CUE June 2026 Newsletter

Reading Achievement for Multilingual Learners: What the Research Asks of Us

In 2024, 71% of multilingual learners were reading below grade level by 4th grade compared to 35% of their peers—a gap that has persisted for decades. We  at the UNC Center for Urban Education, in partnership with school leaders and teachers, can close this gap by incorporating these research findings into our daily work.

Key Points

• Multilingual learners develop literacy across all their languages at once—not sequentially, and not in isolation.
• A child’s home language supports reading in a second language. This is called cross-linguistic transfer. It’s a resource, not a barrier.
• Strong reading development for multilingual learners requires oral language, vocabulary, decoding, and comprehension working together—not phonics alone.
• When instruction excludes the home language, learning suffers. When it’s included, vocabulary, comprehension, and reading outcomes improve.
• Closing the gap takes intentional decisions at every level—curriculum, assessment, professional development, and policy.

Too many multilingual learners are falling behind in reading—and it’s not because they can’t learn. This gap has been building for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic made it worse, but it didn’t create it.

The encouraging part: This is fixable. Research is clear on what works.

Who We’re Talking About

“Multilingual learners” describes children who are learning English while also speaking another language at home and those who actively developing proficiency in two or more languages. This includes dual language learners (ages 0–8) and students labeled English Learners in K–12 schools.

These students make up about 31% of all K–12 students in the Denver metropolitan area—yet most Science of Reading policies were written without them in mind. State laws often set broad reading instruction requirements but say nothing about how those approaches need to work differently for children learning to read in more than one language.

The Core Insight: Languages Work Together

Here’s one of the most important things research tells us: Multilingual learners don’t build reading skills in one language and then start over in another. The skills develop at the same time, across both languages, and each language helps the other.

This is called cross-linguistic transfer. A child who learns to hear and work with sounds in Spanish brings that skill to English, too. The same goes for vocabulary knowledge, comprehension, and an understanding of how written language works.

That means when schools treat the home language as a distraction from English learning, they’re working against how multilingual children actually develop. Investing in a child’s home language isn’t a detour. It helps English literacy grow.

What Effective Instruction Looks Like

Multilingual learners need the same core reading instruction as any student—phonics, vocabulary, oral language, comprehension. But that instruction has to account for the fact that these children are learning in more than one language. Without that adjustment, results will fall short and achievement gaps will persist.

Effective reading instruction for multilingual learners:

• Goes beyond phonics. Building spoken language skills—in both English and the home language—is the foundation reading comprehension rests on. Phonics reforms that skip this step won’t move the needle for multilingual learners.
• Uses the home language on purpose. Teachers don’t need to be fluent in every student’s home language. They do need to make intentional space for it and compare words and sounds across languages, validating what children already know.
• Makes language connections visible. When students see how their languages relate—similar patterns, shared roots, structural differences—it strengthens learning in both. This isn’t a bonus activity; it’s core instruction.
• Measures what students actually know. Testing only in English gives an incomplete picture. A child may fully understand a concept but not yet have the English word for it. Assessment in the home language fills that gap.

What Leaders Need to Make Possible

Good instruction for multilingual learners requires more than individual teacher effort. Leaders need to make deliberate choices:

• Professional development focused on multilingual learners—not just general reading training. Teachers need to understand how languages interact and how to adapt instruction accordingly.
• Curriculum that reflects students’ languages and cultures. Materials that don’t represent children’s backgrounds miss opportunities to build connection and meaning.
• Assessment in the home language, with credit given for knowledge demonstrated in any language (called conceptual scoring).
• Dual language programs, where possible. The research is consistent: Students in high-quality dual language programs develop stronger reading skills in both languages than peers in English-only programs.

The Stakes

Reading isn’t just an academic skill. It shapes whether children go to college, what jobs they can access, how they navigate health systems, and how they participate in public life. For multilingual learners, strong literacy instruction also means staying connected to their home language and culture—something that matters deeply to families.

When a school community decides to treat home languages as strengths rather than obstacles, that’s not just good teaching. It is essential.

The research tells us what works and defines the instructional strategies that will have an impact.