Children who speak non-standardized language varieties are at risk for both over- and under-referral to speech-language and special education services (e.g., Morgan et al., 2016; Pearson et al., 2014). Extensive research with bidialectal (Craig, 2016; Kohn et al., 2021) and bilingual (Goldstein, 2022; Paradis et al., 2021) children has shown the…

Most of the previous studies focused on lexical and syntactic features in adapted texts while little attention has been paid to the structural complexity from the perspective of the amount of information. In this study, we intend to examine the differences in structural complexity in adapted texts from the perspective of the amount of information…

The sentence superiority effect observed with skilled adult readers has been taken to reflect parallel processing of word identities and the rapid construction of a preliminary syntactic structure. Here we examined if such processing is already present in primary school children in Grade 3 (average age 8.9 years). Children saw sequences of four…

This study considers a contextualized approach to grammar instruction, asking: "Does embedded instruction using published authors as mentors improve grammar and usage for young writers?" Twenty-three students in one second-grade classroom participated. Students were taught grammar conventions through use of mentor texts for 45 minutes a…

In English, a sentence like "The cat didn't eat the carrot or the pepper" typically receives a "neither" interpretation; in Japanese it receives a "not this or not that" interpretation. These two interpretations are in a subset/superset relation, such that the "neither" interpretation (strong reading)…

Purpose: This study examined the relationship between utterance length, syntactic complexity, and the probability of making an error at the utterance level. Method: The participants in this study included 830 Spanish-speaking first graders who were learning English at school. Story retells in both Spanish and English were collected from all…

Purpose: There is limited research on the writing of young Spanish-English bilinguals and their writing in both languages. In the current study, we addressed whether written syntax features differed by language (English and Spanish) and varied as a function of grade level, English learner status, and instructional program (dual or English…

Purpose: There is limited research on the writing of young Spanish-English bilinguals and their writing in both languages. In the current study, we addressed whether written syntax features differed by language (English and Spanish) and varied as a function of grade level, English learner status, and instructional program (dual or English…

Research consistently shows that adults engaged in tutored acquisition benefit from explicit instruction in several linguistic domains. For preschool children, it is often assumed that such explicit instruction does not make a difference. In the present study, we investigated whether explicit instruction affected young learners in acquiring a…

Purpose: Early Interventions in Reading (Vaughn et al., 2006), the only literacy intervention with demonstrated effectiveness for U.S. dual language learners, was enhanced to support the development of oral language (vocabulary, grammar, and narrative) and literacy, which we refer to as "Language and Literacy Together." The primary focus…

In this study, we elicited grammatical forms (oral production) from a group of child heritage speakers of Spanish (N = 45) in English and Spanish, using the morphosyntax subtest of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA), (Peña et al. 2014). A cross-sectional design was used with 25 participants in kindergarten and 20 in first grade. All…

We begin with the observation that some Korean elementary school children in English class, confined to a single situation and even a single language exponent in a role play, appear to produce far more coherent dialogue than the previous week when they were allowed completely free choices in language. We note that at the same time as their…

Through the presentation of two bilingual reader profiles, this article will illustrate how miscue analysis can act as a culturally relevant assessment tool as it allows for the study of reading across different spoken and written languages. The research presented in this article integrates a socio-psycholinguistic perspective to reading and a…

The need to improve the spoken English of kindergarten students in an international preschool in Surabaya prompted this Classroom Action Research (CAR). It involved the implementation of Form-Focused Instruction (FFI) strategy coupled with Corrective Feedback (CF) in Grammar lessons. Four grammar topics were selected, namely Regular Plural form,…