Reading in a Second Language: Factors associated with progress in young children

Abstract

This paper reports the findings of a study investigating factors associated with achievement and progress in young Indian children learning to read in English. A longitudinal design was used in which children's reading was followed-up from the end of nursery for 17 months. One-hundred-and-sixty-one children in seven schools in Calcutta, India comprised the sample for the study. Word recognition at the end of nursery consistently emerged as the variable most strongly associated with progress in reading. While this study provides further support for word recognition as a factor strongly associated with reading achievement and progress, the results need to be interpreted in the context of the children's generally poor scores on comprehension of text. This has serious implications for teaching practices that emphasise word recognition without laying stress on language comprehension, particularly in relation to bilingual children whose education is in a language that is not the mother tongue.