In this five year longitudinal, experimental study SIOP is one component of a larger intervention designed to enhance academic language/literacy development and content knowledge with K-3 students in ESL and bilingual programs. A group of 12 schools from one large district in Texas participated in the study. In the first year of the study, kindergarten students and their teachers were randomly assigned to either the SIOP or comparison group. The comparison group is considered to be using traditional ESL and bilingual programs. As students progress they stay in the same condition (SIOP or comparison) and their teachers will be trained accordingly. The study follows the same students, who remain in either the SIOP or comparison condition with different SIOP or comparison teachers over four years (until the students are in grade 3).

Data was collected to determine teacher’s level of SIOP implementation. Additionally, early literacy assessment data was collected from kindergarten through grade three. Findings from this study should be available in 2009.