Lincoln Elementary: Push-In, Pull-Out, and a Science Unit
Lincoln Elementary enrolls 78 English learners in grades K through 5 and employs one ESOL teacher, Ms. Reyes, who currently provides 45-minute pull-out groups. The principal proposes eliminating pull-out and moving Ms. Reyes to full-time push-in co-teaching in the two fourth-grade classrooms because 'inclusion is best practice.' One fourth-grade class of 26 students includes 11 English learners at WIDA levels 1 through 4, among them a student who arrived from Haiti in September with strong French and Haitian Creole literacy but almost no English. The upcoming science unit runs 15 pages, includes a 900-word text on the water cycle, and ends with a district-mandated test containing extended-response items. Last year's fourth-grade English learners averaged 41 percent on that test, compared with 78 percent for non-ELs, and three English learners received D grades. The two fourth-grade teachers share one planning period a week and have never co-taught.
1. How should the team evaluate the principal's push-in proposal? What conditions would make co-teaching effective, and what would make it inclusion in name only?
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The service model is not the intervention; the quality of what happens inside the model is. Three tests apply: is the approach grounded in sound educational theory, is it implemented with adequate resources and personnel, and does it produce results.
Conditions that make co-teaching work:
- Common planning time at least weekly, built into the schedule rather than borrowed from lunch.
- Defined roles: who introduces content, who pre-teaches vocabulary, who runs the small group, who assesses language.
- Language objectives paired with content objectives for each lesson.
- Grouping that lets the newcomer work with an adult on scaffolded text while others read independently.
What would make it inclusion in name only: Ms. Reyes circulating as a helper, no planning time, no language objectives, and 11 English learners left to sink or swim in a 900-word text. That version would also strip services from grades K through 3, since a full-time push-in in fourth grade consumes her entire schedule; a single ESOL teacher cannot serve 78 students in two rooms.
The team should also notice the data: 41 percent versus 78 percent is a Tier 1 problem, not only a student problem. Changing the location of support does not fix a text and test that are inaccessible by design. A defensible plan might be a hybrid: co-taught science and social studies for the unit, with protected small-group time for newcomers and for grades K through 3.
2. Plan the language supports for the Haitian Creole/French-literate newcomer in the water-cycle unit.
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This student brings a major asset: literacy and academic language in French, which is full of cognates with English science vocabulary.
Before the unit: pre-teach eight to ten core terms using pictures, gestures, and the French cognate where one exists (évaporation, condensation, précipitation, cycle). Do not rely on Haitian Creole materials, which are scarce; leverage French, which she reads well, and use a French–English picture glossary.
During reading: chunk the 900-word text into short sections with a diagram for each; provide sentence frames ('Water becomes vapor when ___'), a labeled water-cycle diagram to complete while reading, and a partner for oral rehearsal in English before writing. Pair her with a patient English-speaking peer for the hands-on investigation so the science stays concrete.
During discussion and writing: give her a word bank and a paragraph frame for the extended response, and let her plan in French if that helps her organize the science before drafting in English.
Do not: substitute lower-grade content or exempt her from the unit. She can learn the science; the work is to make the language of the science accessible. If she has an interpreter or a French-speaking staff member available, use that person for a brief preview of the key concepts, not for translation of the entire lesson.
3. What accommodations are appropriate on the unit test, which are not, and how should the team use the results?
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Appropriate accommodations change access without changing what is measured: extended time, a separate setting, a word-to-word glossary or the bilingual glossary used in class, directions read aloud and clarified, and responding orally to one extended-response item if the test is meant to measure science understanding rather than writing.
Not appropriate, or requires a decision above the classroom: translating the entire test into French, simplifying the science content, or reducing the number of items. Those are modifications: they change the construct, and on a district-mandated test they may not be permitted. If they are used, the results cannot be reported as grade-level science proficiency, and the team must say so.
Using the results: conduct an item analysis rather than looking only at the average. Sort items by language demand: items with heavy text and extended response versus items with diagrams and short labels. If English learners do well on the diagram items and poorly on the extended response, the finding is a writing-demand problem, and the instructional response is sentence frames and modeled responses, not more content review. Compare the class's results to the previous year's 41 percent to see whether the sheltered supports moved the number, and report the outcome to the principal as the evidence for the next scheduling decision.