English Reading Profiles of Spanish-English Bilingual Adolescents

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 22
  In Roundtable Session: Illuminating the Linguistic Repertoires of Emerging Bilingual Students

Abstract

This paper uses Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to identify and describe profiles of English reading skills amongst Spanish-English bilingual adolescent students. LCA offers advantages over traditional cut-score methods for identifying profiles of readers by accounting for heterogeneity and offering a person-centered approach. Participants (N = 101) were given a battery of assessments measuring oral language, decoding, reading accuracy, reading fluency, reading comprehension, and executive functions. Preliminary results indicate two classes of readers for Grade 6, representing below- and above-average readers, and three classes for Grade 7, with two of these classes representing readers with difficulties and different profiles of word reading and executive functions. These findings indicate the heterogeneity in reading profiles emerging in adolescence.

Authors

• Andrew Weaver, New York University

• Michael J. Kieffer, New York University