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This study investigated four elementary-level English language learners’ (ELLs’) use of strategies for reading computer-based texts at home and in school. The ELLs in this study were in the fourth and fifth grades in a public elementary school. We identify the ELLs’ strategies for reading computer-based texts in home and school environments. We present a taxonomy of five reading-strategy categories, which includes 15 total strategies that they pursued at home and in school. We describe the central role of dialogue in helping ELLs learn to read computer-based texts: The learners engaged in real and virtual dialogues with adults, peers, authors, and themselves, in ways that enhanced their development of effective reading strategies. We discuss pedagogical implications of our findings, describing how parents and teachers might work separately and together to facilitate ELLs’ reading in today’s learning contexts that include electronic literacies.

In this paper, we review empirical research on language teaching at distance, published between 2005 and 2010. After compiling a list of journals, we went through a multi-stage process of analyzing relevant studies. This overview of research, consequently, is based on 24 articles. The content analysis of research studies led our inquiry on topics researched in distance language teaching in 2005-2010: types of contexts, learners, languages, and technologies targeted in the empirical research during this period of time; trends in methodological choices; and lessons we can learn from the conducted research studies. Finally, we discuss the implications of the gaps in research literature on language teaching at distance and provide suggestions for future directions in empirical inquiry. The paper may inform language educators, researchers, and administrators about the recent research findings on language teaching from distance and can serve as the foundation for further inquiry on the topic.