Full-day kindergarten and English language learners: what impact does attending a full-day kindergarten program have on English language learners' oral language proficiency and literacy achievement during early elementary school in comparison to ELLs who attended half-day kindergarten according to standardized assessments and developmental reading assessment (DRA) levels?

Term

2007

Capstone

Thesis

Degree Name

MAT

Abstract

This research project analyzes the effects of full-day kindergarten in comparison to half-day kindergarten on English Language Learners from kindergarten through the fall of 2nd grade. Three assessment tools are used to determine oral language proficiency and reading achievement for the 27 ELLs. Parent surveys are used to gage the amount of literacy in the home environment and control for bias. This project produces strong evidence that full-day kindergarten led to higher oral language proficiency levels and reading achievement scores than half-day kindergarten for these English Language Learners from the end of kindergarten through the beginning of 2nd grade. This research project corroborates with current research stating the short term benefits of full-day over half-day kindergarten for all students and helps fill the gaps in research on the longer term effects of kindergarten programming and the effects on English Language Learners specifically.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS