Term

2003

Capstone

Restricted Access Thesis

Degree Name

MAESL

Primary Advisor/Dissertation Chair

Ann Mabbott

Secondary Advisor/Reader One

Andreas Schramm

Abstract

For English as a Second Language (ESL) students, reading in school can be particularly challenging at any age or proficiency level. More often than not, required reading in mainstream classes is incomprehensible to ESL students, and they come away from lessons with a lack of understanding of the concept taught. There is a need to differentiate/modify mainstream expository texts for ESL students so that they are able to comprehend more of the content learned in mainstream classrooms.

The method of my study consisted of differentiating two mainstream texts and comparing the comprehension my ESL students achieved when reading each mainstream text and its differentiated counterpart. I conducted the study by having third and fourth grade ESL students, at a variety of proficiency levels, read the mainstream and differentiated texts one time silently, and then recorded their oral and written retells. 1 also took into consideration other factors that could affect comprehension of a text, such as background knowledge and interest levels

The outcome of this study was that indeed, students reading the modified texts experienced an improvement in comprehension in comparison to reading the mainstream texts. The language modifications, visual supports, and reorganization of ideas in a text seemed to be successful methods of making a text more comprehensible to ESL students.

Keywords

Reading, ESL/ ELLs

dc_type

text

dc_publisher

DigitalCommons@Hamline

dc_format

application/pdf

dc_source

School of Education Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

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