How should reading comprehension instruction accommodate for bilingual, English language learners (ELLs), and monolingual children?
processes (Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Wang & Geva, 2003). Large and consistent gaps between the performance of language-minority and language-majority children are traceable to differences in vocabulary knowledge (August, Carlo, Dressler, & Snow, 2005). According to Biemiller and Slonim (2001), students instructed in their first language can call upon 5,000 to 7,000 words they have learned before they begin formal reading instruction. However, students instructed in a second language can call upon fewer words in that language and have lower depth of word knowledge in the second language.
