Additional Info

Uccelli, P., Barr. C.D., Dobbs, C.L., Galloway, E.P., Meneses, A., and Sánchez, E. 2015.  Core academic language skills: An expanded operational construct and a novel instrument to chart school-relevant language proficiency in preadolescent and adolescent learners. Applied Psycholinguistics, Volume 36 (2015), pp. 1077–1109

Argues that the construct of core academic language skills (CALLS) tested with 235 fourth to eighth grade students with an innovative instrument (the CALS-I) was found to be predictive of reading comprehension.

Uccelli, P., Galloway, E.P., Barr. C.D., Meneses, A., and Dobbs, C.L. 2015.    Beyond Vocabulary: Exploring cross-disciplinary Academic-Language Proficiency and its association with Reading Comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, Volume 50, Issue 3, pp. 337–356

Another study on the core academic language skills (CALS) construct which was found to be an independent predictor of reading comprehension even after controlling for academic vocabulary knowledge, word reading fluency, and socio-demographic factors.

Uccelli, P., Barr. C.D., and Galloway, E.P., 2016. Core Academic Language Skills Instrument (CALS-I): Final Report

Description of development and validation of the Core Academic Language Skills Instrument (CALS-I) used to measure a comprehensive set of high-utility language skills that are relevant across content areas. CALS-I is normed for English proficient students attending urban public schools in grades 4 to 8.

Uccelli, P., and Galloway, E.P. 2016.  Academic language across content areas: lessons from an innovative assessment and from students’ reflections about language. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Volume 60, Issue 4, pp. 395-404

Popular level description of development and validation of the Core Academic Language Skills Instrument (CALS-I) that concludes that CALS is an important component of students' reading skills and that schools need to target the development of these skills, given that large proportions of students have not yet developed the language skills to understand many of the
linguistic features that heavily populate most of their school texts.