Performing a stay in a country where the L2 is the official language can provide the perfect immersion for L2 development (traditional study abroad). In the case of English learners, internationalization and the role of English as a lingua franca make it unnecessary to perform the stay in an English-speaking country. Hence, an increasing number of…

This experiment investigated comprehension monitoring in children learning English as an additional language (EAL) compared to monolinguals. Sixty-three 9-10-year-old children read texts containing an internal inconsistency (e.g. a barking kitten vs. barking puppy) while their eye movements were monitored. Standardized tests measured word reading…

This study examines the genetic and environmental etiology underlying the development of oral language and reading skills, and the relationship between them, over a long period of developmental time spanning middle childhood and adolescence. It focuses particularly on the differential relationship between language and two different aspects of…

Although eye movements have been used widely to investigate how skilled adult readers process written language, relatively little research has used this methodology with children. This is unfortunate as, as we discuss here, eye-movement studies have significant potential to inform our understanding of children's reading development. We consider…

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a progressive genetic condition that affects both muscle and brain. Children with DMD are at risk of psycho-social difficulties such as poor academic achievement and behavioural and socio-emotional problems. This article by Janet Hoskin and Angela Fawcett, both from the University of Swansea, describes how 34…

When children start to learn to read English, they benefit from learning grapheme-phoneme correspondences. As they become more skilled, they use larger graphophonic units and morphemes in word recognition and spelling. We hypothesized that these 2 types of units in decoding make independent contributions to children's reading comprehension and…

Background: A significant number of pupils in UK schools learn English as an additional language (EAL). Relative differences between the educational attainment of this group and monolingual, English-speaking pupils call for an exploration of the literacy needs of EAL learners. Aims: This study explores the developmental progression of reading and…

It is generally accepted that dyslexia should be identified early for interventions to have maximum effect. However, when children speak English as an additional language (EAL), diagnosis is more complex and there is concern that these children tend to be under-identified. This paper reports a longitudinal study following the development of…