When a person attempts to express their thoughts in writing, they use a series of cognitive functions like working memory to access words and ideas they want to convey, phonological awareness of concepts such as syntax and more. And that is in their native language. A new study from the University of Kansas is among the first of its kind to examine cognitive functions and their role in teaching English learners to write in their second language, which can help shed light on how students learn to write and how to help close the achievement gap in the growing Hispanic English learning population’s writing abilities.
The study performed a battery of bilingual cognitive tests with nearly 500 elementary-age English learners and found the relationships between English writing performance and cognitive skills became stronger as grades increased. However, the relationships between English…
