Investigating the Reading Profiles of Middle School Emergent Bilinguals with Significant Reading Comprehension Difficulties

ABSTRACTPurpose This study investigated the reading profiles of middle school Spanish-speaking emergent bilinguals (EBs) with significantly below grade level reading comprehension and whether these profiles varied in their reading comprehension performance over time.Method Latent profile analyses were used to classify Grade 6 and 7 Hispanic EBs (n = 340; 39% female) into subgroups based on their word reading and vocabulary knowledge. Growth models were then fit within each profile to evaluate reading comprehension performance over time.Results Analyses revealed four latent profiles emerged: (a) very low word reading and low vocabulary (10%), (b) low word reading and low vocabulary (71%), (c) average word reading and low vocabulary (16%), and (d) high word reading and low vocabulary (3%). Subgroups varied in their reading comprehension initially and over one year. Students in the subgroup marked by very low word reading and low vocabulary showed the lowest reading comprehension performance initially; however, they also showed the greatest growth over one year.Conclusion These findings suggest that there is heterogeneity in the reading skill profiles of Spanish-speaking EBs with reading comprehension difficulties. They also underscore the prevalence of word reading difficulties among these students. These may be important factors to consider when developing interventions to prevent and remediate these difficulties. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1. We draw a distinction here between adjusting instructional foci based on specific skill profiles in reading (e.g., word reading) and aptitude (e.g., working memory, long-term memory). Although researchers have long examined aptitude-by-treatment interactions (for an early example, see Cronbach & Snow, Citation1977), this line of research has not yielded strong evidence that interventions are differentially effective for students based on measures of aptitude (e.g., working and long-term memory, e.g., Burns et al., Citation2016). However, there is some empirical support for the notion that instructional content should be adjusted to align with the component reading skill needs of struggling readers (e.g., Burns et al., Citation2018; Connor et al., Citation2004; McMaster et al., Citation2012).Additional informationFundingThis research was supported by grant P50 HD052117-07 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health. This work was also supported by grant R305C200016 from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. However, the content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health, nor the U.S. Department of Education.