Shifting demographics in K-12 schools have increased Spanish-speaking Multi-Language Learners' (MLLs') enrollment across the United States. While literacy variations between MLLs and proficient English speakers have been studied predominantly with upper elementary students, there remains a need for more exploration among early elementary…

Children can teach themselves new words via the process of independent text reading--previous studies on self-teaching heavily focused on learning to read in a first language (L1). Limited work to date has been devoted to second language learning (L2). The present study aimed to fill this gap by investigating self-teaching among English Language…

Children who speak one language at home and a different language at school may be at higher risk of falling behind in their academic achievement when schooling is disrupted. The present study examined the effects of COVID-19-related school disruptions on English language and literacy development among monolingual and bilingual children in the US.…

Building a text is a multidimensional endeavor. Writers must work simultaneously on the content of the text, its discursive organization, the structure of the sentences, and the individual words themselves. Knowledge of vocabulary is central to this endeavor. This study intends (1) to trace the development of writer's vocabulary depth, their…

This study reports on the development of an assessment to measure bilingual adolescents' knowledge of polysemous vocabulary and explores the contribution of polysemous word knowledge to reading comprehension among those students. Spanish-English bilingual students in seventh grade (n = 107) completed a battery of standardized reading and language…

This longitudinal study used latent growth curve modeling to investigate English literacy development in a sample of Spanish-speaking language minority students from third through eighth grade. This study also compared the sample's literacy development to the entire population of California students using state standardized test data. Second, this…

This study used a within-subjects design to explore two instructional conditions for developing vocabulary in second-grade Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs)--extended instruction and embedded instruction implemented during shared interactive reading. Words assigned to the extended condition were directly taught using a multifaceted approach…

Dual-language learner (DLL) children typically learn to write while still learning English, with vocabulary appearing to be a particularly vulnerable domain. This study investigates how a reduced English lexicon impacts English writing in DLL children. Participants were 100 Spanish-speaking DLLs and 100 of their monolingual classmates in first…

The present study investigated language skills and reading comprehension with English monolingual and Spanish-English bilingual children in grades 2-5. Of the 377 children in the sample, 207 were English monolingual and 170 were Spanish-English bilingual. Data were collected within a cohort-sequential design for two academic years in the fall and…

Given the increase of bilingual students in the K-12 public school system, understanding reading comprehension performance, especially among this population, has been a major focal point in the research literature. This study explores the nature of reading comprehension among a sample of 123 Spanish-English bilingual elementary students. We add to…

Teacher read-alouds (TRA) are common in middle and high school content area classes. Because the practice of reading the textbook out loud to students is often used out of concern about students' ability to understand and learn from text when reading silently (SR), this randomized controlled trial was designed to experimentally manipulate text…

This study examined the impact of a 15-min daily explicit vocabulary intervention in Spanish on expressive and receptive vocabulary knowledge and oral reading fluency in Spanish, and on language proficiency in English. Fifty Spanish-speaking English learners who received 90 min of Spanish reading instruction in an early transition model were…

This quasi-experimental study investigated the effects of an Internet-delivered universally designed depth of vocabulary intervention that targeted both English-speaking and Spanish-English-speaking students. Two hundred forty students, 49% of whom were Spanish-English bilinguals, participated in the 16-week intervention. Intervention students…

The relation of language of instruction and vocabulary to the English spelling of bilingual first graders receiving either English or Spanish literacy instruction and of monolinguals in English literacy instruction was explored. Only bilingual students in Spanish literacy instruction (SLI) exhibited Spanish-influenced spelling, indicating a…