Patoss 2021 Virtual Conference and Annual General Meeting: Dr Markéta Caravolas – Assessment of English-Second-Language Learners at Risk of Dyslexia: Implications for Diagnosis and Teaching Support

Dr Markéta Caravolas will be hosting a Q&A session with delegates at the Patoss Virtual Conference and Annual General Meeting on the 24th of April. For more information please visit: https://www.patoss-dyslexia.org/all-events/patoss-2021-conference-and-annual-general-meeting/10372?OccId=14875

The seminar and abstract are available below:

Abstract:

An enduring question regarding language and literacy assessments in struggling readers/writers who are learning in a second or additional language, is how best to disentangle the possible causes of their difficulties. To what extent do these children’s weaker skills reflect insufficient command of the target language due to lesser exposure and practice, and to what extent might they signal underlying specific learning difficulties such as dyslexia?  In this workshop, we will review the most recent research exploring these questions in bilingual and EL2 primary school-aged populations.  Based on current findings, we will consider which skills are transferable across languages and therefore can be evaluated in either the child’s main language (L1) or second language (L2), and, which skills are less transferable and therefore best evaluated in both of the child’s spoken and/or written languages. In the practical component of the workshop, we will examine the Multilanguage Assessment Battery of Early Literacy for principles of cross-language testing and for guidelines on the interpretation of the profile of results.