What We Know about Young L2 Readers and Reading Instruction

The purpose of this article is to categorize and synthesize research published in Korea on beginning L2 readers and reading instruction, as well as to provide suggestions for future research. To this end, indexes from three national refereed journals were searched back to 2000, and a total of 50 studies were analyzed in terms of research methods and themes. An analysis of the methodological trends demonstrated a distinct trend toward quantitative research and experimental/quasi-experimental studies, but there was not a large gap between quantitative and qualitative studies. Six topic clusters had also emerged from a systematic interpretative analysis of the studies: phonological and lexical processes, text comprehension processes, instructional methods, curriculum and instructional materials, teachers and instructional practices, and theory and implications. The most researched area was instructional methods, and the least researched area among empirical studies was teachers and instructional practices. Important findings of interest or themes are presented in each topic cluster. For some clusters, findings are compared with what is known about L1 readers and groups of L2 readers with different L1 backgrounds. The study concludes with a summary of the findings and some directions for future research.