The effects of transcription skills, comprising both spelling and handwriting fluency, on sentence writing among young Chinese as a second language (CSL) learners were evaluated and compared to those of reading and oral language using a one-year longitudinal study design. Various writing models postulated that transcription skills are essential in…

Academic self-concept (ASC) is a student's self-perceived level of ability in an academic domain and a major factor involved in academic performance. We examined the importance of internal/external sources of evaluation for the structure of L2 and L3 ASCs in two groups of 5th/6th graders learning English and French in Switzerland (mean age: 12.1).…

This study investigated how word and child characteristics affect children's ability to learn the meanings of novel words. Participants were fourth- and fifth-graders representing native English speakers (NE) and bilingual learners with fluent English proficiency (FEP) and designated English Learners (EL). Students were taught the meanings of a…

We examined reading proficiency, focusing on fluency, in 56 Russian-speaking language minority (LM) students and 56 native Hebrew-speaking (NH) peers. Fifth-grade students completed measures of Hebrew reading accuracy and fluency from word to text level as well as phonological awareness (PA), RAN and vocabulary. LM students read single words less…

Previous studies offer mixed evidence regarding whether a unified model of reading comprehension predictors applies to Dual Language Learners (DLLs) and English Speakers (ESs), or whether distinctive models across language groups are empirically supported. The present study adds another dimension to this body of work by examining multiple reading…

This paper focuses on Emergent bilinguals (EBs) who traditionally face unequal opportunities to learn mathematics, harming their identities. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a fifth grade teacher cultivated the development of her EBs' mathematical identities by giving them opportunities to participate in cognitively demanding…

Lexical inferencing from text is a powerful tool for vocabulary and reading comprehension enhancement. Lexical inferencing relies on the pre-requisite skills of reading and existing vocabulary, and is also linked to non-verbal inferencing abilities and reading comprehension. In this study, we examined whether Fifth-grade Russian-speaking language…

This study examines young English readers' ability to infer word meanings in context and to use metacognitive knowledge for constructing word meanings in relation to their reading performance. The participants were 61 fourth-grade students in the United States, comprising 24 monolingual English-speaking (ME) students and 37…

This article analyzes language practices that 5th grade students in a two-way bilingual education (TWBE) program used to position themselves relative to peers and to transcendent scripts (Gutiérrez, Rymes, & Larson, 1995; Reyes, 2006) about ethnicity and ability (academic and linguistic) that attach themselves to students through their various…

The purpose of this study was to explore relationships between language variables and writing outcomes with linguistically diverse students in grades 3-5. The participants were 197 children from three schools in one district in the mid-Atlantic United States. We assessed students' vocabulary knowledge and morphological and syntactical skill as…

Multidimensional Item Response Theory (MIRT) has been proposed as a means to model the relation between examinee abilities and test responses. Three recent articles proved that when MIRT is used in ability estimation, an examinee's score could theoretically decrease due to a correct answer or increase due to an incorrect answer. The current…

This study examined metalinguistic awareness in children who were becoming bilingual in an immersion education program. The purpose was to determine at what point in emerging bilingualism the previously reported metalinguistic advantages appear and what types of metalinguistic tasks reveal these developmental differences. Participants were 124…

Cross-language transfer of awareness of the structure of compound words was investigated among native speakers of Chinese who were learning English as a second language. Chinese fifth graders received instruction in the morphology of four types of compound words in either Chinese or English. They then completed both the Chinese and English…

South Africa's rich multicultural society is reflected by 11 official languages. The Language in Education policy stipulates that children should start learning at school in their home language until Grade 3. In most schools, the language of instruction for all subjects changes in Grade 4 from an indigenous African language to English, which means…

The purpose of this study was to examine the alternate-form reliability, criterion validity, and sensitivity of progress-monitoring measures in reading for secondary-level English Learners (ELs). Twenty-five ELs in an urban high school were administered two types of Curriculum-Based Measures (CBM) once every 3 weeks for 13 weeks. Measures included…