Reading in a Second Language

Understanding reading abilities and their development is fundamental for language comprehension and human cognition. Now in its second edition, this book draws on research from multiple disciplines to explain reading abilities in both L1 and L2, and shows how this research can be applied in practice in order to support reading development. Research into reading has progressed a great deal since the first edition was published, so this edition has been completely updated and revised, in order to reflect these advances. All chapters present updated research studies, and completely new chapters are included on the neurocognition of reading, reading-writing relationships, and digital reading. If you want to know how reading works, no matter the language(s) involved, as well as how it can be taught effectively, this book provides a persuasive research foundation and many practical insights. It is essential reading for academic researchers and students in Applied Linguistics and TESOL.

William Grabe is Emeritus Regents Professor of Applied Linguistics at Northern Arizona University (NAU). He has been exploring research on reading comprehension, reading development, and reading instruction for over 40 years. He was President of AAAL from 2001-2002, and Vice President for Research at NAU from 2012-2017.

Junko Yamashita is Professor at Graduate School of Humanities, Nagoya University. Her main research areas are second language reading and lexical processing. Her work has appeared in research articles, book chapters, and a co-edited book Reading to Learn in a Foreign Language (2019). One of her collaborative papers received the fourth J-CHAT Best Paper Award (2012).