DEVELOPING LITERACY IN SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNERS: REPORT OF THE NATIONAL LITERACY PANEL ON LANGUAGE-MINORITY CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Abstract

DEVELOPING LITERACY IN SECOND-LANGUAGE LEARNERS: REPORT OF THE NATIONAL LITERACY PANEL ON LANGUAGE-MINORITY CHILDREN AND YOUTH.Diane August and Timothy Shanahan (Eds.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2006. Pp. vii + 669. $65.00 paper.This is the outcome of work by the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. The panel included experts from the United States and Canada selected by the Institute of Education Sciences. The topics addressed include second language (L2) development, cognitive development, curriculum and instruction, assessment, and methodology. Concerned with how best to improve literacy achievement for language-minority students, the collection is a synthesis of more than 200 systematically selected research reports on the development of literacy for language-minority students. The panel (with August as principal investigator and Shanahan as Chair) undertook a comprehensive review of studies on language-minority students based mainly in the United States but also incorporated studies from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Finland, and Israel.