Supplemental Phonological Awareness and Phonics Instruction for Spanish-Speaking English Learners: Implications for School Psychologists

Abstract

Increasingly, school psychologists are providing services for English learners (ELs) with basic reading problems, including helping to identify appropriate supplemental instruction to help ELs acquire basic reading skills. The purpose of this paper is to present a review of experimental and quasi-experimental studies reporting on the effects of supplemental phonological awareness and phonics instruction on K-12 Spanish-speaking ELs’ reading performance. We identified ten original studies that met our inclusion criteria. Five of these studies included PA and/or phonics interventions delivered in English, and five in either Spanish or a combination of Spanish and English. Overall, we summarized supplemental phonological awareness and phonics instruction was effective for helping Spanish-speaking ELs make gains in decoding and reading performance. Several studies reported Spanish-speaking ELs who received supplemental instruction outperformed Spanish-speaking ELs who received business as usual instruction on decoding and reading outcome variables. Descriptions of the supplemental phonological awareness and phonics instruction are provided along with directions for future research and implications for practice.