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This study investigated early indicators of Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) at risk for reading difficulties at the end of Grade 2 by examining their early bilingual oral language development, taking into account language of academic instruction. Standardized measures of reading and narrative samples were collected in English and Spanish from kindergarten to Grade 2 from 1,243 ELs primarily instructed in English or Spanish. Conditional growth curve models yielded four primary findings of reading and oral language development. First, ELs with low reading achievement at end of Grade 2 demonstrated early reading difficulties during kindergarten. Second, although ELs demonstrated overall higher reading achievement in their instructed language, this difference decreased over time. Third, ELs with low reading achievement at end of Grade 2 demonstrated lower oral language skills in each language over time. Fourth, ELs demonstrated overall higher oral language skills in their instructed language, yet these differences varied over time. The study provided a detailed description of the longitudinal relations among the bilingual reading and oral language skills of Spanish-speaking ELs during the early school years. These findings help to inform the processes of early identification and intervention for Spanish-speaking ELs who are likely to demonstrate reading achievement difficulties. [This paper was published in "New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development" n166 p43-77 2019 (EJ1221828).]

Articles in this issue examine (1) the primary sources of variability in reading and language achievement among Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) in the United States, (2) the extent to which poor performance at the end of grade 2 is identifiable in developmental trajectories beginning in kindergarten, (3) the relations among core reading constructs of phonological awareness and decoding in both English and Spanish and the factors that affect their relationship, (4) the performance of different approaches to identification and the factors that influence how well they work, as well as (5) the growing literature focused on intervention for reading problems in this population. This article examines the literature on language minority students and disability identification and analyzes a large-scale longitudinal dataset (>4,000 ELs; > 15,000 observations) to systematically characterize and describe the oral language and reading development of Spanish-speaking children designated as ELs from kindergarten to second grade, considering a range of factors that may potentially contribute to that characterization and its relation to academic performance. This systematic characterization should facilitate the development of an empirical basis for a theoretically grounded framework of typical development in ELs in order to more precisely identify those children with language and learning disabilities. [This paper was published in "New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development" n166 p15-41 2019 (EJ1221829).]