longitudinal

Reading development over 4 years: eye-tracking from EAP to undergrad

How does English reading development unfold *after* a bridging (EAP) program ends? We followed the same international students across ~4 years and used eye-tracking to watch L2 reading development unfold in real time. We asked: *Which skills grow fastest during the EAP program, and which changes persist (or shift) once students move into undergraduate study?* The figure shows one example—**word skipping**—across three timepoints. This project was published in [Reading and Writing](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11145-025-10664-6).

Reading experience drives L2 reading speed development

Do English learners become faster readers during a university bridging program—and does *extra* reading outside of class matter? We followed **142** Mandarin/Cantonese-speaking students across an **8-month** program using week-by-week reading logs. Students got steadily faster over **26 weeks** of instruction, and crucially, **those who read more pages in English made bigger gains in reading speed**. The published article can be found in [Frontiers in Education: Educational Psychology](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2024.1286132/full).

Do bridging programs close the reading gap? Eye-tracking evidence from passage reading

Do students with lower incoming reading scores *catch up* during an English-for-Academic-Purposes (EAP) bridging program—or does the gap stay the same? We tracked **405** Chinese-speaking students across a **28-week** program using **eye-tracking during passage reading** plus comprehension questions. Using incoming **IELTS Reading** scores as a baseline, we found clear overall improvement in reading efficiency and comprehension—but the growth trajectories were **parallel across ability levels**, meaning the gap neither widened nor closed (a **stable change** pattern). This project was published in [Bilingualism: Language & Cognition](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1366728922000542)