Barriers to Successful Reading for Second-Language Students at the Secondary Level

Abstract

In several years of visiting reading classes in New Mexico, I have had the opportunity to observe the reading of Indian and Spanish-American children who were non-English speakers. Two examples may serve to illustrate the nature of some of their reading difficulties: 1) An eighth grade Navajo girl read a poem containing the line married his girl with a golden band.. . The girl read the line perfectly in that she pronounced all the words correctly. However, when asked what was meant by this line, she was unable to explain it. 2) A Spanish-speaking boy was asked the meaning of the word brave. He replied that when something was put over your face, you couldn't brave (breathe). Aside from specific examples of readinglanguage confusion, I have been struck by the fact that we accept, as perfectly normal, the fact that we have entire classrooms of Indian students at the junior high school level who are reading at the second or third grade level. These children are graduated from high school with, perhaps, intermediate grade level reading ability. Several years ago I tutored Indian students at the University of New Mexico. The majority of these students were performing at approximately a fourth or fifth grade reading level as measured by a standardized test.1 When we consider the fact that standardized tests generally overestimate true reading ability, the degree of reading retardation becomes even greater. This situation is not new, nor is the fact that these problems become even more pronounced the longer the child stays in school. Let's take a brief look at what we know of the achievement of the non-English-speaking children in our schools.