Primary school minority and majority language children in a partial immersion program

Abstract

Reading skills are among the basic skills acquired during the primary school years, and they play a key role in the acquisition of academic knowledge and later participation in society. Numerous studies have reported that children with a minority language background show deficits in the acquisition of reading skills in mainstream education programs regardless of whether the language tested is the majority language or a foreign language. The present longitudinal study examined minority and majority language children at the end of Grades 3 and 4, who attended a German-English partial immersion primary school, with respect to their English and German reading comprehension and fluency skills. The results did not reveal any differences between the two groups irrespective of the test format and the language being tested. Apparently, immersion primary school programs are also suitable for minority language children, whose L2 German and L3 English reading skills developed age-appropriately.