English language learners (ELLs) are the fastest growing population of students in U.S. schools, and, unfortunately often experience lower levels of reading and spelling achievement than native English-speaking students. There is growing evidence showing that early reading interventions, which have been effective with native English-speakers, can…

Do learners of a second language (L2) need frequent contact with native speakers of that language in order to master its phonology? What if they hear audio recordings of native speakers and receive immediate corrective feedback about their perception? We used a randomized controlled experiment with 135 Chinese speakers (with English as their L2)…

There is agreement that French typically reading children use syllable-sized units to segment words. Although the statistical properties of the initial syllables or the clusters within syllable boundaries seem to be crucial for syllable segmentation, little is known about the role of consonant sonority in silent reading. In two experiments that…

Vowels in Spanish have direct one-to-one letter-sound correspondences, whereas vowels in English usually have multiple spellings. For native Spanish-speaking children learning to spell in English, this transition from a shallow to a deep orthography could potentially cause difficulties. We examined whether the spelling of English vowel sounds was…