She has worked extensively on research with RISLUS and CASE to understand best practices for language and literacy acquisition among recent immigrants to New York City and greater New York areas. Leigh Garrison-Fletcher is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and ESL in the Department of Education and Language Acquisition at LaGuardia Community College. She received her doctorate from the Graduate Center, and has worked on multiple projects with RISLUS and the SLA lab. Her research focuses on the academic language and literacy acquisition of emergent bilinguals. This presentation includes an overview and outcomes from two cross-sectional studies that highlight the importance of students’ home language in their acquisition of reading skills in English as a new language. The focus is on 72 Spanish-speaking adolescent newcomers in one New York City high school.