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Dyslexia is a reading difficulty of neurological basis which is often associated to a deficit at the phonological level of reading - but not restricted to it. In this review, we sought to identify relevant research conducted on the interaction between dyslexia and bilingualism in the last twenty years. For this purpose, eleven studies were selected from CAPES Journals Portal. Results of these studies reached contrasting conclusions, some indicating a continuum of dyslexic traces across the languages, while others emphasized the role of interacting factors such as orthographic depth and language granularity modulating the manifestations of dyslexia in each language. The implications of these findings for education are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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While the role of inferencing has been widely acknowledged as key to reading comprehension, little has been done to approach these issues in teaching and assessing second-language reading comprehension in the Brazilian educational system. With this in mind, this research paper sets out to investigate the types of inferences that might be required for test takers to answer questions in the most important Brazilian university entrance exam, ENEM (Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio). This exam is taken by Brazilian students at the end of secondary school in order to assess their performance according to the school curriculum. The students' grades can be used not only for scholarships, but also as a resource for applying for more than 500 Brazilian universities. In order to analyze the ENEM tests, we formulated a framework based on the extensive work of Kintsch and van Dijk and on the model of fluent reading comprehension established by Gagné and colleagues. The framework considered three main types of inferences: bridging, elaborative, and summarizing. The results show that test takers might have to draw more elaborative inferences, meaning they might need a significant amount of background knowledge in order to select the correct alternatives. Summarizing, inferences were also significant, which means the test takers might have to build a complete mental representation of the text, i.e., to integrate world knowledge with the ideas expressed in the text in order to construct meaning. Overall, the results are in consonance with the literature on inferencing, meaning that it does have an essential role in text comprehension. In conclusion, there should be teaching and assessing programs in place designed around tackling these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]