.

Table 3Correlations of Oral Reading Fluency in Spanish and English acrossGrades and Assessment Time Periods

Grade

1 2 3 4 5

Fall .82** .75** .85** .16 .61*Winter .88** .60* .79** .34 .58*Spring .86** .68* .71** .05 .76**

**Correlation is significant at the .01 level (two-tailed); *correlation is sig-nificant at the .05 level (two-tailed).



An examination of the scatterplots indicated that there were some outlier data points in grade 4that did not fit the general trend of the data. Two students had higher scores on the English probesthan on the Spanish probes. In addition, 3 students had extremely low scores in English butaverage or above average scores in Spanish, suggesting unfamiliarity with the English language.Thus, it is possible that the lack of English language proficiency may have caused some studentsto display very low scores on the English probes and average or above average scores on theSpanish probes.

An alternative explanation is that the reading curriculum changed substantially in grade 4,where the vocabulary used in books more closely resembled adult vocabulary (Carnine, Silbert,Kameenui, & Tarver, 2004; Mason, 1992). It may be possible that the large number of unknownwords represented a literacy challenge over the vocabulary used in grades 1, 2, and 3 passages, inwhich nearly all words appearing in stories were in the average student’s speaking vocabulary(Carnine et al., 2004). Consequently, fourth-grade students may not have been able to transfer thisnew set of skills (knowledge of more difficult vocabulary) from Spanish to English.

Regression analysis further supported the potential of cross-language relationships. Oral read-ing fluency in the first language was found to be highly predictive of reading fluency in the secondlanguage after a period of instruction through the bilingual program. This suggests that Spanishoral reading fluency may be important to the growth of English oral reading fluency.

Limitations

This study is subject to some limitations that preclude generalizing the present findings toother settings and types of students. First, the small student sample and the type of bilingualeducation program limit the generalizability of the findings. Also, the data are based on conve-nience sampling, and therefore we do not know the extent to which the sample actually representsthe entire population. Furthermore, students from bilingual education classes were recruited fromonly one type of bilingual education program, namely, transitional bilingual education. It is unclearhow students in different types of bilingual education programs may have performed in bothSpanish and English reading measures. Students receiving instruction in dual language bilingualeducation models, for instance, are expected to develop linguistic proficiency in two languages.Unlike transitional bilingual education programs, students placed in dual language bilingual edu-cation classrooms are exposed to both languages at a very early age. It is not clear how students inthose classrooms may have performed.

Another limitation is the wide range of bilingual students included in the present sample.Although language proficiency in either Spanish or English was not considered in the presentstudy, some students may have ranged from not proficient at all to very proficient. The heteroge-neity of the sample may obscure some important distinctions among groups of students. Anotherlimitation is the notion that fluency and comprehension are related. This relationship is oftenchallenged by teachers of ELL students, who claim their students can decode words withoutcomprehending what they read. Although, this study was not designed to address this question,previous studies with English-only students offer strong evidence of the connection between oralreading fluency and comprehension (e.g., Hintze et al., 1997; Shinn et al., 1992), and a few studiesconducted with Spanish speakers learning English also provide support for the validity of CBM asa measure of English reading proficiency, including reading comprehension (Baker & Good, 1995;Ramírez, 2001); additional research more carefully examining the link between oral reading flu-ency and comprehension for ELLs is certainly needed.

Although the results of the correlation analysis indicated that a great proportion of the vari-ability in English was explained by reading in Spanish, a causal relationship cannot be inferred.The mechanism of cross-linguistic transfer is not totally understood, and questions persist about



the link between first and second language. The present data do not allow us to deduce that thegradual acquisition of the second language through the bilingual program is directly a function ofincreasing a student’s reading fluency in his or her native language. Nonetheless, research evi-dence in linguistic transfer does suggest that reading skills in Spanish appear to potentially assistthe students’ academic performance in English (Abu-Rabia, 2001; Bialystok, 2002; Cummins,1981; Durgunoglu et al., 1993; García-Vázquez, Vázquez, López, & Ward, 1999; Ramírez, Yuen,Ramey, & Pasta, 1991).

Conclusions and Implications for Research and Practice

The present study is a preliminary attempt to understand the relationship between Spanishand English reading fluency and the possible mutual influence among first and second languagesof Spanish-speaking ELLs. Despite the limitations of the study, the results of this investigationshowed that Spanish reading fluency was found to have moderately high correlation to Englishreading fluency and that Spanish reading fluency at the beginning of the year was predictive ofEnglish reading at the end of the year. An important practical implication derived from this studyis that educators can make important predictions about cross-language relations by assessingSpanish reading skills as an indicator of future English reading skills. Thus, it may be possible touse cross-language transfer as a diagnostic tool to identify children who are at risk for difficultiesin learning to read in a second language (Durgunoglu, 2002). This may provide some additionalinformation to determine if the existing problems are the result of the typical complexities ofsecond language acquisition or due to an underlying cognitive/academic deficit that is likely toaffect reading performance in both the first and second language.

For instance, if a child has had reading instruction in his first language and still has notdeveloped a reasonable level of reading proficiency in that language, the school psychologist cansuspect an underlying reading problem stemming from a cognitive/developmental deficit that willlikely affect his literacy development in both languages. In contrast, students who have had suf-ficient exposure and instruction in their first language but fail to show those skills in Englishdespite their adequate performance in Spanish may be experiencing a delay due to limited lan-guage proficiency rather than a learning disability (Durgunoglu, 2002). The recommendation inthis particular case may be to allow more time for the reading skills to develop in the secondlanguage as the student continues to be instructed in the bilingual education program. Identifyingand remedying young students’ reading problems in the first language at the early grades couldprovide enough time for those literacy skills to develop, transfer, and assist the second languageskills through adequate language and exposure (Abu-Rabia, 2001).

The findings of this study confirm what many have theorized for years: initial Spanish lan-guage reading fluency is highly related to later English reading fluency. The present study providesconsiderable support for bilingual education programs, that is, promote a child’s first languagewhile gradually introducing them into English. However, transitional models of bilingual educa-tion foster the gradual replacement of languages. Children in transitional bilingual education pro-grams do not usually attain balanced bilingualism (Hakuta, 1986). Our research was limited to theinclusion of students in transitional bilingual education programs. Future research could examinethe effects of different instructional approaches (e.g., dual language programs that seeks to developproficiency in both languages) to identify which conditions are most likely, or unlikely, to producepositive outcomes in English reading proficiency. Research should seek to identify the circum-stances under which students are most likely to thrive, and, based on these conditions, interven-tions may be considered in the first language, in English, or both (McCardle, Mele-McCarthy, &Leos, 2005).



The present study offers some preliminary but valuable information as to the potential use ofCBM in evaluating the relationship between oral reading fluency among Spanish speakers learn-ing English in both the first and second language, which may contribute to our understanding ofhow one language may impact the other. Although subsequent research is certainly needed toreplicate and extend these findings, the present study does offer another important way in whichCBM data can successfully contribute to enhancing the assessment of basic reading skills inbilingual elementary age students.

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Documents

Cross-language relationship between Spanish and English oral reading fluency among Spanish-speaking English language learners in bilingual education classrooms