The relations between word reading, oral language, and reading comprehension in children who speak English as a first (L1) and second language (L2): a multigroup structural analysis

2014 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-544 ◽  
Author(s):  
Selma Babayiğit
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 828
Author(s):  
Maja Roch ◽  
Kate Cain ◽  
Christopher Jarrold

Reading for meaning is one of the most important activities in school and everyday life. The simple view of reading (SVR) has been used as a framework for studies of reading comprehension in individuals with Down syndrome (DS). These tend to show difficulties in reading comprehension despite better developed reading accuracy. Reading comprehension difficulties are influenced by poor oral language. These difficulties are common in individuals with DS and autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but they have never been compared directly. Moreover, the components of reading for comprehension have rarely been investigated in these populations: a better understanding of the nature of reading comprehension difficulties may inform both theory and practice. The aim of this study was to determine whether reading comprehension in the two populations is accounted for by the same component skills and to what extent the reading profile of the two atypical groups differs from that of typically developing children (TD). Fifteen individuals with DS (mean age = 22 years 4 months, SD = 5 years 2 months), 21 with ASD (mean age = 13 years 2 months, SD = 1 year 6 months), and 42 TD children (mean age = 8 years 1 month, SD = 7 months) participated and were assessed on measures of receptive vocabulary, text reading and listening comprehension, oral language comprehension, and reading accuracy. The results showed similar levels in word reading accuracy and in receptive vocabulary in all three groups. By contrast, individuals with DS and ASD showed poorer non-word reading and reading accuracy in context than TD children. Both atypical groups showed poorer listening and reading text comprehension compared to TD children. Reading for comprehension, investigated through a homograph reading accuracy task, showed a different pattern for individuals with DS with respect to the other two groups: they were less sensitive to meaning while reading. According to the SVR, the current results confirm that the two atypical groups have similar profiles that overlap with that of poor comprehenders in which poor oral language comprehension constrains reading for comprehension.


2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1375-1391 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN HIPFNER-BOUCHER ◽  
KATIE LAM ◽  
XI CHEN

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the relationship between L2 oral narrative morphosyntactic quality and L2 reading comprehension in a sample of 81 students enrolled in a Canadian French immersion program in Grade 1. Measures of French narrative generation and reading comprehension were administered concurrently. The proportion of utterances in the narratives that were judged to be grammatically acceptable was found to explain unique variance in reading comprehension, controlling for nonverbal intelligence, maternal education, phonological awareness, vocabulary and word reading. The results suggest that even in the earliest stages of L2 literacy acquisition, L2 oral language skills contribute to reading comprehension outcomes. The results of our study suggest that there may be value in providing L2 children with classroom-based story-related experiences that expose them to literate language.


2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1283-1304
Author(s):  
Redab Al Janaideh ◽  
Alexandra Gottardo ◽  
Sana Tibi ◽  
Johanne Paradis ◽  
Xi Chen

AbstractCanada has resettled more than 57,000 Syrian refugees since 2015 (Government of Canada, 2017). However, little is known about refugee children’s language and literacy development. The present study evaluated Syrian refugee children’s performance on language and literacy measures in English and Arabic, and examined whether the simple view of reading model is applicable in both of their languages. Participants consisted of 115 Syrian refugee children 6–13 years of age. They received a battery of language and literacy measures including word reading, vocabulary, oral narratives, and reading comprehension in both English and Arabic. Compared to the normative samples, refugee children performed poorly on English standardized measures. They also demonstrated difficulties in Arabic, as more than half of the children were not able to read in the language. Despite the relatively low performance, there was evidence to support the simple view of reading model in both languages. In addition, oral language skills played a larger role in English reading comprehension in the older group than the younger group. This age-group comparison was not carried out in Arabic due to reduced sample size. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.


1992 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 66-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ludo Verhoeven

In the present study a detailed analysis was made of the oral and written language skills of 60 native Dutch and 120 non-native third and fourth grade students at Dutch primary schools. First of all, the achievement on a variety of oral language and reading and writing tasks were examined as a function of ethnic group and grade level. In addition, a principal component analysis was conducted on the test scores in the two groups of children. Finally, the prediction of reading comprehension achievement in terms of oral language and decoding skills in the two groups was determined. The results showed that the non-native children leave behind their native Dutch peers on most language tasks administered. Especially on vocabulary measures and reading comprehension tests the second language students attain relatively poor achievements. With children's progression of grade the differences between first and second learners tend to diverge rather than converge. With respect to principal component analysis it was found that four factors underlie the language proficiency in either group: oral proficiency, reading comprehension, decoding efficiency and writing ability. To a large entent the children's achievement in reading comprehension in both groups could be explained in terms of their oral proficiency and decoding efficiency. However, for the second language learners the level of reading comprehension ability turned out to be relatively more dependent on their oral proficiency level in Dutch.


2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 203-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason R. Parkin

Oral language and word reading skills have important effects on reading comprehension. The Wechsler Individual Achievement Test–Third Edition (WIAT-III) measures both skill sets, but little is known about their specific effects on reading comprehension within this battery. Path analysis was used to evaluate the collective effects of reading and oral language measures on reading comprehension in a total of 456 students referred for special education evaluations. Students were split randomly into two groups (calibration and validation) for model construction and testing. Results indicate that these measures demonstrate a number of effects on reading measures that go beyond the expressive/receptive distinction in the test manual and add to the validity evidence for the WIAT-III. Implications for practice and study limitations are discussed.


2021 ◽  
pp. 002221942110232
Author(s):  
Miao Li ◽  
John R. Kirby ◽  
Esther Geva ◽  
Poh Wee Koh ◽  
Huan Zhang

This study examined (a) the identification of various reading groups across languages in Chinese (L1) adolescents learning English as a second language (ESL), in terms of their word-reading and reading comprehension skills, (b) overlap in reading group membership across languages, and (c) the performance of the various reading groups on reading-related language comprehension measures in English. The participants were 246 eighth-grade students from an English-immersion program in a middle school in China. Latent profile analysis identified three reading groups in each language: (a) a typically developing reader group with average or above-average word-reading and reading comprehension, (b) a group with poor decoding/word-reading skills and weak reading comprehension, and (c) a group with poor reading comprehension in the absence of poor decoding/word reading. The overlap in profile characteristics across languages for typically developing readers and poor decoders was high (about 68% for typically developing readers and 54% for poor decoders), whereas the overlap for being poor comprehenders in each language was moderate (about 37%). Furthermore, poor decoders in either language performed more poorly than the typically developing and poor comprehender groups on word reading in the other language, while poor comprehenders in either language performed more poorly than the typically developing and poor decoder groups on reading comprehension in the other language. The comparison of the reading groups’ performance on English reading-related language comprehension measures showed that poor comprehenders and poor decoders performed worse than typically developing readers. Implications for identification and instruction of ESL children with reading difficulties are discussed.


Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Theodora Papastefanou ◽  
Theodoros Marinis ◽  
Daisy Powell

The current study aimed at investigating the performance of bilingual children with English as an additional language (EAL) on language and literacy measures compared to monolinguals across the first four years of primary school in the U.K. Moreover, it addressed whether bilinguals and monolinguals’ performance on reading comprehension was consistent with the Simple View of Reading. An additional area of interest was to examine the extent to which use of and exposure to both heritage and majority language affected the development of the children’s reading comprehension in both of their spoken languages. A total of forty bilingual and forty monolingual children were assessed in oral language skills and decoding in Year 1 and Year 3 in primary school. After one school year, they were assessed in oral language skills, decoding, and reading comprehension in Year 2 and Year 4. The results showed that the bilinguals performed better than the monolinguals in decoding in all years, suggesting that exposure to a first language with transparent orthography (Greek) may benefit the development of word reading skills. However, the bilinguals scored lower in oral language skills and reading comprehension than their monolingual peers. This finding underlined the significant role of oral language skills in the development of bilinguals’ reading comprehension. Both oral language skills and decoding contributed to reading comprehension in bilinguals but the effects of oral language skills on reading comprehension were stronger than the effects of decoding. Finally, we found that language use of the minority language outside the home could significantly predict reading comprehension in the minority language, underlining the importance of language exposure through complementary schools and other activities outside the home to the maintenance and development of the heritage language.


2004 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 603-634 ◽  
Author(s):  
NAN JIANG

Two competing explanations exist regarding the nature of morphological difficulty in adult second language acquisition: competence deficit versus performance deficiency. This study tested these explanations by examining English as a second language (ESL) learners' morphological performance in reading comprehension tasks. Chinese ESL speakers were asked to read English sentences for comprehension in three self-paced word by word reading experiments. Their reading times were measured to determine if they were sensitive to idiosyncrasies/disagreement in sentences that do and do not involve the number morpheme. The results show that they are not sensitive to number disagreement, but sensitive to other idiosyncrasies tested. This insensitivity to the number morpheme suggests that their morphological knowledge is not an integrated part of their automatic second language competence.


2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 418-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sietske van Viersen ◽  
Elise H. de Bree ◽  
Marjolein Zee ◽  
Ben Maassen ◽  
Aryan van der Leij ◽  
...  

The present study investigated the role of early oral language and family risk for dyslexia in the two developmental pathways toward reading comprehension, through word reading and through oral language abilities. The sample contained 237 children (164 at family risk for dyslexia) from the Dutch Dyslexia Program. Longitudinal data were obtained on seven occasions when children were between 4 and 12 years old. The relationship between early oral language ability and reading comprehension at the age of 12 years was mediated by preliteracy skills and word-decoding ability for the first pathway and by later language abilities for the second pathway. Family risk influenced literacy development through its subsequent relations with preliteracy skills, word decoding, and reading comprehension. Although performance on language measures was often lower for the family-risk group than for the no-family-risk group, family risk did not have a specific relation with either early or later oral language abilities.


2014 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Gottardo ◽  
Christine Javier ◽  
Fataneh Farnia ◽  
Lorinda Mak ◽  
Esther Geva

This study examines the bidirectional, cross-linguistic associations between language and word-level reading skills and reading comprehension for 51 students in grades 4 to 6 who speak Spanish as first language (L1) and English as second language (L2). Within-language predictors of reading comprehension were consistent with the simple view of reading. We found unidirectional cross-linguistic associations between Spanish word reading and English reading comprehension. However, the results do not support a cross-linguistic association between English word reading and Spanish reading comprehension. Specifically, results indicate that although L1 and L2 language and reading constructs correlate, L2 skills do not strongly contribute to L1 reading comprehension. Findings are discussed in terms of possible factors that might influence potential cross-language relations among Spanish and English measures. Keywords: reading comprehension; bilingualism; cross-linguistic relations


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