Transfer of Skills from Spanish to English:
A Study of Young Learners
ED-98-CO-0071
REPORT FOR PRACTITIONERS, PARENTS, AND POLICY MAKERS
Diane August
Margarita Calderón
María Carlo
September 2000
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CONTENTS
Summary and Findings 1
Transfer of Skills from Spanish to English:
A Study of Young Learners
Background: Skills Transfer 3
Project Objectives and Design 5
Major Findings 10
Implications of Findings for Practitioners
and Policy Makers 12
References 14
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The following is a preliminary report on a study that was funded by the Office of
Bilingual Education and Minority Languages Affairs of the U.S. Department of
Education (ED –98-CO-0071). It describes two years of research with a group of
second and third grade Spanish-speaking children as they began to acquire
literacy. Funding was extended at the end of the first two years, making it
possible to follow the same group of children in fourth and fifth grade.
--September 2000
SUMMARY AND FINDINGS
This investigation focused on understanding the manner in which enabling
skills for reading are transferable from Spanish to English. The study examined
how performance on indicators of Spanish reading ability at the end of second
grade could predict English reading performance at the end of third grade. We
examined differences in transfer across phonological, orthographic, and
comprehension processes. We also evaluated whether transfer effects would
vary for Spanish-instructed and English-instructed students.
To ensure geographic diversity, and thus generalizability, the study took
place in Success for All (SFA) schools in three locations: Boston, El Paso, and
Chicago. The SFA curriculum is based on current research on the ways children
learn to read and write. At the heart of the program is 90 minutes of
uninterrupted daily reading instruction that emphasizes a balance between
phonics and meaning, using both phonetically regular student texts and
children’s literature. The SFA program has both an English version, Success for
All, and a Spanish version, Éxito para Todos. Children who begin literacy
instruction in Spanish generally transition into English instruction in third grade.
We collected data from four to six classrooms at each site, depending on
the number of target students available in each classroom. The final sample
consisted of 127 native Spanish-speaking students. By the end of third grade, 50
of these students had received reading instruction only in Spanish; 34 had
received two years of reading instruction in Spanish and one year of reading
instruction in English (in third grade); and 43 had received reading instruction
only in English. A comparison group of 24 English monolinguals also formed part
of the study.
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We used regression analysis, a method for identifying statistically
significant correlations between variables, to examine whether initial Spanish
performance within each component of reading (phonological awareness,
orthographic awareness, reading comprehension) could predict English
performance at the end of third grade. In each analysis, we accounted for the
possible contributions of general ability, oral English proficiency, and number of
years of formal instruction in English reading.
The results indicated that Spanish phonemic awareness, Spanish letter
identification, Spanish word recognition, and fluency in letter and word
identification in Spanish were reliable predictors of English performance on
parallel tasks in English at the end of third grade. The effect of Spanish
phonemic awareness on English phonemic awareness emerged for all students.
However, the effect of Spanish word decoding on English word decoding
emerged only for students who had received formal instruction in Spanish
reading. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that reading skills
acquired in school contexts can be transferred across languages.
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Transfer of Skills from Spanish to English
A Study of Young Learners
Background: Skills Transfer
The rationale for providing native language instruction to English-language
learners is partially based on the idea that language skills acquired in school
contexts transfer across languages. The basic argument supporting this notion is
that, once developed, the cognitive capabilities underlying language skills such
as reading and writing can be applied to another language.
Some research has been conducted on transfer of specific reading-related
skills. Durgunoglu et al. (in press) studied the effect of phonological awareness
(the recognition that speech is composed of smaller units of sound) in L1 (the
native language) on word reading in L2 (the target language). Their study
subjects were native speakers of Spanish who were learning English. Their
research showed that both L1 (Spanish) phonological awareness and L1 word
recognition correlated positively with ability to read L2 (English) words, whereas
L1 and L2 oral proficiency did not correlate with English reading.
Several studies have provided evidence for the transfer of orthographic
skills (understanding the relationships between letters and the sounds they
represent) from L1 to L2. In a study of English-speaking students in a French
Immersion program, Lambert and Tucker (1972) found that students who had
received all their reading instruction in French were still able to perform at the
same level as average students instructed in English on English word knowledge
and word discrimination tests. On the basis of this evidence, Lambert and
Tucker concluded that the students had applied the skills they had developed in
French to the English reading tasks. A study of a similar group of students by
Kendall et al. (1987) obtained similar results. However, these researchers noted
that parents of French immersion students engaged in more reading activities
with students at home than parents of non-immersion students—a factor that
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most likely influenced the results of the study, and that was not taken into
account by Lambert and Tucker.
A few studies have sought relationships between vocabulary knowledge
and reading for English-language learners (see Fitzgerald, 1995, for a review).
These studies converge on the conclusion that English vocabulary is a primary
determinant of reading comprehension for such readers, and that those whose
first language has many cognates with English have an advantage in English
vocabulary recognition. Most of these studies note, however, that these students
do not fully exploit cognate relationships to optimize English vocabulary
comprehension without targeted instruction.
Several studies have examined the notion of cross-language transfer of
comprehension skills. Cummins et al. (1984) assessed the Japanese and
English reading skills of Japanese students attending the School of
Supplementary Japanese Studies in Canada. They found strong associations
between performance on measures of Japanese proficiency and performance on
measures of English proficiency, and concluded that children who arrived in
Canada at an older age and with better command of their native language tended
to be among the highest performers on the measures of English academic
achievement. Similar findings were obtained in a study with a sample of
Vietnamese youngsters learning English as a second language in Canada.
A study by Escamilla (1987) examined native language reading
achievement and second language oral proficiency as predictors of second
language reading achievement in third and fourth grade Spanish-speaking
students enrolled in bilingual education programs. The results indicated that
Spanish reading comprehension was the skill that best predicted scores on both
the English vocabulary test and the English comprehension test.
Explicit instruction in comprehension strategies such as prediction,
summarizing, and questioning has been shown to be useful with poor first-
language readers, and some evidence suggests it would also be useful with
second-language readers. A case study of an excellent Spanish-English
bilingual reader (Jiménez et al., 1995) shows the use of such strategies for
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identifying words and comprehending text in both languages, and the frequent
use of information from the other language. A larger-scale study carried out by
the same group (Jiménez et al., 1996) suggests that successful bilingual readers
all use certain strategies for comprehending both Spanish and English texts:
focusing on unknown words, using cognates as one source of knowledge,
monitoring comprehension, making inferences, and actively using prior
knowledge. Unsuccessful readers focused much less on comprehension as their
goal for reading.
While many studies have demonstrated some correlation between L1
reading skills and L2 reading ability, in many cases the argument can be made
that factors not considered by the researchers (such as home learning
environment or students’ general ability levels) have affected study outcomes.
The study described in this report was designed to account for such factors. In
addition to examining the transfer of skills from Spanish to English, this study
sought to examine the effects of level of Spanish literacy and oral English
proficiency on English literacy acquisition. The next section provides more detail
on our research questions and the method we used to control for extraneous
factors.
Project Objectives and Design
Project Objectives
Three major research questions guided the design of this research project.
1. Does transfer exist? For children entering school and in the early
grades, do literacy skills that are acquired in Spanish actually transfer
during the process of learning to read English? How is this
demonstrated?
2. At what point is reading ability in Spanish a sufficient base for initiating
and facilitating literacy instruction in English? Is there a threshold
below which positive effects on English literacy cannot be identified?
How much gain in English literacy can be expected from a unit of
investment in the development of Spanish literacy?
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3. What is the role of English oral proficiency in the process of skills
transfer? What level or range of English oral language skill is needed
to support that process and the acquisition of English reading skills?
Rationale for Design
Our ability to address the questions outlined above was contingent upon
having access to English-language learners who had (1) received instruction in
Spanish reading prior to receiving instruction in English reading; (2) received
instruction that targeted specific component reading skills; (3) had a chance to
develop a minimum level of mastery of those skills; and (4) received comparable
instruction across classrooms and sites. Our study population met all of these
needs. First, one group of students in the study had received reading instruction
in Spanish only; the study examined the transfer of Spanish reading skills as
these children began to learn to read in English in the third grade. The study
also focused on how the levels of skills achieved on several components of early
reading in Spanish could predict the types of gains these children made over the
course of their grade 3 reading instruction in English. Second, the children
received targeted instruction in the components of reading: phonological
awareness, orthographic awareness, and comprehension skills. Third, the
children had an opportunity to develop a minimum mastery of these skills
because many of them had been instructed to read in Spanish since they were in
kindergarten. A comparison group of Spanish background students had received
reading instruction only in English, using a curriculum parallel to the Spanish one.
Fourth, all students in the study were exposed to the same literacy curriculum,
Success for All and its Spanish version, Éxito para Todos. To ensure geographic
diversity, and thus generalizability, the study took place in Success for All /Éxito
para Todos schools in three locations: Boston, El Paso, and Chicago.
We recognized that a research design that proposes to study cross-
language transfer of skills in a meaningful way must meet certain criteria. First,
to demonstrate the occurrence of transfer of skills, the design must control for
other factors that might affect a student’s performance on outcome assessments
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of English literacy. We controlled for differences in children’s learning
backgrounds and home learning environments by collecting data on home
language use and family reading practices from parent questionnaires, and data
on schooling history from school records. Using this data as one of the variables
in our analysis enabled us to determine the extent to which these factors affected
students’ English reading ability. We used a similar approach to control for
general ability level—the possibility that children with higher intellectual abilities
perform all tasks at higher levels than children with lower abilities. We
administered the Raven’s Coloured Matrices test, a measure of non-verbal
ability, and used the test results as a control variable in our analyses. Finally we
controlled for variation in teaching methods by studying only children in schools
that employ the Success for All/Éxito para Todos (SFA/EPT) curriculum. This
curriculum is based on current research on the ways children learn to read and
write. At the heart of the program is 90 minutes of uninterrupted daily reading
instruction that emphasizes a balance between phonics and meaning, using both
phonetically regular student texts and children’s literature. In both the English
and Spanish versions, the highly structured curriculum provides extensive
guidance for teachers, helping to ensure that all classroom instruction follows the
same essential design. Children who receive literacy instruction in Spanish
(EPT) generally transition into English instruction (SFA) in third grade.
A second criterion for meaningful research on cross-language transfer is
the recognition that literacy is composed of many component skills. The
component skills of reading (such as phonology, orthography, and
comprehension) must be carefully assessed in both L1 and L2 in order to trace
the development of L1 and L2 abilities in relation to one another. Our research
design used a combination of standardized measures and researcher-developed
measures to assess phonological awareness, phonemic segmentation (ability to
divide words into their component sounds), orthographic skills (letter recognition,
word recognition, and ability to read non-words), and comprehension skills in
both Spanish and English. We also tested for oral ability in both languages.
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A third criterion for effective research on skills transfer is study over time.
In order to be certain that students are transferring skills from L1 rather than
using skills learned in L2, researchers must study subjects who have received
reading instruction in L1 prior to receiving it in L2, and who have received
sufficient L1 instruction to have developed a base of L1 skills that can be
transferred. If the time frame involved in shifting L1 skills to reading
comprehension in L2 is longer than the study period, the study results will show
no transfer taking place—a misleading conclusion. Our research design
addressed these issues by studying bilingual students from the beginning of
second grade through the end of third grade, the period of this grant, and will
continue to study these same children as they progress through fourth and fifth
grade. The members of the main research group all received reading instruction
in Spanish in second grade; some transitioned into English instruction in the third
grade, and the remainder will transition in fourth grade. We collected test data
from a group of English monolinguals and a group of Spanish-English bilinguals
in English-only instruction for comparison purposes.
Project Design
Our study subjects were 151 students in Success for All programs in
Boston, Chicago, and El Paso. Twenty-four students were English monolinguals,
forty-three were Spanish-English bilinguals in English-only instruction, and
eighty-four were Spanish-English bilinguals in Spanish-only instruction. Of those
84, 34 were transitioned into all-English instruction at the beginning of third
grade.
We collected data at three points in time: the end of second grade (Time
1, Spring 1999), the beginning of third grade (Time 2, Fall 1999), and the end of
third grade (Time 3, Spring 2000). At Time 1 and Time 2 we tested all students
except the monolinguals in both Spanish and English, so that we could compare
ability levels across languages at the same point in time. At Time 3 we tested
students only in English, since our objective was to learn which Spanish skills
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tested at the end of second grade could predict English performance at the end
of third grade.
The measures administered at Time 1 and Time 3 included three
researcher-developed tests of the components of reading: an invented spelling
test (our measure of phonological awareness), a phonemic segmentation task,
and a letter, word, and pseudoword naming task (our measure of orthographic
skill). Each of these measures was developed in parallel Spanish and English
versions for use in this research project. We also used the Spanish and English
versions of the Language Assessment Scales, a test of oral proficiency (LAS-O).
To measure reading comprehension, we used a subtest of the Woodcock-
Johnson Achievement Test to assess English skills, and a subtest of the
Woodcock-Muñoz Achievement Test to assess Spanish skills.
We analyzed the collected data using regression analysis, a statistical
technique that allows researchers to test the relationships of specific factors, both
singly and in combination, to a target variable. In our case the target variables
were components of reading performance in English at the end of third grade.
Using regression analysis, we were able to assess the correlation between the
independent variables of Spanish reading skills, oral language skills, formal
reading instruction in Spanish, and formal reading instruction in English and
these target variables.
In analyzing the data, we obtained results for the bilingual group as a
whole and also for each of the three subgroups: students instructed only in
Spanish, students instructed in Spanish in second grade and transitioned to
English instruction in third grade, and students instructed only in English.
Students classified as monolingual English speakers were not included in these
analyses.
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Major Findings
Research Question 1
Does cross-language transfer of skills take place?
In the first stage of analysis, we evaluated the relationship between
English performance at Time 1 and English performance at Time 3. We found
moderate to strong positive correlation within each of the reading tasks. We also
evaluated the relationship between English performance at Time 1 and Spanish
performance at Time 1. We found moderate positive correlation between scores
on the Spanish and English phonemic segmentation tasks and non-word tasks.
Contrary to expectations, Spanish and English scores on the letter, word, and
reading comprehension measures did not correlate to a significant degree at
Time 1 for the group as a whole, although there was a significant positive
correlation on word and reading comprehension tasks for each subgroup
individually. In addition, we found a slight negative correlation between Spanish
and English letter identification at Time 1; as scores on one variable improved,
scores on the other deteriorated.
In the second stage, we looked at cross-language correlations over a one-
year time period. Spanish performance at Time 1 had modest correlations with
English performance at Time 3 on the phonemic segmentation, word, and non-
word tasks. Performance on the Spanish letter identification task at Time 1
correlated positively with English Time 3 performance on the same task, but only
for the group of Spanish-only instructed children.
We then conducted more detailed analyses, using a series of regression
models to study variables in combination. This process allowed us to test
whether, for example, the correlation between Spanish performance on word
identification at Time 1 and English performance on the same task at Time 3
would persist when other factors, including oral skills, formal instruction in
English, formal instruction in Spanish, and general intelligence were taken into
account.
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For phonemic awareness skills, we found a significant correlation between
Spanish ability at Time 1 and English ability at Time 3. The correlation was
significant for the group as a whole and for each of the three subgroups.
For letter identification skills, we found no statistically significant
correlation between Spanish ability at Time 1 and English ability at Time 3 for the
group as a whole. The determining factor here was language of instruction. For
both the students instructed in Spanish only and the students instructed first in
Spanish and then transitioned into English there was a modest but significant
correlation. For students instructed only in English, by contrast, there was a
negative correlation: as letter identification in Spanish at Time 1 deteriorated,
letter identification in English at Time 3 improved.
For word identification skills, we also found no statistically significant
correlation between Spanish ability at Time 1 and English ability at Time 3 for the
group as a whole. Once again, the determining factor was language of
instruction. Students instructed only in Spanish and students who transitioned
into English demonstrated a significant correlation, while students instructed only
in English demonstrated no correlation.
For non-word identification skills, we found no statistically significant
correlation for the group as a whole or for any of the subgroups. We have not yet
conducted analysis of the reading comprehension data.
Research Question 2
Does the effect pf Spanish literacy on English literacy vary with respect
to level of Spanish literacy ability?
To address this research question, we tested for a non-linear effect of
Spanish for the three variables for which a transfer effect had been detected:
phonemic segmentation, letter recognition, and word recognition. If statistical
analysis showed a positive and significant effect, that would indicate that the
effect of, for example, Spanish phonemic segmentation at Time 1 on English
phonemic segmentation at Time 3 was stronger among students with higher
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scores in Spanish. This would mean that the effect of each transferred skill in
English would multiply increasingly as students’ skill level in Spanish increased.
The regression analyses we conducted did not provide evidence to
suggest that the effect of Spanish literacy on English literacy varied for differing
levels of Spanish literacy. However, it should be noted that lack of variation
among students on the assessment measures may have masked a possible
relationship.
Research Question 3
Does the effect of Spanish literacy on English literacy vary with respect
to level of oral English proficiency?
To address this research question, we evaluated whether the magnitude
of the effect of Spanish reading on English reading was different for students who
were at the higher end of the distribution of English oral proficiency than it was
for those at lower ends of the distribution. We evaluated this by including in the
regression equation the interaction between Spanish reading component
performance at Time 1 and English oral proficiency at Time 1. We evaluated this
interaction for each of the three variables for which a transfer effect had been
detected: phonemic segmentation, letter recognition, and word recognition.
None of the regression coefficients was statistically significant. These
analyses yielded no data suggesting differences in the magnitude of the
relationship between Spanish and English performance as a function of English
oral proficiency.
Implications of Findings for Practitioners and Policy Makers
The findings reported here are preliminary because they are based only
on the first year of a planned three years of data collection. Our preliminary
analysis indicates that an effect of transfer from Spanish to English exists for
phonemic segmentation skills, letter identification skills, and word naming skills.
Our results indicate that this effect is maintained when one controls for the
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possible influence of oral English proficiency, task-specific proficiency in English,
nonverbal ability, and language of instruction.
These preliminary findings support the practice of providing literacy
instruction in Spanish to Spanish-speaking English-language learners as a
means of helping them acquire literacy skills in English. By strengthening these
students’ Spanish literacy, this practice will also enable them to use their native
language well, enhancing their bilingual capability.
The data collection and analysis that we expect to carry out over the next
two years should further elucidate the relationship between literacy in Spanish
and literacy in English. As the study population moves through fourth and fifth
grade, and as those who were instructed in Spanish in third grade transition to
English classrooms, we will be able to analyze the effect of further instruction in
English on Spanish-speaking students’ acquisition of English literacy skills.
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REFERENCES
Durgunoglu, A.; W.E. Nagy; and B.J. Hancin-Bhatt. (In press). Cross-language
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Proficiency Assessment: Research and Application. Clevedon, Avon, UK:
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Escamilla, K. (1987). The relationship of native language reading achievement and
oral English proficiency to future achievement in reading English as a second
language. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.
Fitzgerald, J. (1995). English-as-a-second-language reading instruction in the
United States: A research review. Journal of Reading Behavior 27:115-152.
Kendall, J.; G. Lajeunesse; P. Chmilar; L. Shapson; and S.M. Shapson. (1987).
English reading skills of French immersion students in kindergarten and grades 1
and 2. Reading Research Quarterly 22(2):135-154.
Jiménez, R.T.; G.E. García; and P.D. Pearson. (1995). Three children, two
languages, and strategic reading: Case studies in bilingual/monolingual reading.
American Educational Research Journal 32:31-61.
Jiménez, R.T.; G.E. García; and P.D. Pearson. (1996). The reading strategies of
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obstacles. Reading research Quarterly 31:90-112.
Lambert, W.E.; and G.R. Tucker. (1972). Bilingual Education of Children: The St.
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