Meaning construction is a complex concept that encapsulates language and thought as a whole system in which sense and meaning have a unique relationship highly marked by the social and cultural environment of the reader. Hence, Kichwa-Spanish bilinguals' reading practices in the Southern Andes of Ecuador cannot be discussed as two separate…

The relationship between reading comprehension and reading fluency for linguistically diverse learners continues to be a topic of education research. The problem is third and fourth-grade second-language learners possess adequate reading fluency skills but demonstrate distinct reading comprehension difficulties compared to native English-speaking…

This correlational study investigated the direct and indirect relationships derivational morphology had to reading comprehension for Spanish-speaking language minority students in the fifth-grade. It also investigated the direct and indirect effects Spanish phonological awareness had on reading comprehension. Multivariate path analysis was used to…

This case study investigated the effect of reading interventions on special education English language learner (ELL) students. This study implemented teaching intervention strategies to assist the study participants struggling with reading and comprehension skills. I observed these participants using reading interventions. The purpose of this…

In the "Sound Pattern of English," Chomsky and Halle (1968) posited that English orthography, despite the complexity in how it relates to phonology, is in fact more "optimal" in at least one aspect: how it relates to morphology. A root or stem tends to maintain a constant visual form across words built upon it even as its…

The purpose of this single case design study was to examine the efficacy of a graphic organizer for improving the reading comprehension of middle school Spanish-English bilingual middle school students with learning disabilities. Students included two females and one male student. Using a multiple baseline across participants design, students were…

This quantitative, longitudinal matched pairs study determined whether elementary Spanish immersion students performed better on reading end-of-grade exams in Grades 3-5 than their non-immersion traditional peers in the same grades. African American and Hispanic students from two Spanish immersion schools in a suburban North Carolina district were…

It is well-documented that there is a strong relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension in school-age children. Limited vocabulary knowledge can impact a student's reading achievement, as may be the case for school-age English Learners (ELs). This study aims to analyze the role of vocabulary in predicting reading comprehension…

Second language (L2) writing has been determined to be influenced by what is read, with language learners tending to borrow words and short phrases from input texts while writing (e.g., Wang & Wang, 2015). This phenomenon is referred to as lexical alignment. Only one empirical study has investigated the influence that the linguistic complexity…

The Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990) has a longstanding history as a model of reading comprehension, but it has mostly been applied to native English speakers. The SVR posits reading comprehension is a function of the interaction between word-level reading skills and oral language skills. It has been…

How hard should the books be in elementary small-group reading? This study explored text difficulty for bilingual students reading below grade level in third grade. Using a convergent parallel mixed methods design, I used qualitative methods to analyze students' engagement and discussion during small groups and single case design to evaluate…

A modified extensive reading literacy intervention was examined in this study. The problem was English Learner third and fourth-grade students reading standardized tests scores were low and educators were uncertain as to which type of intervention was best to improve English Learner student oral reading fluency and reading comprehension. This…

This classroom-based case study examines how Spanish-English emergent bilingual children in a second grade one-way immersion classroom draw on prior knowledge and experiences and use comprehension strategies to discuss and comprehend three texts with different levels of cultural relevance. Through an examination of the rich range of cognitive,…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of the EMBRACE Spanish support intervention for at-risk dual language learners and to determine which verbal and nonverbal characteristics of students were related to benefit from the intervention. The first study examined oral language and reading characteristics and the second study…

The present research examines the role of morphological awareness in reading comprehension of high school emergent bilinguals. As an increasing number of research studies contribute to our understanding of morphological awareness, i.e. the ability to reflect on and manipulate morphologically complex derived words, we are better able to appreciate…