Supporting Children Who Are English Language Learners Succeed in Their Early Literacy Development Free

Comprehensive approaches to early literacy instruction, based on the science of reading, are strongly advocated [1]. Such approaches, often referred to as a multi-tiered system of support (MTSS), or a Response to Intervention (RtI) approach are specifically designed to ameliorate or prevent literacy challenges for those at greater risk [2]. Ensuring all children experience early literacy success is critical in addressing our global challenge to reduce current educational inequities [3] and the United Nations education sustainability goal of quality education for all [4].

A feature of a MTSS framework includes the systematic monitoring of children’s response to multiple tiers of high-quality instruction to develop children’s cognitive skills in areas proven critical to early literacy acquisition [5]. A MTSS typically consists of three tiers of teaching support. Tier 1 refers to evidence-based literacy instruction for all children as part of the regular class curriculum. Tier 2 refers to targeted, more intensive support for children with greater literacy and learning needs. Tier 2 is often implemented through supplementary small group teaching sessions. Tier 3 refers to more individualized support for students with complex learning needs or for those students who have not shown expected progress in response to Tier 2 teaching support. Recent discussions also highlight the importance of culturally and linguistically responsive teaching and assessment practices within a MTSS [6, 7]. These approaches may be particularly important for raising early literacy achievement in our culturally diverse and indigenous populations.

In this report I discuss an example of one such comprehensive early literacy approach that we have developed for the New Zealand education context. The approach is referred to as the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) and is an example of a strengths-based and culturally responsive approach for early literacy teaching. The approach is based on robust research evidence. In developing BSLA, we drew upon our knowledge in both practice and research within the disciplines of speech-language therapy and education as well as collaborating with lead researchers in Māori and Pacific education, community leaders, and class teachers. Following successful controlled pilot intervention trials of BSLA [1, 8, 9], the New Zealand Ministry of Education is now funding the national implementation of the approach in junior school classes. More than 40% of all Government funded primary schools across the country are involved in this initiative (800 schools). In the last 3 years over 4,000 junior school class teachers, literacy specialists, including speech-language therapists (SLTs) and teacher aides have received training to implement the approach. This report will focus on how children identified at school entry as learning English as a second or other language (referred to as English Language Learners, ELL) are responding to BSLA.

New Zealand is a culturally and linguistically diverse country. It is estimated that 190 languages are spoken in New Zealand. English is spoken by 95% of the population (4.6 million speakers) [10]. The 2018 national census data indicated that the next common languages spoken are Te reo Māori (186,000 speakers), Samoan (102,000 speakers), Northern Chinese including Mandarin (95,000 speakers), and Hindi (69,500 speakers). Census data indicated 23,000 people use New Zealand Sign Language [10]. The languages spoken by 5–9-year-old children in New Zealand reflect this pattern with Te reo Māori, Samoan and Northern Chinese the most common languages other than English (see online suppl. material; for all online suppl. material, see https://doi.org/10.1159/000531407).

It is predicted that New Zealand will increasingly become more ethnically diverse with significant increases in Māori, Pacific, and Asian populations by 2043 [11]. This pattern of increased cultural and linguistic diversity evident in New Zealand is consistent with international trends of steadily increasing global migration rates. In 2020 it was estimated that there were 281 million international migrants [12]. This compares to 173 million in 2000. In 2020 there was also a total of 26.4 million refugees globally which is the highest number of refugees on record. Those under 18 years of age constituted around 38% of the refugee population [12p.25].

The international migration trend data suggest that increasingly over time more children are likely to enter school to begin formal literacy instruction in a language that is different from their dominant home language or the language that they have experienced during their preschool years [13]. It is therefore critically important that we understand how our early literacy teaching approaches are supporting children who are bilingual or multilingual speakers. For our profession of speech-language therapy, we must also consider how bilingual learners who have underlying speech and language processing challenges or communication challenges are best supported in their literacy acquisition [14]. We also need to integrate findings from improved understanding of the cultural and social importance of bilingualism (Ramírez-Esparza et al. [15]), and indigenous languages (Gaffney [16]), into our literacy teaching practices.

In this report I will:

1. 1.

   Summarize professional expectations of SLTs’ contribution to children’s literacy acquisition.

2. 2.

   Discuss influences on literacy acquisition for ELL.

3. 3.

   Present a case study of the response of ELL to the BSLA within the New Zealand education context. I will discuss how these children’s learning within Tier 1 (universal/class level) teaching in their first year at school compares to their matched peers who were not identified as ELL. In addition, I will present data demonstrating learners’ response to Tier 2 (targeted small group support) for a subset of the larger cohort.

Internationally, scopes of professional practice for speech-language therapy typically include direct and indirect roles in using evidence-based practices to support children’s literacy acquisition. In addition to supporting both spoken and written language development in children who have communication challenges, scopes of practice often extend to the role of SLTs in collaborating with other professionals to support literacy development of all children. For example, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) position statement [17] indicates that speech-language pathologists should be prepared to assume a variety of roles related to children’s reading and writing acquisition, including collaborating with educators in advocating for effective literacy practices.

In a recent briefing paper to the British Government, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists [18] noted the key role that SLTs have in the design of universal approaches for all children in areas related to speech and language development (in addition to their role in designing and implementing targeted interventions).

The statement on the professional profile for the European Speech and Language Therapy Association [19] (inclusive of 29 countries) includes the practices of supporting the development of children’s preliteracy and literacy skills and working with children who have reading and writing disorders or specific learning disorders (such as dyslexia). It clarifies that SLTs are involved in enhancing human communication in a holistic way inclusive of the comprehension and production of oral and written language, as well as nonverbal and/or alternative communication.

The International Association of Communication Sciences and Disorders (IALP), with members from over 50 speech-language therapy associations, promotes the important role SLTs have in supporting children’s successful literacy acquisition [20]. IALP, along with other speech-language therapy associations, also advocates for the importance of implementing evidence-based practices in ways that are culturally and linguistically responsive for children and their families. This holds particular relevance to SLTs in New Zealand in relation to the support for our Māori (indigenous) population. As the scope of practice for the New Zealand Speech-Language Therapists’ Association (Te Kāhui Kaiwhakatikatika Reo Kōrero o Aotearoa) indicates the unique context of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document, signed between Māori and the British Crown in 1840, necessitates that SLTs support culturally sensitive practices in broad and inclusive ways [21].

These position statements and scopes of practice highlight the relevance and importance of SLTs in children’s literacy development. They support the role of SLTs in collaborating with educators and community in the design and implementation at every level within MTSS frameworks to enhance children’s literacy learning [22]. Many SLTs will have some familiarity with MTSS frameworks in education settings. In a recent national survey of school-based speech-language pathologists in the USA [23], 55% of 2,961 respondents indicated that they were involved in supporting some aspect of MTSS activities. However, their time involved in such activities may be infrequent (e.g., less than 2 h of their week [24]). SLTs have also indicated the need (through survey responses) to better understand MTSS frameworks and how they can become more involved, including in the leadership and development of such approaches, within their communities. Other recent survey data highlight SLTs’ expressed needs for ongoing professional learning and development (PLD) in children’s literacy acquisition [25‒27]. This report adds to current discussions through presenting an example of an MTSS developed by researchers in speech-language therapy and education, in collaboration with Māori and Pacific leaders, teachers, and community.

Bilingual children vary widely in their language proficiency (across reading, writing, listening, and speaking) in any of their acquired languages. In contrast to their monolingual peers, they are developing competencies in two (or more) languages with each language developing at a different pace dependent upon language exposure and use [28]. Multiple factors will influence their emergent literacy skills and literacy acquisition. These factors include children’s executive functioning (e.g., short-term memory, self-regulation, planning skills) the linguistic similarities and differences between languages learned, children’s self-efficacy, their family’s socioeconomic status, their parents’ level of education, their teacher’s knowledge and experience with supporting bilingual learners, and the types of early literacy instruction they receive [29‒38]. In addition, their emergent literacy skills in areas such as phonological awareness [39], alphabetic knowledge, vocabulary, and oral narrative skills in their dominant language are all likely to influence achievement in literacy acquisition [30, 32, 38].

In this report, I focus on children commencing schools where English is the medium of instruction and for whom English is their second or other language. In New Zealand these learners are referred to as ELL. Literacy learning for ELL is componential and multifaceted, just as it is for native English speakers [40]. The instructional reading and writing practices and interventions designed for native English speakers are mostly reported to be beneficial for ELL. Researchers comparing specific literacy intervention effectiveness have found either no difference [41] or some differences among ELL and English monolingual children [40, 42].

Phonological awareness (or a child’s conscious awareness of the sound structure of a spoken word) is critically important to both reading and spelling acquisition [See 37 for a review]. ELL benefit from explicit teaching instruction in phonological awareness, as well as phonics instruction, vocabulary, reading comprehension, oral reading fluency, and writing interventions [43‒45]. Among those components, phonological awareness and reading comprehension strategies may have a longer term benefit for reading than other approaches [46, 47]. The explicit teaching of phonological awareness and phonics benefited spelling, expressive vocabulary [48], reading [48, 49], and listening [50] amongst ELL. Explicitly supporting children to understand the link between phoneme-grapheme correspondence knowledge and the reading context is also an effective intervention strategy for ELL struggling to learn to read [51].

Response to specific components of literacy interventions or class approaches may be evident for some ELL. For instance, McNeill and Everatt [52] examined the influence of phonological awareness, orthographic awareness, and morphological awareness on reading and spelling. They reported no overall differences among English monolingual speakers and bilingual children. However, they observed that phonological awareness and orthographic awareness explained variance in spelling and reading among English monolingual children; while morphological awareness explained variance in reading and spelling among language minority children. For Mandarin-English bilingual children, syllable awareness (rather than phoneme awareness) and letter-sound knowledge are considered particularly important in these children’s spelling acquisition [53]. These learners may find some aspects of phoneme awareness such as phoneme-grapheme mapping and phoneme blending challenging, particularly given the linguistic differences between alphabetical and non-alphabetical languages. Interestingly, however, teaching phoneme segmentation and blending skills in English may be particularly beneficial for Chinese-English children [48, 54]. Continued research into the teaching implications from the linguistic and phonological differences between languages for bilingual speakers is needed [55].

Understanding children’s proficiency in their first language (L1) as well as the linguistic similarities or differences between L1 and English will allow teachers to take strategic advantage of potential cross-language transfer of metalinguistic skills from L1 to learning English [33]. This transfer has been observed across both orthographically similar languages [56, 57] such as French-English [58, 59], Italian-English [60], Spanish-English [61], and Dutch-English [29] as well as orthographically different languages such as Chinese-English [62‒64]; Korean-English [65, 66]; and Arabic-English [67]. Collectively, the above findings substantiate that bilingual children can leverage L1 to facilitate English language acquisition.

Explicit vocabulary instruction is also important for reading acquisition for ELL [68, 69]. Notably, Chung et al. [70] found that for children who are Mandarin (L1) and English (L2) speakers, the development of their vocabulary in English may depend more on phonological awareness than prosodic features such as rise time that mark syllable boundaries. Teaching both general and domain-specific vocabulary is important [71] and direct teaching to build their background knowledge can be effective for their reading comprehension [72]. Teaching strategies that include vocabulary teaching through culturally relevant stories, development of children’s understanding of story structure, oral narrative and listening comprehension skill development, and strategies that help contextualize new vocabulary and story content are all beneficial strategies for ELL, just as they are with native speakers. Including suitable oral narrative assessments to monitor the effectiveness of this instruction for ELL is important [73].

Many of the teaching strategies that are recommended for ELL such as research informed explicit teaching instruction in phonological awareness and vocabulary learning, using culturally and age appropriate teaching resources, and sufficient teaching intensity (e.g., [74, 75]) are aligned to MTSS framework. It may be expected, therefore, that large-scale implementation of an evidence-based MTSS should faciliate the literacy development of children who are learning English as a second or other language within English medium instruction. Few studies have specifically examined the progress of ELL in their first year at school across differing tiers within a MTSS. In a systematic literature review, Thorius and Sullivan [76] examined 13 studies that considered teaching quality within RtI frameworks for ELL. The researchers concluded that most studies focus on Tier 2 or specific interventions for ELL. They highlighted the need for increased research attention to focus on Tier 1 quality classroom instruction and how this benefits ELL.

Siegel [77] reported on the progress for ELL following a series of studies investigating the benefits of a structured literacy approach within an RtI framework. The approach included systematic teaching of vocabulary, phonological awareness, and phonic skills. The studies were conducted in a school district in Northern Vancouver, Canada. The intervention was specifically designed to be inclusive of ELL and class teachers in the district were involved in the co-construction of the approach. Thirty schools in the district were included in the studies and 20% of the children started school with a first language other than English, the most common being Cantonese (South Korea and China) and Farsi (Iran). Screening at kindergarten suggested 50% of ELL were at risk for literacy problems. Data suggested the structured literacy approach implemented was effective at developing these children’s reading abilities. There generally was no difference between response to the approach from ELL and non-ELL. By grade 7 less than 1.5% of either group had reading problems such as dyslexia. The data also suggested some advantage for the bilingual speakers, many of whom were learning to read and write in both English and their home language. The bilingual children who were identified as having dyslexia performed better on tasks such as phonological, morphological, word reading, and spelling skills than their monolingual peers with dyslexia. Siegel highlighted the potential benefits of high-quality Tier 1 literacy instruction for children who enter school speaking a language that is not the language of instruction.

A further potential benefit of a MTSS is the identification of ELL who have underlying language processing challenges. It is often difficult to distinguish between language acquisition and language-based learning difficulties or disabilities for bilingual learners [78]. Limited access to valid assessments and fluent speakers of children’s first language are amongst some of the barriers that can contribute to this challenge. One opportunity to identify ELL who require more specialized support is systematically monitoring how these learners respond to evidence-based literacy instruction in their early months at school [7]. ELL who respond in a similar way to their peers in advancing their phonological awareness, vocabulary, phonic knowledge, word decoding, and encoding skills from quality Tier 1 literacy instruction are unlikely to have word recognition difficulties associated with dyslexia. Children who show a slower pace of learning within Tier 1, but respond well to Tier 2 (targeted small group instruction) are either less likely to be at risk for persistent literacy difficulties or Tier 2 instruction is appropriate to meet their learning needs. This then allows teachers to identify ELL who have not responded as expected to Tier 1 and Tier 2 literacy instruction for more specialized and individual learning support (Tier 3). It is acknowledged, however, that the development of appropriate monitoring assessments for ELL is an area in need of further research [79].

This report extends current research in the field through examining how children identified as ELL at school entry respond to quality Tier 1 and Tier 2 literacy instruction within a MTSS framework in their first year at school. Specifically, the response of ELL to the BSLA being implemented by their class teachers in English medium classes is discussed. Their response to this teaching is compared to their peers from similar ethnic backgrounds and socio-economic status who are not ELL.

We developed BSLA through an iterative process through controlled research trials [1, 8, 9]. It was developed as part of a Better Start National Science Challenge, a 10-year program of research focused on ensuring all children have the best possible start in life [80]. Following consultation and support from school, indigenous, and community leaders, teachers were involved in co-constructing the implementation to ensure development of a feasible and sustainable approach (See [81] for details). BSLA is an example of a research informed MTSS for early literacy instruction in the first 2 years at school. It is aligned to the New Zealand Ministry of Education’s RtI model [82]. The tiers of support include Tier 1: universal evidence-based class literacy teaching; Tier 2: targeted small group supplementary teaching; and Tier 3: individualized support personalized to meet individual needs.

There are several features of BSLA that permeate the tiers of support [1, 81]. Features of the approach include:

• A strengths-based approach to early literacy assessment monitoring and teaching. Teachers use the monitoring data to celebrate what children can achieve and to identify children’s next steps for learning.

• A family engagement strategy. Several supports are provided to help teachers engage families in their children’s literacy learning in culturally responsive and strength-based ways.

• Novel online monitoring assessments. These assessments include an online oral narrative task (story retell with listening comprehension questions [83], phoneme-grapheme knowledge, phoneme awareness, nonword reading, nonword spelling tasks [1], and connected text reading. Automated oral narrative transcription [84], automated scoring, analyses, and reporting features help to reduce teacher workload.

• Online quality PLD for teachers, literacy specialists, SLTs, and teacher aides. Practitioners have access to the same PLD content (modified for teacher aides), monitoring assessments, lesson plans, and teaching resources. However, as part of MTSS framework, face to face workshops for literacy specialists (including SLTs) are provided to enhance their ability to provide in-class coaching and mentoring to the class teachers involved in implementing BSLA.

• A culturally responsive teaching and learning guide, the Hikairo Schema [85]. This is provided to support teachers, literacy specialists, and SLTs develop learning environments that are culturally sensitive and inclusive.

• Research informed teaching content aligned with structured literacy teaching approaches. The teaching content reflects the Simple View of Reading’s [86] theoretical model of skilled reading. It includes structured and systematic teaching activities in phonic, phonological, and morphological awareness, vocabulary instruction to support children’s word recognition skills as well as story book sharing, oral narrative, vocabulary, and listening comprehension activities to support children’s language comprehension. BSLA 30-min daily lesson plans are provided which are implemented at least 4 days per week. The activities and teaching materials are culturally relevant to the New Zealand context.

• Decodable readers. BSLA includes the use of a new national series of children’s decodable texts called the Ready to Read Phonics Plus reading series [87] with their own 15-min daily small group lesson plans. The phonic scope and sequence for this reading series is aligned to phonic scope and sequence in BSLA Tier 1 and Tier 2 lesson plans.

• An inclusive teaching approach. Adaptations to online assessment tasks and teaching activities are provided for children with complex communication needs [88].

Data reported are derived from the national dataset of children who had been involved with the BSLA up to March 2023. We focused on 18,153 children who had completed assessments at both baseline and following 10 weeks (or after approximately 40 BSLA teaching sessions) of Tier 1 class teaching. Children were included in the analysis for this report if they were 5 years old at the baseline assessment (first year at school). Of these children, 11% (n = 1,983) were identified as speaking English as a second or other language (ELL) by their teachers or school administration.

A comparison of demographic variables between ELL and non-ELL revealed that the ELL were significantly older (F(1, 18,151) = 15.99, p < 0.001) and came from areas of greater socioeconomic deprivation than the non-ELL children (F(1, 16,170) = 25.6, p < 0.001). Data showed that 45% of ELL attended schools in areas of high socioeconomic deprivation, and 37% in areas of mid socioeconomic deprivation according to NZ Index of Deprivation. Further, the ELL group of children had a higher percentage of children of Asian and Pacific ethnicity than the non-ELL group. For these reasons, we selected a matched control group of non-ELL children. Use of a matched control group ensures that any differences observed between ELL and non-ELL are more likely to be a result of ELL status, rather than any confounding sociodemographic characteristics.

Case-control matching was used to select a control student for each ELL student based on: age in months (plus or minus 2 months), gender, socioeconomic deprivation decile (plus or minus one decile), and ethnicity (coded as Pacific, Asian, Māori, NZ European, other). A matched control was found for 1,853 of the ELL (93.4%). Comparison of the demographic profiles of the matched cases and controls confirmed no significant differences on any of the demographic characteristics between the ELL and non-ELL following control group selection (see Table 1).

The remaining analyses compare the data for the 1,853 ELL and the 1,853 matched control non-ELL.

A comparison on a measure of semantic diversity from the children’s oral narrative story retells, the number of different words (NDW) children used in a story retell, revealed that ELL used a significantly lower NDW (M = 29.00, SD = 15.85) in their story retells than the non-ELL (M = 31.90, SD = 16.00), (t(3,011) = 4.99, p < 0.001, Cohen’s d = 0.18). This confirmed the expected differential abilities in English language between the two groups. Group performance at baseline on phonological and letter sound tasks was compared. Table 2 provides the mean scores on assessments on the following tasks:

This task requires children to select a target word from a choice of 3 pictures. “Which word starts with d?” (moon, duck, whale). 10 test items were presented.

Children heard a word segmented by phonemes and were then required to point to one of three pictures to indicate the word they heard. For example, “Click on the picture you think I am saying./k//ei//k/” (cake, cape, ring). 10 test items were presented.

Children were presented with six graphemes on the screen and were required to select the grapheme that matched the phoneme they heard. If children scored 80% or more correct on Set 1 they were presented with Set 2. (Set 1: m p t d c l s n; Set 2: ch, b, i, f, r, g, e, sh, k, u, j, w, o, a, v, th, h).

As seen in Table 2, independent samples t-tests indicated that at baseline assessment, 5-year-old ELL scored significantly lower on initial phoneme identity and phoneme blending than a matched group of non-ELL. There were no significant differences in their phoneme-grapheme matching knowledge.

A repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine whether patterns of growth in phoneme awareness and phonic knowledge from baseline to the 10-week assessment for ELL differed to non-ELL. Significant growth over time in response to BSLA teaching was observed for each measure. There was no significant difference in growth between ELL and non-ELL children. ANOVA results are provided in Table 3. Figure 1 illustrates this growth pattern for the phoneme identity task.

Analysis of the percentage of children who were proficient (scoring over 80% correct) at baseline and 10-week assessment for ELL and non-ELL reinforced the positive growth patterns. Figures 2 and 3 illustrate the increase in the numbers of children proficient. For phoneme blending, 60% ELL and 65% non-ELL and for phoneme-grapheme matching Set 1, 89% of ELL and 91% of non-ELL were proficient following 10 weeks of class teaching. For phoneme-grapheme matching Set 2, 77% ELL and 78% non-ELL reached proficiency.

At the 10-week assessment point, children were also assessed on nonword reading and nonword spelling tasks. There were no significant differences in nonword reading between ELL children (M = 33.18, SD = 21.75) and matched non-ELL children (M = 33.83, SD = 21.85), (t(3,485) = 0.88, p = 0.38, Cohen’s d = 0.03). For nonword spelling, ELL children scored lower (M = 37.27, SD = 19.71) than non-ELL children (M = 38.88, SD = 18.53), (t(3,107) = 2.36, p = 0.02, Cohen’s d = 0.09), but with a very low effect size. This suggests that only one grapheme difference in the average spelling scores between the groups was not a meaningful difference. The percentage of children who were proficient (scoring over 80% correct) at the 10-week assessment for both ELL and non-ELL groups on nonword reading was 36% and for nonword spelling 38%.

Predictors of growth within the group of ELL were examined. A change score indicating growth from baseline to 10 weeks on each task was calculated, and linear regressions used to predict growth from the following sociodemographic characteristics: student age at baseline, socioeconomic deprivation, gender, and baseline English language ability (as assessed through NDW used in a story retell). Analyses controlled for scores at baseline on each particular task.

The model predicting growth in initial phoneme identity was significant (F(5, 2409) = 433.91, p < 0.001); aside from baseline scores, significant predictors were language ability (std beta = 0.05, t = 3.22, p < 0.001), socioeconomic deprivation (std beta = −0.07, t = −4.79, p < 0.001), and gender (std beta = 0.05, t = 3.64, p < 0.001). More growth was seen in ELL from areas of lower deprivation, children who had higher baseline language skills, and females.

The model predicting growth in phoneme blending was also significant (F(5, 2,538) = 187.79, p < 0.001); aside from baseline scores, language ability (std beta = 0.13, t = 7.47, p < 0.001), gender (std beta = 0.09, t = 5.06, p < 0.001), age (std beta = 0.05, t = 2.65, p = 0.008), and socioeconomic deprivation (std beta = −0.06, t = −3.39, p < 0.001) were significant predictors. Greater growth was seen in ELL children with higher baseline language skills, females, older children, and from areas of lower deprivation.

The model predicting growth in set 1 of phoneme-grapheme matching was significant (F(5, 2,620) = 948.89, p < 0.001); beyond baseline scores, significant predictors were: baseline language skills (std beta = 0.03, t = 2.81, p = 0.005), age (std beta = −0.05, t = −3.93, p < 0.001), gender (std beta = 0.03, t = 2.18, p = 0.03), and socioeconomic deprivation (std beta = −0.05, t = −3.78, p < 0.001). Greater growth on set 1 of phoneme-grapheme matching within ELL children was observed in children with higher baseline language skills, females, younger children, and those from areas of lower deprivation.

Finally, the model predicting growth in set 2 of phoneme-grapheme matching was significant (F(5, 1,914) = 1,544.84, p < 0.001). Beyond baseline scores, significant predictors were: socioeconomic deprivation (std beta = −0.05, t = −5.18, p < 0.001) and gender (std beta = 0.03, t = 2.63, p = 0.01). Greater growth on set 2 of phoneme-grapheme matching within ELL children was observed in children from areas of lower deprivation and females.

Following 10 weeks of BSLA Tier 1 teaching, children are selected for additional support through BSLA small group teaching (Tier 2). This involves an additional 30-min small group teaching session 4 days per week for 10 weeks. The structured Tier 2 lesson plans focus on phoneme segmentation, phoneme blending, phoneme manipulation skills, word decoding and encoding skills, and reading decodable texts. Children are selected based on lower performance on nonword reading and spelling skills at the 10-week assessment and teachers’ observations of children’s progress (SLTs and literacy specialists may support teachers in this decision-making process). There were 200 ELL (11% of cohort) and 240 non-ELL matched controls (13% of cohort) who received Tier 2 teaching between the 10-week assessment point and the 20-week assessment point. A χ² test indicated a smaller proportion of ELL children received Tier 2 than non-ELL children (χ²(1) = 4.13, p = 0.04).

When comparing performance following Tier 2 teaching, growth from baseline to the 20-week assessment performance did not differ between ELL and non-ELL children on initial phoneme identity. ELL showed greater growth on phoneme-grapheme matching set 2 (F(2, 314) = 5.76, p = 0.003). There was a significant quadratic effect of ELL status, whereby ELL children showed more growth between the 10-week assessment and the 20-week assessment than non-ELL (F(1, 285) = 5.02, p = 0.03). Figure 4 illustrates growth in phoneme blending across three assessment points by ELL status. There was no significant difference (at p < 0.05) between ELL and non-ELL in phoneme blending following Tier 2 teaching.

The children’s growth in oral language was examined for children who completed both baseline and a 20-week oral narrative assessment (ELL n = 329, non-ELL n = 315). Within BSLA, teachers typically implement a 20-week oral narrative monitoring assessment for children showing slower progress than expected or who have received Tier 2 intervention. Other children in the class are not reassessed on their oral language skills until after 30 weeks of BSLA teaching. Descriptive statistics for these measures at baseline and 20 weeks are provided in Table 4.

Repeated measures ANOVA for oral comprehension indicated significant growth over 20 weeks of BSLA teaching (F(1, 642) = 252.51, p < 0.001). Growth over this period differed between ELL and non-ELL children (F(1, 642) = 6.24, p = 0.01), with ELL children showing greater growth. As Figure 5 illustrates, while ELL and non-ELL children differed significantly in their oral comprehension at baseline (p < 0.001), there was no longer a significant difference in oral comprehension between the groups after 20 weeks of BSLA teaching (p = 0.33).

The repeated measures ANOVAs for NDW (F(1, 624) = 308.36, p < 0.001) and mean length of utterance (F(1, 620) = 173.27, p < 0.001) also both showed significant growth over 20 weeks. However there was no significant differences in growth between ELL and non-ELL children [NDW: (F(1, 624) = 1.80, p = 0.18; ) mean length of utterance: (F(1, 620) = 1.37, p = 0.24).

Research informed MTSS frameworks for literacy instruction are critically important to facilitate early literacy success for all children, including ELL. International scopes of practice support SLTs’ involvement in the design and implementation of such approaches. This report has described one example of a MTSS that was developed by researchers in speech-language therapy and education in collaboration with Māori and Pacific researchers and school communities. The approach referred to as the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA) is currently being implemented in junior school classes in state funded, English medium primary schools throughout New Zealand.

The data presented in this report focused on children identified at school entry as ELL (predominantly from Asian and Pacific ethnic backgrounds). Through a case study matched control design, the response of 1,853 ELL was compared to 1,853 peers (matched for ethnicity, age, gender, and socioeconomic background) following 10 weeks and 20 weeks of teaching. To the best of our knowledge this is the first report to use a matched case study design for ELL to investigate these children’s response to quality Tier 1 and Tier 2 small group teaching during their first year at school. The data therefore provide unique insights into the potential benefits of MTSS literacy approaches.

The results of baseline data analyses (when children were in their first few months at school) for ELL demonstrated their expected lower performance on English oral language measures than matched non-ELL. ELL also scored lower on initial phoneme identity and phoneme blending tasks, but scored similarly to non-ELL on phoneme-grapheme matching tasks.

The ELL responded rapidly to BSLA Tier 1 teaching. Significant positive growth in response to 10 weeks of BSLA teaching was observed on all phonic and phoneme awareness measures. The growth for ELL was at the same rate as matched non-ELL. Data from the nonword reading and spelling tasks introduced at the 10-week assessment point showed similar levels of proficiency for ELL and non-ELL. This is important as this task requires children to transfer developing phonic and phoneme awareness knowledge to the reading and spelling process. Evidence that this transference of knowledge is happening to levels of proficiency for 36–38% of these learners (many of whom were from areas of high socioeconomic deprivation) after just 10 weeks of class teaching is encouraging. It suggests that when class teachers are well supported (through quality PLD, in-class coaching by literacy specialists/SLTs) and are provided with quality teaching resources (e.g., structured and culturally relevant lesson plans and an aligned decodable reading series) they can rapidly develop the critical phonic and phoneme awareness skills for literacy success for many ELL.

When looking at the growth predictors of phonic and phoneme awareness over a short period of teaching (10 weeks) the data showed that, in addition to the influence of task baseline performance, children from areas of lower deprivation, children who used a greater NDW in their story retells at baseline, and females showed the most growth. This is consistent with previous findings in the literature relating to the influences from socioeconomic status and English language exposure on phonological awareness and English vocabulary development for bilingual children [38]. The finding that females responded more positively than males is an interesting finding. In another study related to children’s oral language growth in response to BSLA [83] the researchers found that the BSLA story retell task was a valid assessment task, including for monitoring development in ELL. Growth curve analysis indicated that males in their first year at school showed a slower growth trajectory than females in story comprehension. Longitudinal data are necessary to ascertain whether male ELL quickly catch up to their female peers in their 2nd year at school on foundational literacy skills or whether teachers need to more specifically address the needs of male ELL in their early literacy learning.

In general, the ELL listening comprehension growth over a 20-week period is very encouraging. The data suggest ELL, identified by teachers as having greater learning needs, can demonstrate similar skills in listening comprehension (within a story context) after 20 weeks of quality teaching. Two factors may have influenced this positive growth. First, in BSLA Tier 1, children listen to quality children’s stories 4 times each week and receive explicit instruction in vocabulary, story structure knowledge, and listening comprehension activities. This consistent routine and teaching intensity are likely to enhance a range of skills in improving children’s attending behaviors and listening skills in addition to the focused learning of vocabulary and oral narrative skills. Second, the BSLA story retell assessment task (administered via Ipad) with comprehension questions includes having pictures to prompt children’s understanding as they listen to the story, has a clear male speaker who tells the story in a very engaging way, and it is a short assessment task (taking about 6 min to administer). These features may support young ELL to engage in the activity to demonstrate their advancing oral language comprehension skills.

Data from BSLA Tier 2 showed ELL made accelerated growth in more challenging tasks of phoneme blending and letter sound knowledge (Set 2) in response to small group targeted teaching. This finding is consistent with previous Tier 2 intervention outcomes [76] and highlights the benefits of explicit and intensive teaching in phoneme awareness for ELL. Within BSLA, Tier 2 lesson plans are aligned with the Tier 1 class teaching. This alignment may help to maximize learning for ELL as they are familiar with the types of phoneme awareness and word decoding activities. The skills practiced within the small group activities could also be immediately transferred to the Tier 1 activities to support their success at the class level. Ensuing ELL develop the critical foundation skills necessary for efficient word decoding, encoding, and reading comprehension in their first year at school is likely to support their longer term academic achievement [89].

Practitioners have called for quality PLD that advances their knowledge in effective literacy teaching strategies within MTSS frameworks as well as culturally responsive assessment and teaching practices [24] (See also [90]). BSLA addresses this need with a particularly novel feature being the involvement of differing professional groups in the same PLD. Class teachers, SLTs, literacy specialists, and teacher aides that support the same school community may all be involved in the BSLA PLD. This provides each of them access to the BSLA online assessments, Tier 1 and Tier 2 lesson plans, and teaching resources. They also all have access to the same decodable reading series that is used within BSLA. This alignment of professional knowledge and use of the same resources across practitioners who may be involved in supporting ELL is helpful. Familiarity of materials, consistency in teaching approaches for phonic, phoneme awareness, reading and spelling activities, and familiarity with assessment processes used to monitor progress are likely to encourage positive engagement for ELL.

The dataset described for ELL was collected through ethical approval processes that permitted the research team access to anonymized data with only main demographic variables identified. A child’s ELL status was identified within the database by class teachers and/or school administrators (presumably aligned with children’s school entry records regarding their English as a second language learner status or eligibility for ELL funding support). The researchers did not directly obtain data regarding the children’s English language learning experiences from either the children or through parental questionnaire or interviews. This may have led to some measurement error. However, our analysis of oral narrative abilities at baseline assessment provides some validation of teachers’ or administrators’ identification of children’s ELL status. A further limitation of the dataset analyzed was no available information regarding how long children had been learning English or any detailed information about their home language or linguistic learning context during their preschool years. This limits the interpretation of some data, particularly in relation to understanding any differences in performance based on characteristics of the children’s first language and exposure to English. The grouping together of all Pacific ethnicities and Asian ethnicities in the dataset is also problematic. However, data from New Zealand 2018 census provide some context with Samoan the most common Pacific language and Northern Chinese the most common Asian language spoken by 5-9-year-old children in New Zealand (as shown in the online suppl. material).

A MTSS has much to offer in supporting all children to succeed in their early literacy acquisition. The data presented suggest that the BSLA, one example of a MTSS, facilitates the early literacy development of ELL in their first year of English literacy instruction. The strong response of ELL to both Tier 1 and Tier 2 teaching is very encouraging. With recent escalation in global migration rates, ELL are on the rise and teachers and SLTs teaching in English medium contexts are expected to be supporting ELL in their classrooms. The data suggest that when class teachers are well supported through quality PLD, including in-class coaching from literacy specialists/SLTs, they can rapidly advance the foundational literacy skills for ELL. Ensuring ELL succeed early in their literacy acquisition is an important step toward enhancing more equitable education outcomes.

I would like to acknowledge my co-leader in the development of the Better Start Literacy Approach (BSLA), Professor Brigid McNeill, Child Well-being Research Institute and Faculty of Education, at the University of Canterbury. I would also like to acknowledge Dr. Megan Gath, Child Well-being Research Institute, for support with statistical analyses in this report. I am grateful to the BSLA team of leaders, researchers, research assistants, and practitioners who have contributed knowledge and expertise to the development of BSLA.

The BSLA data collection method and processes, which included the dataset analyzed for this report, was approved by the University of Canterbury Human Ethics Committee (application 2021/06/LRPS). The approval allowed the researchers to analyze de-identified assessment data collected within the national implementation of BSLA for secondary analyses to evaluate the impact of the BSLA. The committee determined this was low risk and individual consent for participation was not required. However, as children entered BSLA, parents were provided with an option to exclude their child’s anonymized data from the database used for any secondary analyses.

Professor Gillon is employed as the Founding Director of the Child Well-being Research Institute at the University of Canterbury and is also a Co-Director for the Better Start National Science Challenge hosted through the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland. The author receives royalties from The Guilford Press for her authored book, Phonological Awareness: From Research to Practice. Professor Gillon is a life member of the New Zealand Speech-Language Therapists’ Association, a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, a Fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and Past Chair of the IALP Child Language Committee.

Financial support was received for the development of BSLA through the New Zealand Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Better Start National Science Challenge Grant and the New Zealand Ministry of Education Early Literacy Initiative Grant.

The author is the co-lead developer of BSLA and principal investigator in the Better Start Literacy Approach Early Literacy Initiative project.

Ethical approval received currently allows for the BSLA research team to have direct access to the data collected. Further inquiries can be directed to the author.