© 2025 Vista Higher Learning Reading and Writing Growth with Vista’s Engage 4 High School Readers and Writers For high school MLs, the stakes are clear. Texts are denser and discipline specific. National indicators show persistent gaps (NCES, 2019, 2022). By secondary school, language factors (Foorman, Petscher, & Herrera, 2018) and core academic language skills (CALS) (Uccelli et al., 2015)—including connectives, complex syntax, and cross-disciplinary discourse—are particularly predictive of comprehension. Students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE) may also face mismatches with US disciplinary text norms (Massachusetts DESE, 2022). Strategic use of students’ full linguistic repertoires can support engagement and understanding, though e ects vary by context and implementation (Hamman-Ortiz et al., 2025). Writing skills share the language development spotlight with reading as secondary students are increasingly called upon to write as part of their learning. Explicit strategy instruction, frequent writing with feedback, and reading-writing integration yield positive average e ects on writing in grades 6–12 (Graham et al., 2023). Impacts are strongest when teachers receive professional development and implement cognitive strategies (Olson et al., 2020; WWC, 2021) supported by explicit instruction in academic language and cohesion (WWC, 2016; Uccelli et al., 2015, Graham et al., 2023). Writing growth is tightly linked to CALS—morphology, syntax/cohesion, connectives, and discourse structures—used across disciplines (Uccelli et al., 2015). High school MLs benefit from genre-specific modeling and argumentation routines (claimevidence-reasoning), supported by explicit instruction in academic language and cohesion (WWC, 2016; Uccelli et al., 2015). Disciplinary writing expectations—e.g., sourcing in history, precise language in math—extend beyond generic forms (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008). Formative feedback (rubrics, exemplars, targeted comments) can improve argumentative writing, though e ects are typically modest and depend on feedback quality and uptake (Graham et al., 2023).
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