This study investigates trajectories of L2 development in writing in two genres over multiple time points in a semester-long ESL writing program. Conceptually replicating previous studies on genre and development, we analyzed 270 argumentative and narrative essays written by 45 ESL students to find developmental and genre differences, using…

Language is essential for making meaning in written communication, and argument writing is a key genre of schooling to which language contributes rich resources for constructing different types of arguments. Despite being a challenging language practice, argument writing research lacks investigation into the language demands of this writing genre.…

Foreign language anxiety has influenced reading achievement in English as a second language learning (ESL). However, less is known about how foreign language anxiety affects Chinese students learning English as L2 and the interplay between foreign language anxiety and cognitive-linguistic factors on L2 reading performance. This longitudinal study…

Reading comprehension and arithmetic skills are essential abilities for children, particularly at the early career. Examine the link between language proficiency and numeral information process amongst primary school children. This study examines numeral comprehension in 600 Chinese primary second graders with different levels of decoding and…

Little research has been conducted on Arabic letter knowledge. This study investigates the nature of Arabic letter knowledge, its dimensionality, and the relative difficulty of letter knowledge items, all within an item response theory (IRT) framework. Three letter knowledge tests were administered to 142 native Arabic-speaking kindergarteners…

This study investigated the roles of associative learning and linguistic knowledge, in particular phonological and semantic knowledge, in word learning of Chinese readers using a cross-sectional design. Extending past research in associative learning using existing Chinese characters as word stimuli, this study resorted to pseudowords and invented…

The study developed a model of linguistic constructs to predict writing quality for college basic writers and analyzed how those constructs changed following instruction. Analysis used a corpus of argumentative essays from a quasi-experimental, instructional study with 252 students (MacArthur, Philippakos, & Ianetta, 2015) that found large…

The present study aimed at identifying core components of reading instruction in Chinese within the framework of the tiered intervention model. A curriculum with four teaching components of cognitive-linguistic skills was implemented in a Program school for 3 years since Grade 1. The findings showed that the Tier 1 intervention was effective in…

This study examined the differences in processing between regular and dyslexic readers in a lexical decision task in different visual field presentations (left, right, and center). The research utilized behavioral measures that provide information on accuracy and reaction time and electro-physiological measures that permit the examination of brain…

The present study investigated the reading of secondary school students in their first and second language (L1, L2). Twenty-six average and twenty-six poor readers matched on age, gender, listening and reading comprehension participated. They were native Dutch speakers who started learning English at secondary school (grade 7). We examined whether…

This study examined whether factors affecting first language reading acquisition also affect English Foreign Language (EFL) reading acquisition. Hebrew (L1) and EFL reading related measures were administrated to 145 fourth graders from the north of Israel who were beginning their first year of English instruction. Results from a Linear Structural…