A Case Study of Formative Assessment to Support Teaching of Reading Comprehension for English Learners
Reading comprehension and related processes form the foundation for most of the academic work one does in school. To support the teaching and learning of reading skills for English learners (ELs) teachers seek guidance, resources and intervention programs (Callahan, 2013; Gandara, Maxwell Jolly, Driscoll, 2005; Rivera, Moughamian, Lesaux, Francis, 2008; Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages [TESOL] 2010; Walqui Heritage, 2012) Educators express a need for understanding how to measure EL reading comprehension progress, tailor successful reading instruction, support academic language and content learning, and support overall student success (TESOL, 2010) Reading assessments for formative purposes are argued to be a promising approach for addressing the challenges teachers face, and supporting EL reading in particular (Heritage, 2008, 2012) Though formative assessment is well supported in the literature, there has been little empirical work done on its use with ELs (Bailey Carroll, 2015; Black Wiliam, 1998, Heritage, 2008; Gijbels, Dochy, 2006; Umer Omer, 2015; Walqui Heritage, 2012; Wei, 2010) This paper describes the design, development, and piloting of a formative measurement system to support EL reading comprehension in the middle grades, the English Learner Formative Assessment (ELFA) system. In particular, this paper reports on a small scale usability study where the ELFA system was used by eight middle school teachers supporting ELs. We aim to share the lessons we learned during the development and trial of ELFA formative assessment materials for future development and effective implementation of formative assessment for ELs. Our specific research questions and research design are described in the Current Study section.