In Experiment 1, monolingual native Spanish speakers (NSSs) had better kernel recall and longer end-of-clause (EOC) pauses than native English speakers (NESs) when reading texts that varied in syntactic complexity as a function of the number of nonessential clauses added to the kernel text. NSS familiarity with embedded clauses in Spanish seem to lead to a prosodic phrasing strategy in which comma-triggered pauses improved recall. In Experiment 2, native English-speaking Spanish teachers (NESSTs) with high exposure to academic immersion recalled better and had longer EOC pauses than low-exposure NESSTs when reading Spanish texts. High-exposure NESSTs' Spanish recall was as good as the NSS group in Experiment 1 and with longer--although similarly patterned--EOC pauses. High-exposure NESSTs' English recall was better and with longer EOC pauses than the NES group from Experiment 1, whereas low-exposure NESSTs' recall and EOC pauses were similar to the NES group. This suggests a transfer of second language pausing strategies to first language reading that improves recall for complex first language texts.