Conducting Second Language Reading Research: A Methodological Guide Resources

This database had its inception in 1991 with the publication of Reading Development in a Second Language (Bernhardt, 1991). Influenced by Guthrie, Seifert, and Mosberg (1983), the 1991 database was constructed from a review of an array of journals frequently referenced by teachers and researchers in the English-speaking world as well as from a set of edited volumes. It resulted in a collation of 121 published research studies. Nine thematic categories resulted: word recognition; background knowledge factors; text-structure analyses; oral-aural factors; syntactic features; cross-lingual processing strategies; metacognitive strategies; testing methods; and instruction. Within each of the nine categories, number of subjects as well as the language of focus; independent variables; dependent variables; and findings were distilled.

Over the years, several expansions of the database have been conducted. By 2011, 25 journals had been explored. These include The Modern Language Journal, Applied Linguistics, TESOL Quarterly, Foreign Language Annals, Language Learning, Reading Research Quarterly, Journal of Literacy Behavior, NABE Journal, Die Unterrichtspraxis, Hispania, French Review, ADFL Bulletin, CALICO Journal, AERJ, Journal of Research in Reading, Research and Reading Instruction, Reading and Writing, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Second Language Research, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Reading Teacher, Reading Improvement, RELC Journal, Reading in a Foreign Language, and The Reading Matrix.. Searching through the years 1998-2008 yielded over 200 studies for analysis and several additional journal titles (The Language Learning Journal, Applied Psycholinguistics, Scientific Studies of Reading, and Reading Psychology). The resulting spreadsheet includes a total of 776 individual articles as of 2019. Each article is coded according to general theme of the research; number of subjects, languages, and tasks. A brief list of findings is included.