Effects of instructional conversations and literature logs on limited- andfluent-English-proficient students' story comprehension and thematic understanding

This article reports an experiment that tests the effects of 2 instructiona l components used to study literature with upper-elementary-grade limited-E nglish-proficient and English-proficient students. The study is part of an ongoing "component-building" program of research designed to estimate the e ffects of several individual components of a Spanish-to-English language ar ts transition program. Literature logs and instructional conversations were the program components identified for intensive study. 5 teachers and 116 fourth and fifth graders participated in the study. Slightly more than half the students were English learners completing their first or second year o f English language arts. Teachers had completed I year of literature log an d instructional conversation training. Students were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatment conditions: Literature logs only, instructional conversatio n only, literature log + instructional conversation, and control. Posttests showed significant differences among treatment groups. Students in the ins tructional conversation and literature log + instructional conversation gro ups scored significantly higher on story comprehension than the control gro up. Moreover, students in all 3 experimental groups were significantly more likely to demonstrate an understanding of the story themes than the contro l group. The combined effects of Literature logs and instructional conversa tions on students' essays about a story's theme varied by language proficie ncy: limited-English-proficient students' essays benefited from the combine d effects of literature logs and instructional conversations; fully English -proficient students' essays, in contrast, showed no such effect.