English Language Learners: Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners—Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth

English Language Learners: Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners—Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth

Timothy Shanahan

In 2006, the long awaited and much heralded Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth was published in the form of a book entitled Developing Literacy in Second Language Learners (August & Shanahan, 2006). The book’s stated purpose was to “synthesize research on the education of language-minority children and youth with respect to their attainment of literacy, and to produce a comprehensive report evaluating and synthesizing this literature” (p. xiv).

The contents of the book reflect four years of work (2002–2006) conducted by a panel of 13 experts in second language development, cognitive development, curriculum and instruction, assessment, and methodology selected by the Institute of Education Sciences staff and initially funded by several major agencies in the U.S. Department of Education, and by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHE) through funds transferred to the U.S. Department of Education, OELA—Office of English Language Acquisition, and the IES—Institute for Educational Sciences (August & Shanahan, 2006). The work of conducting the syntheses of research was also carried out by SRI International and the Center for Applied Linguistics and SRI International. Ultimately, the panel decided on five domains of investigation: 1) Development of Literacy in Second-Language Learners, 2) Cross-linguistic Relationships in Second Language Learners, 3) Socio-cultural Contexts and Literacy Development for Language Minority Students, 4) Educating Language Minority Students: Instructional Approaches and Professional Development, and 5) Language and Literacy Assessment of Language-Minority Students.

According to the authors, the intended audience for this report is “researchers interested in the development of literacy in language-minority students; sections are relevant to researchers studying literacy more generally, as well as to practitioners concerned about improving the education of language minority students” (p. xiv).

To the authors’ credit, the methodology and search criteria are well reported throughout the book. It could be easily replicated. Each section begins with an overview chapter that captures and highlights the findings in the subsequent chapters. While the text overall is quite dense, these summary chapters are somewhat more digestible and could provide readers with an entrance to the topics without requiring wading through the more detailed chapters. The chapters themselves are written in a discourse style that is quite dense, making it difficult for the reader to understand the details while keeping the big picture in mind. This writing style permeates the book, and while the report may be useful to researchers, it is unlikely to be useful to practitioners and policy makers who are closest to the children and students most in need of more enlightened and appropriate instruction in first and second language literacy. Moreover, the major findings in the Report had more to do with what we do not know about literacy for second language learners than what we do know. This is particularly the case for the development of writing in a second language.