In this chapter, we have sketched the challenges that becoming literate poses to all learners, then elaborated evidence that learning to read is a particular challenge for the L2/C2 learner. There have been two themes in our analysis. The first is the complexity of the challenges posed, both to newcomers in a society and to the locals who are responsible for teaching, working with, or interacting with the newcomers, by the need to learn each others' languages, literacies, discourse patterns, and culturally prescribed ways of operating. We have argued that, if L2/C2 learners are to catch up with monolinguals in the academic, linguistic, and literacy skills needed for success in school and in the workplace, educational procedures are needed that enhance transfer, thus exploiting the knowledge of the L1 and C1 that learners bring with them. The second theme is the need, in complex and multifaceted domains like second-language learning and education for language minorities, for practice-embedded and practice-inspired research to complement the contributions of traditional basic and applied research. The fastest route to understanding what educational treatments work best to ensure language and literacy acquisition for various subgroups of L2 learners is to study successful practice, build on the wisdom accumulated by successful practitioners, and systematize that wisdom so as to be able to test it and to make it public.
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