Investigating English Language Learners' Reading Gains From Technology-Based Instruction

Introduction

English language learners (ELLs) enrolled in North American schools continue to grow each year particularly in elementary schools. The Pew Research Center (2018) reported that 67% of students identified as ELLs are enrolled in kindergarten through 5^th grades. Within the next decade, the number of ELLs is expected to reflect approximately one in four children enrolled in schools across the United States (Vaughn, et al, 2017). This projection in the increased growth of ELL student enrollment provides schools many benefits (e.g., cultural diversity) and educational challenges (e.g., low achievement schools). Particularly, ELLs may have academic difficulties in content areas including reading, writing, history and mathematics (Lesaux, et al., 2014) and may be at higher risk for dropping out of their secondary studies (Jimerson, et al., 2016; Hernandez, 2012; Wood, et al., 2017). Still, Vaughn et al. (2017) cautioned that not all ELLs are on the same academic trajectories. They further proclaimed that “students who begin kindergarten with proficiency in English have academic trajectories similar to non-ELLs, whereas students who enter school with limited English do not fare as well” (p. 2016).

ELLs may also be more likely to perform higher in their academic studies when they are enrolled in mainstream classes with their non-ELL peers since educators may provide more challenging opportunities resulting in ELLs developing higher proficiencies in academic vocabulary and content knowledge (Vaughn et al., 2017). However, Snyder et al. (2017) proclaimed that “ELLs differ from non-ELLs in that they must learn grade-level content while also acquiring the English language for instruction” (p. 136). Still, regardless of ELLs’ proficiency levels, they are required to meet grade-level standards and complete standardized assessments in English. Therefore, consideration needs to be placed on curricula that is conducive to ELLs’ acquisition of language and literacy skills. Educational technology use in classrooms has been found to support ELLs’ language development and content learning (Andrei, 2017; Darling-Aduana & Heinrich, 2018; Fabre-Merchán, et al., 2017; Irby et al., 2018; Miller, 2018; Parris et al., 2017; Prince, 2018). Andrei (2017) contended that the majority of research focused on technology integration have been conducted in college settings resulting in the need for more studies to closely examine technology implementation at the K-12 level. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine how technology integration in elementary classrooms impacted students’ assessment scores of language and reading gains. Specifically, this study was focused on the following research questions: 1) Do students’ assessment scores of language and reading gains increase following intensive technology-enhanced reading instruction and activities?, and 2) Do classroom teachers across grade levels (i.e., kindergarten and second grade) result in different ELL reading gains throughout the academic year?