Developing Reading and Writing in Second-Language Learners Lessons From the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language- Minority Children and Youth

Edited by MARGARET HAWKINS University of Wisconsin Developing Reading and Writing in Second-Language Learners: Lessons From the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minorit

REVIEWS

TESOL Quarterly welcomes evaluative reviews of publications relevant to TESOL

professionals.

Edited by MARGARET HAWKINS

University of Wisconsin

Developing Reading and Writing in Second-Language Learners: Lessons From the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth

Diane August and Timothy Shanahan (Eds.) New York: Routledge; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics; Newark, DE:

International Reading Association, 2008 Pp vii–321

䡲 Children who have yet to acquire English continue to enter schools across the United States The individual states, responsible for schooling

as they are, have formulated policy, developed tests, organized programs, and prepared teachers in order to fulfi ll the commitment the nation has made to teaching all children to be literate in English Through the years, the practical experience of educators has shaped instruction largely in accord with favored ways of teaching native speakers But in these times,

it is evidence from solid research on learning to read and write that is being called on This book ambitiously brings together the results of rel-evant research in recent years, seeking trustworthy generalizations to guide our understanding—and reveal our ignorance—of children’s achievements in reading and writing in a second language

No one interested in carrying out research on schooling for English language learners can overlook this work It is, in fact, a reduced version

of a massive report prepared by a panel of highly accomplished scholars

in response to a charge by the Institute for Educational Sciences of the U.S Department of Education to identify, evaluate, and synthesize research on language-minority children’s attainment in literacy (August

& Shanahan, 2006) Concentrating on literacy, it deepens a recent syn-thesis of research on literacy and broader educational attainments of English language learners (Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Saunders, & Christian, 2006) To shape the original report into a more manageable volume, the editors have maintained the basic organization of the areas

378 TESOL QUARTERLY

of research addressed in the original report but have condensed multiple

chapters in each area to single chapters

The perspective on what counts as valued research methods and fi

nd-ings is presented with clarity and vigor A full chapter is given to the

meth-odology of the review, followed by a brief demographic overview of the

American multilingual condition Members of the panel articulated a set

of research questions to frame their inquiry into each of fi ve areas,

seek-ing general trends and uncoverseek-ing gaps With few exceptions, only

rigor-ous studies that yielded quantitative measures of progress in reading and

writing and appeared in peer-reviewed journals from 1980–2005 were

considered (Relevant studies from outside the United States were

included, especially from Canada, a country well represented on the

panel.) When appropriate, these outcome measures were then analyzed

through the technique of meta-analysis, but if the number of studies on a

given question was too limited, the results were analyzed through

system-atic examination Qualitative studies in some areas were considered and

incorporated into the narrative

The fi ve areas of concern addressed by subcommittees of the panel

encapsulate much of the complexity of becoming literate in English as a

second language At the same time, they highlight the challenge of validly

capturing children’s literate achievements across languages, school

set-tings, and social conditions The fi rst area, “Developmental Perspective,”

concerns the path of development among English language learners as

they advance in mastery In this area, a variety of measures, including some

as abstract as phonological memory, are related to learning second

lan-guage reading skills at the word level and at the text level The second area,

“The Role of First Language Oral Profi ciency and Literacy in Second

Language Development,” takes up the connection between learners’

spo-ken and written language accomplishments in their fi rst language and

their literacy attainments in English as a second language This connection

is explored especially with respect to the notion of transfer from one

lan-guage to another The third area, “The Infl uence of Sociocultural Variables,”

addresses how a small set of sociocultural factors, such as recent

immigra-tion, may infl uence literacy achievement In this case, the panel expressed

much skepticism regarding the nature of evidence from relevant studies

The fourth area, “Classroom and School Factors,” is the most extensive,

bringing together fi ndings on educational matters such as the language of

instruction, the organization of instruction, and teachers’ preparation for

instruction for English language learners The evidence in this section,

though, defi es generalization from one research topic to the next, even as

it confi rms longstanding fi ndings, for instance, the moderate evidence

that instruction in children’s fi rst language contributes to their attainment

in reading and writing English An important topic in this area concerns

learning English by children identifi ed as in need of special education

REVIEWS 379

The fi fth area, “Assessment,” takes up the measures of assessment used

in the research examined for this report as well as the purposes, nature, and quality of widely adopted tests used to classify English language learn-ers in schools From this overview, the meager amount of research on assessment is evident

In line with the charge to synthesize the research, each chapter includes

a summary of the empirical fi ndings in the specifi c area In some cases, furthermore, detailed appendices ground the narrative report in tables presenting, for instance, the instructional components of intervention studies In line with the charge to evaluate the scope and trustworthiness

of the research, each chapter also includes a section on methodological issues, discussing the strengths and the shortcomings of the research at hand Each chapter ends with recommendations for further rigorous studies into unanswered questions A concluding chapter by Catherine Snow, a senior advisor to the panel of scholars, sketches crosscutting themes, contrasting the research we have and the research we need Readers will note that this report, given the concentration on the mea-surable attainment of literacy, leaves little room for recognizing the tex-ture of children’s development in a second language With respect to the importance of phonemic awareness and phonics in early reading and writing, for instance, it hardly touches on how children might become aware of sounds when their own English pronunciation is only emerging

It barely mentions the asymmetries between comprehension and produc-tion or notes differences in form and funcproduc-tion between spoken and writ-ten language that may come into play as children construct their linguistic knowledge It appears to be stuck in a limited perspective on the nature

of second language acquisition, ignoring recent theoretical shifts that view it as a linguistic, a psychological, and a social enterprise embedded

in the variety of classroom and community practices prevalent in American life This quest for meaningful generalizations about learning literacy in English through the recent research literature, while offering fi ndings, begs readers to review their stance, assumptions, and experience

REFERENCES

August, D., & Shanahan, T (2006) Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report

of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth Mahwah, NJ:

Erlbaum; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics

Genesee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, W M., & Christian, D (2006) Educating

English language learners: A synthesis of research evidence New York: Cambridge

University Press

ROSE-MARIE WEBER

University at Albany, State University of New York

Albany, New York, United States