Summer ESL Remediation for Incoming Pupils, 1975 High School Umbrella #2, Title I

The Summer Remediation for Incoming Pupils Program was designed to provide remedial instruction in mathematics, reading, or English as a second language (ESL) to selected incoming 9th and 10th grade pupils in New York City. This report describes the program and evaluates its effectiveness for the summer of 1975. A major goal of the program was to bridge the gap from intermediate to high school. Pupils were selected on the basis of their reading and math scores on the Metropolitan Achievement Test, or if they were rated as having moderate to severe difficulties on the Oral Language Ability Scale for Rating Pupils' Ability to Speak English. The latter students were placed in the ESL component. A total of 3,6l0 students participated in the program, and of these, 299 were in the ESL component. For students in the ESL component, the goals were to improve understanding, speaking, reading, and writing of English. Activities provided included structural dialogues, choral repetition, reading selections and responding to questions which assessed comprehension, the writing of letters and vocabulary lists. Findings indicated a statistically significant different from pre- and post testing as measured by the Stanford Achievement Test-Primary II Word Reading, Reading Comprehension, and Listening Comprehension Subtests. The majority of ESL and non ESL students, were oriented to their new high school in a positive way. Despite deficiencies in library and guidance services, the overall program must be judged a success. (Author/AM)