Background: Cognitive and linguistic factors have been incorporated into models to explain reading comprehension beyond classical models of reading. This study explores the contribution of executive functions, mainly domain-general and reading-specific cognitive flexibility, in reading comprehension of science texts in monolingual Spanish speaking…

The achievement gap is ever growing in the United States educational system. Low socioeconomic students is one demographic group who is targeted for educators to evaluate teaching and learning. Academic vocabulary is a targeted piece of language that is integrated into all content areas in school that makes content comprehensible. Low…

Individuals with lower proficiency in a second language tend to produce more disfluent speech patterns in the second language. Speech disfluencies refer to interruptions in the forward flow of speech and are distinct from the colloquial use of "fluency," to characterize knowledge of a language. Prior research indicates that some speech…

In this paper, we discuss the results of a case study about the teaching strategies used by three primary school educators to decode Grade 4 science terminology. In South Africa, the study of science is formally introduced to learners in Grade 4. Additionally, Grade 4 is the year when learners transition from being taught in their native languages…

Most U.S. classrooms serve students with various linguistic and academic needs. Tier-I universal approaches support English language learners (ELLs) without segregating them into a different track and thereby constraining future learning opportunities. The current study examines whether Word Generation (WG), a Tier-I discussion-based program…

With a sample of 7,752 fourth- to seventh-grade students in 25 schools which were randomized at the school level to condition, this article reports experimental impacts of an enhanced version of Word Generation on student outcomes at the end of Year 1 and of Year 2. Word Generation employs analysis, synthesis, critique, and problem-solving…

Academic language, which is characterized by the words and structure of the language of schooling, is an important teachable component of academic achievement. When compared to other strong predictors of academic achievement (e.g., decoding, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension), academic language is not as well understood or explicitly taught in…

Academic language has been shown to significantly contribute to success across school subjects. However, to date, there are no empirical studies addressing its development across primary school age. The present study investigated the growth of academic vocabulary and influential conditions from Grades 2 to 4 based on a newly developed and…

The effects of morphological instruction on reading and writing outcomes was investigated with 4th and 5th grade classrooms. Growing research supports the incorporation of morphologically-based instruction for vocabulary, reading, and spelling outcomes. However, little work has investigated writing outcomes. Classrooms were assigned to implement…