Reading Comprehension Interventions for Multilingual Learners with Disabilities: A Systematic Review

Multilingual learners with disabilities (MLWDs) face substantial barriers to reading comprehension given the intersecting challenges of language acquisition and disability (Artzi et al., 2022; Frates et al., 2024). Students with disabilities often need explicit, strategy-based instruction with modeling, guided practice, and scaffolding (Frates et al., 2024; Wawire et al., 2024; Moura, 2024). When learners are also multilingual, interventions must be linguistically accessible and responsive to diverse cognitive profiles (Moura, 2024; Sarisahin, 2020). MLWDs comprise 15.8% of English learners in U.S. public schools (NCES, 2024), yet research on effective comprehension interventions remains limited; most studies treat multilingual learners or students with disabilities separately (Sanabria et al., 2022; Wawire et al., 2024). Recent work highlights self-regulated strategy development (Jozwik et al., 2019), visual tools such as double bubble thinking maps (Gray & Calvin, 2020), and technology-based interventions that support engagement (Sanabria et al., 2022). Structured routines for summarizing, questioning, and monitoring comprehension are promising when adapted for multilingual contexts (Frates et al., 2024). This systematic review synthesizes 28 peer-reviewed studies from 2016 to 2025 on MLWD comprehension interventions, identifies evidence-based strategies, and pinpoints gaps to guide future research and practice.