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© Newswise.
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New Research Looks to Boost Second-Language Literacy
Newswise — A new report co-edited by a University of Illinois at Chicago professor looks at ways to better educate English-language learners in English literacy. The report, "Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners," lays out recommendations on how the nation's K-12 schools can best equip children to read and write in English when it is not their primary language. Researchers call this group "second-language" or "language-minority" students. The report is an outgrowth of the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children, a four-year panel convened by the U.S. Department of Education to conduct a review of available research on teaching reading and writing to language-minority students. The panel, made up of 13 leading scholars in second-language learning and literacy, was chaired by Timothy Shanahan, UIC professor of urban education. Panel members deliberated for three years before completing their work. Funding for the project came from the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and was conducted by the Center for Applied Linguistics and SRI International under Diane August, principal investigator. According to the Center for Applied Linguistics, U.S. schools now serve more than 14 million children from households in which English is not the primary language spoken. The No Child Left Behind Act requires that federally funded educational programs be supported by research. The report analyzes data on teaching reading and writing to language-minority students and identifies gaps in available research. Among the findings: • Focusing instruction on key components, such as phonemic awareness, decoding, oral reading fluency, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and writing, has clear benefits for language-minority students, as it does for native English speakers. • Language-minority students who are literate in their first language are likely to be advantaged in the acquisition of English literacy. This finding is supported by studies of cross language relationships as well as by evaluation studies that demonstrate that language-minority students instructed in both their native language and English perform, on average, better on English reading measures than language-minority students instructed only in English. The report will "contribute to an ongoing, national effort to address the educational needs of language-minority children," writes Peggy McCardle, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, in the foreword. Shanahan and August edited "Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners," which is written for policymakers and educators. The report is summarized at http://www.cal.org/ and is available from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, a scholarly publisher. For more information about UIC, visit http://www.uic.edu NOTE: Please refer to the institution as the University of Illinois at Chicago on first reference and UIC on second reference.
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