The study tested whether cognitive retroactive transfer (CRT) of language skills from English to Hebrew takes place; specifically, whether an improvement in linguistic and meta-linguistic skills in English as a foreign language (FL) would lead to an improvement in these skills in Hebrew as the first language (L1). The participants consisted of 124…

The depth of the English orthography makes reading and spelling in English a difficult task; particularly for English language learners (ELLs) whose first language (L1) has a shallow orthography. Mastering spelling in English is a critical component of increasing the English literacy of ELLs. This study investigated the English spelling of 569…

This study examined (a) the identification of various reading groups across languages in Chinese (L1) adolescents learning English as a second language (ESL), in terms of their word-reading and reading comprehension skills, (b) overlap in reading group membership across languages, and (c) the performance of the various reading groups on…

Using U.S. state-level data, we report unadjusted and adjusted odds ratio of special education (SPED) trends in Tennessee from 2009 to 2019 for students in Grades 3 to 8 by three language groups: native English speakers (NES), English-proficient bilinguals (EPB), and Current English learners (Current EL). We report trends across all SPED…

In this multi-year study, we taught English/Language Arts teachers of students with learning disabilities in middle school to incorporate 15 min of daily vocabulary activities with students in their intact special education English/Language Arts classes. During Year 1, teachers taught 48 words to their sixth grade students, who learned and…

This study set out to compare patterns of relationships among phonological skills, orthographic skills, semantic knowledge, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension in English as a first language (EL1) and English language learners (ELL) students and to test the applicability of the lexical quality hypothesis framework. Participants…

The present study investigated the co-occurrence of word reading and spelling difficulties for Chinese first language (L1) and English second language (L2) and the role of morphological awareness in word reading and spelling ability across two languages. A total of 110 Hong Kong Chinese-speaking students in Grade 7, including 55 adolescents with…

This longitudinal study examined story-writing development of students from Grade 4 to Grade 6, comparing the developmental trajectories of English as a first language (EL1s; n = 43) and English learners (ELs; n = 108) in general, and in groups of EL1s and ELs with typically developing and poor reader profiles. In relation to their EL1 or EL…

Research involving monolinguals has demonstrated that language impairment can be noticed in the early years and tends to persist into adolescence. More recently, research has begun to address the challenges of identifying and treating Developmental Language Disorders (DLD) in English Language Learners (ELLs). Developmental patterns of DLD are not…

Copying a text quickly and accurately is important both in school and in daily life. However, this skill has never been systematically studied, either in children with typical development (TD) or in children with specific learning disabilities (SLD). The aim of this research was to study the features of a copy task and its relationship with other…

Several studies have highlighted that children with reading comprehension difficulties also have problems in tasks that involve telling a story, in writing or verbally. The main differences identified regard poor comprehenders' lower level of coherence in their productions by comparison with good comprehenders. Only one study has compared poor and…

Relationships between attention/executive functions and language learning were investigated in students in Grades 4 to 9 (N = 88) with and without specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in multiword syntax in oral and written language (OWL LD), word reading and spelling (dyslexia), and subword letter writing (dysgraphia). Prior…

Comprehensive models of derived polymorphemic word recognition skill in developing readers, with an emphasis on children with reading difficulty (RD), have not been developed. The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in polymorphemic word recognition ability at the item level among 5th-grade children (N = 173)…

This randomized control trial examined the efficacy of an intervention aimed at improving multisyllabic word reading (MWR) skills among fourth- and fifth-grade struggling readers (n = 109, 48.6% male), as well as the relative effects of an embedded motivational beliefs training component. This study was a closely aligned replication of our earlier…

Response to intervention (RTI) has been promoted for nearly 20 years as a valid supplement to or alternative method of learning disability (LD) identification. Nevertheless, important unresolved questions remain about its role in disability identification. We had two purposes when conducting this study of 229 economically and racially diverse poor…