A Correlational Study Investigating the Relationship between the Fluidez en La Lectura Oral Lectura (IDEL FLO) and the English portion of the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT)

Abstract

Given the growth in the population of elementary school students in the USA whose first language is Spanish, there is interest in ways to improve both the English language acquisition and reading comprehension of these students. The population under investigation included second and third grade English Language Learners in a suburban Midwestern school district in the USA. This study examined the relationship between student second grade performance on the Fluidez en La Lectura Oral portion of the Indicadores Dinamicos de Exito en la Lectura (IDEL FLO) and their performance in third grade on the English language reading portion of the Illinois Standard Achievement Test (ISAT). Three years of test score data for these two tests were analyzed. A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient established a positive correlation between the IDEL FLO and the ISAT tests, r = .476, p = < .05. Results indicate that student performance on the Spanish oral language fluency test is a moderate predictor of student performance on the English reading test. A binary logistic regression test revealed that students that met benchmark on the second grade IDEL FLO test were five times more likely to meet standards on the third grade ISAT reading test than those that did not meet the second grade IDEL benchmark. The results of this study provide evidence that student success on the Spanish oral language IDEL ORF is a modest predictor for success on the English reading comprehension ISAT exam. A review of the literature, recommendations for practice, and implications for future research are included.