This study examined the effectiveness of the “Lotta Lara” and “theDictado” strategies (Escamilla et al., 2014) to develop the biliteracy of students at the Mario Umana Academy, a Two-Way Immersion dual language program in Massachusetts, in its fourth year of implementation, serving children in K-3. Students at the Umana are predominantly Latinx learners, over 50 percent of whom are classified as English Language Learners. Our school partners wondered: Are “Lotta Lara” and “theDictado” effective strategies to support our students’ literacy in both Spanish and English? How do we go about successfully implementing these strategies within and across grade levels? How can we determine that the strategies are effective and whether we should implement them school-wide as the program grows?

We supported the faculty in collecting and analyzing data on the implementation of Lotta Lara/theDictado to aid their decision-making. Specifically, we a) modeled the strategies and train teachers to implement Lotta Lara and theDictado in their classrooms; b) supported lesson planning to integrate strategies with culturally sustaining children’s literature; c) conducted classroom visits to support teachers in improving their execution of the strategies before starting data collection; d) conducted observations, grade level meetings, focus groups and interviews with the participating teachers to identify and address implementation challenges; e) conducted one pre and one post-assessment to determine student reading/writing development; f) collected and analyzed samples of student work to determine progress over time. The findings from this research will benefit not only the study site; they will also inform the growing literature on the promise of strategies that integrate oracy, reading, and writing skills.