The aim of this article is to inform on research intended to find out how pronunciation instruction of English as a foreign language was handled in the language classroom with elementary students and also understand if pronunciation instruction had an impact on students' confidence when using it. In order to do this, a qualitative case study was…

We examined the direct impact of an ongoing, intensive, and structured professional development (PD) within an English-as-second-language (ESL) instructional intervention on (a) teachers' time allocation in cognitive--academic language proficiency (CALP) and (b) Spanish-speaking English language learners' (ELLs) CALP development from the second to…

This particularistic qualitative case study design examined reading strategies, approaches, and resources teachers of ELL (English Language Learner) students in kindergarten through third grade use to support reading development and promote the home to school connection regarding literacy proficiency. The purpose of this study was to examine…

English proficiency difference among students is a challenging pedagogical issue in EFL classrooms worldwide. Collaborative digital storytelling has been adopted in language learning settings to increase motivation and engagement, especially for young learners. However, it remains unknown whether students of different proficiency levels can…

This article draws on research carried out in a Chinese complementary school in Scotland. The research focused on children's experience of learning to read Chinese and on the strategies that they used to support their learning. Here, I provide an account of one particular aspect of this research, namely the creation of a dialogic space for…

Fluency in reading is critical for becoming a successful reader and strongly correlates with reading comprehension. Fluency in reading refers to appropriate reading speed, accurate word recognition, appropriate phrasing, and appropriate expression when reading orally. Reader's Theater (RT) is a reading instructional method that requires readers to…

This article highlights two bilingual families who participated in a larger study titled "Revaluing Readers and Families." Drawing on multiple theoretical perspectives to highlight the experiences of a Greek and English speaking family and a Spanish and English speaking family, this article explores how these two bilingual families…

It is essential for learners to develop foundational literacy skills, ideally, in the first grade of formal education. These skills are then firmly entrenched and can be expanded in the following grades to form a basis for all future academic studies. Appropriate assessment practices and tools to aid this process can inform the achievement of…

This study examines bi-literacy development among 60 children enrolled in an Italian-English dual language (DL) program in Southern California. Using a variety of measures including (1) oral reading fluency (ORF), (2) accuracy scores, and (3) standardized test for the assessment of reading (STAR) test's estimates of reading ability for English,…

This study investigates the relation between Spanish and English early literacy skills in kindergarten and first grade, and English oral reading fluency at the end of first and second grade in a sample of 150 Spanish-speaking English language learners. Students were assessed in kindergarten, first, and second grades on a broad bilingual academic…

The purpose of this article is to provide background on integrating social-emotional learning (SEL) into classroom oral reading practices. The section that follows outlines some of the language and academic demands English learners (ELs) face at school. Another section considers the relationship between academic and social-emotional learning. The…

This study investigated parents' backgrounds and their beliefs about English language learning, and compared the receptive English vocabulary development of three to six year-old-Thai children before and after participating in a parent-child reading program with the dialogic reading (DR) method. Fifty-four single parents of 54 children voluntarily…

This article offers a fine-grained investigation of how first-language (L1) phonetics involving English rhotics affect Spanish rhotic production by second-language (L2) learners. Specifically, this study investigates how different L1 English rhotic articulatory routines (retroflex-like and bunched-like) and the phonetic context that produces…

Children cannot learn to speak a language simply from occasional noninteractive exposure to native speakers' input (e.g., by hearing television dialogues), but can they learn something about its phonology? To answer this question, the present study varied ambient hearing experience for 126 5- to 7-year-old native Cantonese-Chinese speakers…

The present study examined various aspects of the development of learners' fluency in Japanese using a large set of speech samples collected over a long period, using an online speaking practice/assessment system called "Speak Everywhere." The purpose of the present study was to examine: (1) how the fluency related measures changed over…