Understanding and Supporting Literacy Development Among English Learners: A Deep Dive Into the Role of Language Comprehension

Abstract

A distinguishing feature of English learners (ELs) centers on coming from homes in which a language other than or in addition to English is used, but bilingualism itself is not a risk factor for low academic achievement. Yet in the United States, ELs’ reading achievement continues to lag behind that of their English-proficient peers. In this introduction, I discuss the need for research that centers the role of language comprehension among ELs for understanding and supporting their literacy achievement, highlight some of the key contributions made by the authors of articles that comprise this special topic collection, and offer several avenues that are ripe for future research.

Impact of COVID‐19 on Early Literacy Instruction for Emergent Bilinguals

“…Based on our analysis of these data and anchored by the extant research that suggests the importance of foundational code‐focused skills as well as oral language and comprehension skills for EB students (Goldenberg, 2020; Mancilla‐Martinez & Lesaux, 2011/2017; Mancilla‐Martinez, 2020; Lesaux et al, 2010; Silverman et al, 2020), we offer the following recommendations for policy and practice.…”

“…Broadly, these competencies include both code‐focused, foundational skills as well as language‐focused competencies related to oral language and linguistic comprehension. For code‐based, foundational skills, a preponderance of evidence has shown that explicit and systematic instruction in phonological awareness, decoding, and word recognition is effective for children learning to read in English (Foorman et al, 2019; Petscher et al, 2020) and it is well‐established that such code‐based foundational skills are a “nonnegotiable” (Mancilla‐Martinez, 2020) for EB children. Research syntheses focused on the effects of literacy instruction for EB children have shown strong evidence to support instruction in phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, decoding skill, and word reading (August & Shanahan, 2006).…”

“…While the evidence base is not as robust as that for code‐based foundational skills, there is notable and growing evidence that language‐focused competencies (oral language and linguistic comprehension) in early childhood are related to later literacy outcomes (Petscher et al, 2020; Shanahan & Lonigan, 2010). Even while relations from oral language and linguistic comprehension to later literacy outcomes have been relatively understudied with EB children (Mancilla‐Martinez, 2020), it is clear that instruction for EBs should be designed to support the development of language‐focused competencies related to academic discourse. For example, an IES synthesis of research on EB students’ literacy development highlighted a major theme in the panel’s recommendations that, “instruction needs to focus on developing academic language (i.e., the decontextualized language of the schools, the language of academic discourse, of texts, and of formal argument) (Gersten et al, 2007, p. 5),” as “experts consistently consider building oral proficiency in the features of academic English to be critical” (Gersten et al, 2007, p. 23).…”

“…Importantly, there is growing evidence that, for EBs in particular, it may be especially important to provide instructional support to develop and expand oral language and linguistic comprehension skills (Lervåg, Hulme, & Melby‐Lervåg, 2018; Rogde, Hagen, Melby‐ Lervåg, & Lervåg, 2019). In the United States, many EB learners develop decoding and word recognition skills in English to levels on par or superior to peers who are not EBs, yet even with these strong foundational, code‐focused skills, EBs have had persistent difficulty with linguistic comprehension and reading comprehension (Goldenberg, 2020; Mancilla‐Martinez & Lesaux, 2011/2017; Mancilla‐Martinez, 2020; Lesaux, Crosson. Kieffer, & Pierce, 2010).…”

Questioning the monolingual norm with conceptually scored bilingual vocabulary assessments: Findings from a research–practice partnership

“…However, across our three partner schools, there was considerable overlap between Spanish-English bilingual students and students labeled as ELs. Prior to our partnership, the schools had not systematically assessed students' vocabulary knowledge, a finding that is not uncommon (Mancilla-Martinez, 2020). We knew vocabulary could not continue to be overlooked in our collaborative efforts to improve students' reading comprehension.…”