Although many adolescents struggle to comprehend text, the school-relevant language skills, which might contribute to variation in reading comprehension ability during this developmental period, remain understudied. To expand the research base, this study examines the concurrent development of academic language skills and reading comprehension in…

To assess text comprehension and concept mastery, standards-aligned measures have moved from using multiple-choice questions to using source-based writing tasks (sometimes referred to as Reading-to-Write tasks). For example, it is now common for students to be asked to read a text and then to produce a written response, often a summary or…

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 skills support mid-adolescents' comprehension of the language of school texts. To date, scarce research has explored associations between dual academic language skills and reading comprehension among mid-adolescent dual language immersion (DLI) students. This study examined individual differences in Spanish and English academic…

Mid-adolescence is a period of considerable potential growth in the language for academic writing. Yet, to date, few writing studies explore language development during this period and even fewer focus on longitudinal or diverse samples. In this study, we examined the development of language skills for academic writing in a socio-economically…

Despite a longstanding awareness of academic language as a pedagogically-relevant research area, the construct of academic language proficiency--understood as a more comprehensive set of skills than just academic vocabulary--has remained only vaguely specified. This study examines the potential--for both research and practice--of a more inclusive…