scholarly journals Development of Reading Comprehension in Bilingual and Monolingual Children—Effects of Language Exposure

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 166
Author(s):  
Theodora Papastefanou ◽  
Theodoros Marinis ◽  
Daisy Powell
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Primary School ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Minority Language ◽  
Transparent Orthography ◽  
Area Of Interest ◽  
Oral Language Skills ◽  
Language Exposure

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.

The role of word reading and oral language skills in reading comprehension in Syrian refugee children

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 1283-1304
Author(s):  
Redab Al Janaideh ◽  
Alexandra Gottardo ◽  
Sana Tibi ◽  
Johanne Paradis ◽  
Xi Chen
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Refugee Children ◽  
Language And Literacy ◽  
Simple View Of Reading ◽  
Simple View ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
Oral Language Skills

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.

scholarly journals Language skills, and not executive functions, predict the development of reading comprehension of early readers: evidence from an orthographically transparent language

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dacian Dorin Dolean ◽  
Arne Lervåg ◽  
Laura Visu-Petra ◽  
Monica Melby-Lervåg
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Executive Functions ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Transparent Orthography ◽  
Early Readers ◽  
Early Elementary School ◽  
Oral Language Skills

AbstractThe simple view of reading proposes that the development of reading comprehension in early elementary school is best predicted by children’s fluent decoding and oral language skills. Recent studies challenge this view and suggest that executive functions should also be included in this theoretical model; however, the empirical evidence is not strong enough to clearly support or refute this hypothesis. In this short-term longitudinal study, we used latent variables to test whether executive functions have direct effects on the development of reading comprehension in 184 Romanian second graders, beyond fluent decoding and oral language skills. The results indicated that the initial stages of reading comprehension were associated with executive functions, but only the language skills could independently predict the development of reading comprehension. Our findings show that executive functions do not have a significant direct effect on the development of reading comprehension in early readers beyond fluent decoding and oral language skills in languages with transparent orthography. The results also suggest that once children learn to decode well, their language skills (and not their executive functions) have a strong effect on the development of reading comprehension. Therefore, reading interventions in elementary school should stress on the development of oral language skills.

The contribution of narrative morphosyntactic quality to reading comprehension in French immersion students

2014 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 1375-1391 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHLEEN HIPFNER-BOUCHER ◽  
KATIE LAM ◽  
XI CHEN
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Maternal Education ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
French Immersion ◽  
Oral Narrative ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
Canadian French ◽  
Narrative Generation ◽  
Oral Language Skills

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.

The Role of Semantic Knowledge in Learning to Read Exception Words

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Dawson ◽  
Jessie Ricketts
Keyword(s):  
Oral Language ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Language Skills ◽  
Semantic Knowledge ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
Artificial Boundaries ◽  
Oral Language Skills ◽  
Language Profiles

In research and clinical practice, oral and written language skills have often been treated as separate domains. Yet they do not exist independently. Reading skills are contingent upon earlier acquired oral language skills, and the process of reading fosters growth in oral language. The importance of semantic knowledge for reading comprehension is well-documented, but there is growing evidence that it also plays a significant role in word reading. In English, a distinction can be made between regular words that follow predictable spelling-sound mappings, and exception words that do not. Oral language knowledge may be particularly important for the latter as it functions to supplement partial decoding. For speech- language pathologists (SLPs), it is important to consider how remediation targeted at improving oral language skills may also elicit benefits for reading development, and conversely how reading might be used to support oral language development. Practitioners should be aware of the pattern of literacy impairments that they are likely to encounter in children with developmental language disorder, and how this relates to their oral language profiles. The purpose of this paper is to enable practitioners to generalize their knowledge and skills across the artificial boundaries that have traditionally separated these two domains.

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