AERA Open - January-March 2020 - Exploring the Cross-Linguistic Contribution of Spanish and English Academic Language Skills to English Text Comprehension for Middle-Grade Dual Language Learners

Oct 15, 2026

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Examines how Spanish and English core academic language skills (CALS) contribute uniquely and jointly to English reading comprehension among Spanish-English dual language learners in Grades 4 and 5 (n = 165). The study models cross-disciplinary CALS as high-utility lexical, syntactic, and discourse resources common in school texts. Results show positive, significant relations between Spanish and English CALS and that both skill sets exert unique positive effects on English reading comprehension. Findings support linguistic interdependence aligned with literacy and content learning in both languages.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages20

Reading Time50 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Dual language immersion and English reading development

Academic language skills and their role in comprehension

Research gap and study purpose

AERA Open January-March 2020, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1–20 DOI: 10. 1177/2332858419892575 Article reuse guidelines: [sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)© The Author(s) 2020. [http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero](http://journals.sagepub.com/home/ero) Exploring the Cross-Linguistic Contribution of Spanish and English Academic Language Skills to English Text Comprehension for Middle-Grade Dual Language Learners Emily Phillips Galloway Vanderbilt University Paola Uccelli Gladys Aguilar Harvard University Christopher D. Barr Rice University In this study, we examine the unique and shared contributions of Spanish and English core academic language skills (CALS) to English reading comprehension in a population of Spanish-English dual language learners in Grades 4 and 5 (n = 165). We focus on cross-disciplinary CALS, operationalized as sets of high-utility lexical, syntactic and discourse resources prevalent in school texts. This study finds that Spanish and English CALS are positively and significantly related, and, further, that both sets of skills exert a unique positive influence on English reading comprehension. Aligned with an interpretation of linguistic interdependence between Spanish and English academic language skills, results document their cross-linguistic contribution to reading comprehension for students enrolled in educational programs that foster literacy and content learning regularly in two languages. Keywords: adolescence, bilingual/bicultural, language comprehension/development, literacy, reading, structural equation modeling, vocabulary Introduction In the United States, where approximately one-fifth of all children speak a language other than English (Ryan, 2013), Dual Language Immersion (DLI) is increasingly regarded asa promising bilingual education model. While less common than English-only instruction in the United States, recent studies document that DLI students, on average, evidence English reading skills that are commensurate with those of students enrolled in English-only instruction by the upper elementary grades (Genesee, Lindholm-Leary, Christian, & Saunders, 2006; Steele et al., 2017; Umansky & Reardon, 2014). Moreover, in their recent study, Kiefferand Thompson (2018) hypothesize that access to high-quality DLI may be partially responsible for their finding that bi-/multilingual students in U.S. schools tended to outpace their monolingual peers in their rates of reading growth. Among the factors that may contribute to reading development in DLI settings—where students use two languages for reading, writing, and learning—are increased opportunities to learn academic language resources (Aguilar, Uccelli,& Phillips Galloway, 2019) . Academic languages (ALs) encompass lexical, syntactic, and discursive resources used recurrently for explaining concepts in the disciplines, exploring and negotiating understandings in academic communities, and for flexibly enacting social roles and stances prevalent in these communities (e.g., epistemically cautious expert, skeptical colleague, or respectful critic) . ALs are learned through authentic and meaningful participation in languagemediated learning tasks in classrooms, where this language learning makes possible more expansive participation in these and other academic communities of practice. Germaneto this study, ALs are one resource for precisely expressing abstract concepts in print and, so proficiency in this language facilitates understanding of academic texts. In fact, studies consistently find that bi/multilingual and monolingual students educated in English-only settings with higher levels of English ALs proficiency demonstrate an advantage in English text comprehension (Barr, Uccelli, & Phillips Galloway, 2019; Phillips Galloway & Uccelli, 2019; Uccelli, Barr, et al., 2015; Uccelli, Phillips Galloway, et al., 2015) . Similarly, Spanish ALs proficiency signif

FAQs

What is the study investigating regarding Spanish and English learners?

The study examines how Spanish and English academic language skills uniquely and jointly relate to English text comprehension for middle-grade dual language learners.

How are academic language skills (CALS) defined in this research?

CALS are operationalized as high-utility lexical, syntactic, and discourse resources prevalent in school texts for explaining concepts and engaging in academic language use.

What do the results show about CALS across the two languages?

Spanish and English CALS are positively and significantly related, and both sets of skills independently and positively influence English reading comprehension.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Stanford