Reading Instruction for Multilingual Learners at the Secondary Level

23rd Sep 2026

Newcomer students and long-term English learners are not the same population, and a single program rarely serves either one well.

In most districts, multilingual learners are concentrated in elementary classrooms. Federal data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that 14.7 percent of kindergarteners were classified as English learners in fall 2021, compared with 9.0 percent of eighth graders and 6.1 percent of twelfth graders. That distribution shapes how districts invest. Most EL professional learning, most EL curriculum adoption, and most EL coaching dollars land in K to 5 buildings.

The result for secondary administrators is a structural mismatch. The students who reach middle and high school still classified as English learners are, on average, the students for whom the elementary system did not work. They include adolescent newcomers who arrived in the United States after age twelve and long-term English learners, often called LTELs, who have been in U.S. schools for six or more years without exiting EL status. These two populations look superficially similar on a roster. They need fundamentally different reading instruction.

Two populations, two profiles

Adolescent newcomers arrive at secondary having missed the entire English-language foundation that K to 3 instruction is designed to build. Many also bring interrupted formal education in their first language, especially students arriving from conflict zones or migrant pathways. Their reading instruction needs to begin with the foundational skills the elementary system never had the chance to give them, while simultaneously delivering grade-level content so they do not fall further behind in social studies, science, and math.

Long-term English learners are a different story, and one that often surprises administrators encountering the research for the first time. Laurie Olsen, whose 2010 landmark study Reparable Harm for Californians Together examined 40 California school districts, documented a consistent pattern: many LTELs sound fluent in English, particularly in conversational and oral settings, but struggle significantly with academic literacy. A recent WestEd research summary on the population reports the same finding, noting that many students labeled LTEL show advanced oral English skills while assessments reveal significant gaps in reading.

In practice, an LTEL in eighth grade may be a student who passes for a native English speaker in the hallway, fails the state ELA test, and gets routed to a reading intervention class that was designed for students who lack oral English. The intervention does not target the actual gap, which is academic vocabulary, syntactic complexity, and reading volume.

What the research base actually supports

There is no single program that solves secondary EL literacy, but the research points to several non-negotiable design elements that should appear in any plan.

First, sustained access to grade-level content with appropriate scaffolds. Research from the EL Research and Development Center at WestEd is consistent on this point: ELs in many districts have less access to core content than their non-EL peers, and that access gap compounds the literacy gap rather than resolving it. Pulling students out of biology to give them more English is, in most cases, not the answer.

Second, explicit instruction in academic vocabulary, morphology, and syntax. This is what closes the gap that LTELs are stuck on, and what newcomers need to make grade-level content accessible. Generic ELD instruction without explicit attention to academic language structures rarely moves the literacy needle at secondary.

Third, accessible text. This is the point that hi-lo publishers like Saddleback have built their secondary EL catalogs around. A newcomer in tenth grade cannot enter grade-level texts on day one. An LTEL cannot rebuild a reader identity around texts that humiliate them. Both populations need a deep, age-respectful library of material at varied reading levels, and they need enough of it to support volume.

“A combination of factors paves the way for the extended stay in ESL services: weak language programs, inconsistent schooling, lack of access to full curriculum and to appropriate language services, and disproportionate representation of ELs in special education.”

Research summary drawing on Olsen (2010), Reparable Harm, Californians Together

What administrators should look for

When evaluating an EL reading program for adoption at secondary, three questions tend to separate strong programs from compliance theater.

Does the program distinguish between newcomers and LTELs in its design, or does it treat them as a single category? Programs that flatten the two populations into one are not built on current research.

Does the program provide accessible, age-appropriate text at multiple reading levels, including text that can be used in content-area classes? Volume requires range, and range requires investment in the classroom library, not just the core program.

Does the program connect to a clear progress-monitoring system that tracks both English proficiency and reading proficiency separately? An LTEL who has stalled needs different data than a newcomer who is progressing.

What changes in tier 2 and tier 3

Intervention design for secondary multilingual learners should not look like a generic reading intervention with translation supports added. The skill profile is too specific.

  • For newcomers, tier 2 and tier 3 may need to include foundational decoding instruction in English, taught explicitly and quickly, paired with rich oral language work.
  • For LTELs, intervention typically focuses on academic vocabulary, morphology, syntactic complexity, and reading volume, not on basic decoding.
  • Both groups benefit from sustained, choice-driven independent reading at their level, with text they can actually finish.
  • Both groups need their progress monitored with measures that map to the actual skill being targeted, not a generic comprehension score.

The bottom line

Secondary multilingual learners are a small share of EL headcount nationally, but they are a high-stakes population for the districts that serve them. The students who reach middle and high school still classified as EL are also the students most likely to leave high school without a diploma, without college readiness, and without a strong reader identity. The instruction they receive matters more, not less, than the instruction their K to 5 peers receive. Designing for them well requires two distinct profiles, two distinct intervention paths, and a text catalog deep enough to serve both.

 

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