Getting to the Bottom
"English L2 Reading refocuses attention on the often forgotten, bottom-up skills in reading English as a second language. It strikes a good balance between theory and practice." Paul Abraham, Simmons College, USA "...provides an effective review of key linguistic points and ties them to reading and writing. This text offers a perfect balance between theory and practice, consistently providing concrete illustrations of research on second language literacy." Sarah Dietrich, Salem State University, USA "This is a book that really gets to 'the bottom'. It unpacks what is meant by the term and demonstrates explicitly why bottom up knowledge is important and what its components are. It's a book I'd been seeking for a long while. English L2 Reading provides us with specific information on how to teach L2 learners through showing us how language awareness is critical for teaching L2 English reading." Vanessa Wenzell, California State University Dominguez Hills, USA
Barbara M. Birch is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at California State University - Fresno, USA.
Contents Preface 1. The Expert Decision-Maker 2. Writing Systems 3. Low-level Transfer of Reading Strategies 4. Listening Skills in Reading 5. Processing Letters 6. The English Spelling System 7. Approaches to Phonics 8. English Morphophonemic Spelling 9. Spelling Development 10. Vocabulary Acquisition 11. Getting to the Bottom of English L2 Fluency Appendix A: English graphemes Appendix B: English Phonemes and their Principal Spellings References Index