Reading proficiency in English is simultaneously a gateway skill and a marker of educational achievement. For adult English learners, the ability to read competently unlocks an enormous range of opportunities: accessing healthcare information, navigating government services, supporting children's schooling, advancing in the workplace, and pursuing further education. Reading is also the primary vehicle through which vocabulary grows, grammar is internalized, and cultural knowledge is acquired.

The challenges that English reading presents to non-native speakers are substantial. The English writing system, though alphabetic, is notoriously irregular. Spelling-pronunciation relationships that hold in one context (the letter combination "ough" in "though," "thought," "through," "thorough," and "tough") may vary dramatically in another, creating confusion that phonics instruction alone cannot fully resolve. Learners who bring literacy skills in languages with more regular orthographies (Spanish, Korean, German) may find that their strong decoding abilities do not automatically transfer to English.

Beyond decoding, reading comprehension requires a complex web of interacting skills and knowledge bases: vocabulary knowledge, grammatical knowledge, knowledge of text structures and genres, background knowledge of the topic, and the ability to monitor one's own comprehension and adjust strategies when understanding breaks down. Research by literacy scholars such as Jeanne Chall and the RAND Reading Study Group has shown that each of these components can be specifically targeted through instruction, and that attending to vocabulary development is particularly powerful for adult ELL readers.

Genre knowledge — understanding how different types of texts are organized and what conventions govern them — is an especially practical target for instruction. Academic texts, workplace documents, instructions, news articles, personal narratives, and digital genres each follow distinct organizational conventions and use distinct registers. Explicit instruction in genre features helps learners read more efficiently and, ultimately, write more effectively in the same genres.

The role of background knowledge in reading comprehension cannot be overstated. Texts are not self-contained meanings; they assume shared knowledge between writer and reader. A news article about American politics, a sports column about football, or a workplace safety manual assumes readers bring substantial contextual knowledge that many immigrant learners do not yet possess. Building background knowledge before reading tasks — through discussion, visual previewing, and brief informational videos — is one of the most efficient investments a teacher can make.

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