"Motivating Literacy Learners in Today's World" provides insights into a broad spectrum of children's literacy learning. Motivation is the key theme and the authors show how this can be achieved through reading for pleasure; in writing activities at a number of levels; and through oral language development. Chapters include: (1)…

The purpose of the current study is to elaborate on the statistical nature of the linguistic interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1979). It is argued that reading skills across the languages of bilingual learners are differentially robust to interdependence, falling along a continuum mediated by the commonalities between Spanish and English.…

For many decades now, applied linguistics studies have investigated the impact of second language acquisition on various aspects of the development of school children. Few studies, however, have focused on the simultaneous acquisition of two additional/second languages in the classroom. The present paper explores the impact of a spoken Arabic…

This paper explores the role of oral language and representations in negotiating mathematical understanding. The data were gathered from two Indigenous Australian classrooms in Northern Queensland. The first classroom, a Year 6/7 consisted of 15 students whose ages range from 10 years to 12 years with eight being Aboriginal, six from Torres Strait…

This mixed methods study combining a single-subject experimental design with an embedded case study focuses on the impact of a visual treatment on the handwritten and typed output of a struggling male writer during his 5th through 7th grades who has undergone a longitudinal remedial phase of two and a half years creating text-only material as well…

Purpose: In this study, the authors evaluated the contribution made by dialect shifting to reading achievement test scores of African American English (AAE)-speaking students when controlling for the effects of socioeconomic status (SES), general oral language abilities, and writing skills. Method: Participants were 165 typically developing…

Grounded in research and practical expertise, this volume helps K-6 teachers skillfully support all of their English language learners (ELLs)--from a single student to an entire classroom. Ideas for teaching ELLs across different grade and proficiency levels include ways to link instruction to students' lived experiences, use a variety of…

A significant number of students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) who attend partially or fully integrated classrooms in the United States in increasing numbers, show distinctive difficulties in reading comprehension and difficulty acquiring the foundational oral language skills necessary for reading development. In this paper we describe a…

Each year thousands of students with limited English proficiency enter international schools around the world. This enrollment brings the challenge of meeting students' educational needs in such a way that students gain a working knowledge of the English language and are able to use that knowledge in other academic and social settings. The process…

Many English language learners (ELLs) in schools experience reading difficulties, particularly Spanish-speaking students. This is a serious problem given the tendency for struggling readers to fall further behind as they advance in school. This issue becomes more pressing as the number of ELLs enrolled in schools rises and the availability of…

This study was an ethnographic case study that investigated oral and written language learning in a first grade classroom in Kenya. The languages used in this classroom were Swahili and English only. Kamba the mother tongue of the majority of the children, was banned in the entire school. In this classroom there were 89 children with two teachers,…

Interventions combining phonically based reading instruction with phonological training are generally effective for children with reading (decoding) difficulties. However, a minority of children respond poorly to such interventions. This study explored the characteristics of children who showed poor response to reading intervention and aimed to…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of task-based writing instruction, a communicative language-teaching method, on second language acquisition and differentiation of instruction for English language learners during the independent work time instructional component of the Open Court Reading program. Through student-teacher…

A daily intensive supplemental reading and writing program was developed to assist students who were: 1. identified with a language disability and 2. identified as at-risk for reading failure in an urban elementary school. The purpose of the program was to help these students understand and develop the connection between oral and written language…

This study investigated the associations of oral language and reading skills with a sample of 282 Spanish-speaking English language learners across 3 years of elementary school. In the 3rd grade, the English and Spanish decoding measures formed two distinct but highly related factors, and the English and Spanish oral language measures formed two…