EDUCATIONAL RESEARCHER 380 Educational Researcher,Vol. 38, No. 5, pp. 380–385 DOI: 10.3102/0013189X09339353 © 2009 AERA. http://er.aera.net Developing Reading and Writing in Second- Language Learners: Lessons From the Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Diane August and Timothy Shanahan (Eds.). New York: Routledge, 2008. 320 pp., $140.00 (hardcover), ISBN 978-0-8058-6208-9; $25.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8058-6209-6. Developing Literacy in Second-Language Learners A Review by Lisa Pray and Robert T. Jiménez This coedited work is a condensed version of a recently published compilation of research titled Developing Literacy in Second- Language Learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth (August & Shanahan, 2006). The National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth, funded by the Institute of Education Sciences, Department of Education Office of English Language Acquisition, and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, was given the charge to “identify, assess, and 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 syn- thesizing this literature” (p. x). The report purports to represent “the state of knowl- edge” on this topic in a 669-page volume that sets forth questions, methods, and summaries of empirical findings and pro- vides recommendations for future research. Its authors and editors then wrote the book under review (August & Shanahan, 2008) to make the findings of the larger report “some- what more accessible to the general reader.” The book’s intended audience includes researchers, those involved in teacher educa- tion, teachers, and other school practitioners. The organization of the book is similar to that of the larger report. The book’s introductory chapter, which is pretty much identical to that in the report, sets forth the methods in the report and a summary of the report’s findings. In the body of the book, each section condenses findings from two or more report chapters, covering English-language learners’ (ELL) literacy development and cross-linguistic relation- ships and the sociocultural context of lit- eracy, instructional approaches, and student assessment. The book’s final chapter is nearly identical to that of the report. Our review centers on three major topics: the accessibility of the book for its intended audience, the potential uses of the book in a teacher education program, and alternative perspectives on the methodology and major findings of the report and book. Dissemination of the report’s findings is a critical component of the charge assigned to the National Literacy Panel. Given the complexity of the report, condensing it must have been a daunting task. In our opinion, however, this goal was only par- tially achieved. The authors did not alter the style, construction, flow, or in some cases, text of the book to accommodate a “general reader.” The authors’ understand- ing of a general audience may have been too broad, including a range of potential readers, from researchers to teachers and other school practitioners. Researchers would be well advised to refer directly to the larger report rather than rely on this condensed version. Teachers and other school practitioners will have difficulty wading through discussions of multivari- ate and regression research designs in their quest to understand the main findings. It seems to us that it would be beneficial to synthesize across all the chapters and put together a text that is truly more accessible, such as Becoming a Nation of Readers (Anderson, Hiebert, & Scott, 1985). For example, the book could flesh out the more important findings from Lesaux and Geva. These authors show us that second- language learners perform as well or better than monolinguals on phonological tasks, that bilingual learners perform better than monolinguals on measures of print aware- ness, and that with sufficient exposure to second-language reading, language-minority students develop word-reading skills equiva- lent to those of monolingual students. It is only when reading comprehension is the focus that language-minority students encounter problems. These research find- ings need to be presented in an integrated fashion to avoid giving the impression that the authors endorse a reductionist version of literacy. Elaborating on each of these points with examples, explaining how instruction influences outcomes, and pro- viding portraits of the students undoubt- edly would be of more value to teachers and other educators. Doing so would make the book unique rather than just a reduced version of the larger report. Despite the above critique, general themes that appeared across the chapters are important to reinforce in teacher edu- cation programs and in the development of programs that serve second-language learners. For example, Garcia, McKoon, and August remind us that language profi- ciency is a multidimensional construct Literacy and English-Language Learners: What Researchers and Policy Makers Should Know Book Reviews