ABSTRACT
The formal charge to the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth was 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 synthesizing this literature. The panel's review indicates that many factors influence second-language literacy development, among them the age at which skills are acquired, individual differences in second-language oral proficiency and cognitive abilities, first-language oral proficiency and literacy, some sociocultural variables, and classroom and school factors. Our review also reports on our knowledge base about assessment.
