English Learners & Emergent Bilinguals

Supporting English Learners and Emergent Bilinguals Through Evidence-Aligned Literacy Instruction

According to the United States Census Bureau, English learners/emergent bilinguals (ELs/EBs) are the fastest-growing population of students entering our schools. The term English Learner is the official designation given to children who speak a language other than English at home and who enter schools with limited English proficiency as measured by designated English proficiency assessments. Emergent Bilingual is a more asset-based and aspirational term, as students should continue to use and develop literacy in their home language alongside their language of instruction, leading to biliteracy.

According to the most recent data available, the number of ELs/EBs in U.S. schools continues to rise. In the 2021-2022 academic year, approximately 5.6 million ELs/EBs were enrolled in public schools across the country (U.S. Department of Education, 2022). This represents a significant portion of the student population, accounting for approximately 9.9% of all students in U.S. schools (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022). This data illustrates the ongoing increase in the number of ELs, highlighting the continued need for targeted support and evidence-based instructional practices to meet the unique needs of these students. As such, all schools need to understand what the research says about teaching ELs/EBs to read.

The understanding of reading development in students learning alphabetic and non-alphabetic languages is grounded in global research, contributing to the science of reading (leer en Español). Certain universally applicable findings have emerged from the work of scientists and researchers. For instance, it is well-known that in alphabetic languages, children must establish associations between speech sounds of their language and the corresponding letters in written form. It is also understood that all students must know the meanings of words to comprehend what they decode. These insights collectively contribute to our understanding of reading development across different linguistic systems.

The science of reading helps us understand the important role of explicit and systematic instruction to develop accurate and automatic word recognition, as well as the importance of binding those words to language. Despite this clear understanding, there are many nuances and questions to be answered about the time allocation for foundational skills instruction while ensuring adequate time to develop language comprehension skills to support understanding. It is, however, widely understood that skilled reading requires both word recognition and language comprehension for all students, with additional English language development to support comprehension for our EL/EB students.

Transforming to alignment with the science of reading: Important considerations