ESL CLASS USING
FRONTLINE
OUT-PERFORMS
MAINSTREAM CLASSES
An ESL class in Kennewick, Wash., started the 2002-03 school year scoring half the school district’s average on its assessment test. Not surprisingly, the ESL students averaged only 15.8% on the test administered annually in the fall and the spring. The rest of the district’s kindergartners averaged 28.5%.
By year’s end, however, the ESL class using Frontline Reading Curriculum out-performed most of the mainstream classes, with an average score of 95.0%, compared to the district average of 92.6%. And on a DRA-related test, the ESL students scored 87.9% while the district average was 87.2%.
Pretty good for ESL students, including some who came to class not speaking any English! Half the class scored between 0% and 12% on the first assessment test.
Frontline was not the only thing that helped these ESL students surpass the mainstream students, but kindergarten teacher Debbie Clayton called it the best early reading curriculum she had ever seen.
With the help of the music-enhanced Frontline curriculum, most of the children – including those who came to school without knowing more than a couple of letters – knew all the letters and sounds by Nov. 5 – "much quicker than ever before. … I have a lot more kids who know the letters and sounds than before," Mrs. Clayton says, "and they love the songs."
And by the end of the year, most of her students had read about 20-30 books. One of the more advanced students at the end of the year first came to class without knowing any English whatsoever. He seemed to have no problem learning to read his new language as he learned to speak it.
The expanded Frontline Reading Project can demonstrate that this is at least part of the answer to the No Child Left Behind challenge to get every child up to standard. With this curriculum, we can have essentially every kindergartner reading at mid first grade level before they ever start first grade. And if we can use it in preschools as well as kindergartens, most children will be into second grade reading before first grade.
Children accomplish this with about 30 minutes a day of fun, music-enhanced learning.