This study evaluates the extent to which syntactic awareness contributes to reading comprehension in English-French bilinguals, considering both the potential for a direct relation, as well as an indirect one, through word reading. Participants were 146 first-grade students enrolled in early French immersion programs in Canada. While the children…

Scoring rubrics are known to be effective for assessing writing for both testing and classroom teaching purposes. How raters interpret the descriptors in a rubric can significantly impact the subsequent final score, and further, the descriptors may also color a rater's judgment of a student's writing quality. Little is known, however, about how…

Integrated writing has gained importance in both tertiary and secondary learning contexts. However, assessment tasks at secondary schools have received little attention. To obtain evidence of skill integration, a task-defining feature for integrated writing, we developed a comprehensive questionnaire study of an understudied task used in the…

The feedback-seeking behavior (FSB) framework offers a novel perspective for analyzing second language (L2) learners' proactive agency in processing teacher feedback. While research has identified associations among language mindsets, goal orientations, and FSB in L2 speaking classes, this line of inquiry should be extended to L2 writing education…

This study examined the within- and cross-language relationships between intrinsic language learning motivation, home literacy environment (shared book reading, parental literacy involvement, and parent perceived child literacy interest), and receptive vocabulary in 185 bilingual preschoolers and 233 primary school children in Singapore. Age…

We assessed the relationship between word-to-text-integration (WTI) and reading comprehension in 7th grade students (n = 441) learning English as a second language (L2). The students performed a self-paced WTI reading task in Fall (T1) and Spring (T2), consisting of three text manipulation types (anaphora resolution, argument overlap, anomaly…

This study investigates the relationship between three discourse synthesis skills (i.e., quotation, summarization, and connection) and students' overall integrated writing performance in Chinese, students' first language, and English, their second language. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that 63.6% of the variance in students' overall…

This study investigates the concurrent and longitudinal relationships between polysemous word knowledge and reading comprehension among bilingual students (n = 107) followed from seventh to eighth grade. Standardized tests were used to measure decoding skills, broad vocabulary knowledge, and reading comprehension. Data about students' polysemous…

Tender Shoots is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) for parents aimed at improving preschool children's oral language skills relevant for later reading. Parents of 72 preschool children (M = 50 months) were randomly assigned to either a Rich Reading and Reminiscing (RRR) condition, a Strengthening Sound Sensitivity (SSS) condition, or an…

This study explored the effects of increasing the number of elements and the degree of reasoning on second language (L2) writing and also examined the relationship between writing motivational beliefs and anxiety and L2 writing in simple versus complex tasks. Sixty upper-intermediate L2 learners were invited to write simple and complex…

Establishing relations between concepts and ideas is vital for university-level reading. However, students often understand expository text only superficially (Graesser, 2007), especially in the case of a second language (L2). Insufficiently developed linguistic competence, inadequate prior knowledge or weaker reading skills may all lead to a lack…

The purpose of the current study was to explore longitudinally the bidirectional cross-language effects between morphological awareness and vocabulary development across English and French over one year. Participants included 81 Grade 1 students and 75 Grade 2 students. All were non-native speakers of French, and demonstrated average English word…

This study examined the contribution of the constructs of orthographic processing (orthographic choice and orthographic choice in context), syntactic processing (grammaticality and sentence integrity), and verbal working memory (two reading span indicators) to written Chinese composition (narration, explanation, and argumentation) in 129…

In recent decades, integrated language competence has been highlighted in the language curricula taught in schools and institutions, and the relationship between test-takers' performance on integrated tasks and comprehension sources has been much studied. The current study employed the frameworks of reading and listening comprehension processes to…

Synthesis writing is widely taught across domains and serves as an important means of assessing writing ability, text comprehension, and content learning. Synthesis writing differs from other types of writing in terms of both cognitive and task demands because it requires writers to integrate information across source materials. However, little is…