Reading Acquisition In English Research Articles

Impact of Predictor Variables on L2 English Reading Acquisition for Grades 3 and 5

This study was part of a larger longitudinal study in which we focused on measuring reading acquisition and observing the impact of SES, curriculum and gender on reading subtest scores. In Part 1 of our study (in review), we reported on findings for students in Grade 1. For Part 2 of our study, we report on our findings for students in Grades 3 and 5 and offer a comparison across the three elementary grades. Participants for the current study included 657 students from Grade 3 (n = 328) and 5 (n = 329) representing low-cost, middle-cost and high-cost schools in Bangalore, India. The students’ reading skills were measured using progress-monitoring tools and we utilized a mixed-effects hierarchical growth model to observe reading growth. The results suggested that both SES and curriculum had the most significant and positive effect on skills acquisition. These results will shed light on reading assessment and intervention practices in the Indian context.

Effects of Curriculum, Socioeconomic Status and Gender on L2 English Reading Acquisition for Students in Grade 1

Effects of Curriculum, Socioeconomic Status and Gender on L2 English Reading Acquisition for Students in Grade 1

Costs and Benefits of Orthographic Inconsistency in Reading: Evidence from a Cross-Linguistic Comparison.

We compared reading acquisition in English and Italian children up to late primary school analyzing RTs and errors as a function of various psycholinguistic variables and changes due to experience. Our results show that reading becomes progressively more reliant on larger processing units with age, but that this is modulated by consistency of the language. In English, an inconsistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs earlier on and it is demonstrated by faster RTs, a stronger effect of lexical variables and lack of length effect (by fifth grade). However, not all English children are able to master this mode of processing yielding larger inter-individual variability. In Italian, a consistent orthography, reliance on larger units occurs later and it is less pronounced. This is demonstrated by larger length effects which remain significant even in older children and by larger effects of a global factor (related to speed of orthographic decoding) explaining changes of performance across ages. Our results show the importance of considering not only overall performance, but inter-individual variability and variability between conditions when interpreting cross-linguistic differences.

Reading Skills Acquisition in English:

This study is based on the findings from a study conducted to examine acquisition of reading skills of monolingual English and bilingual Sesotho-English third grade learners by evaluating their phonological and reading skills. The sample consisted of 80 monolingual English and 80 bilingual Sesotho-English pupils in Motheo District, Free State. Tasks of Phonological Awareness (PA) were correlated with reading measures in English as an L1 and L2, but significant differences were found on all of the measures; implying overall support for use of PA measures for reading achievement in L1-English monolinguals and in the English (L2) of bilingual children, but with the understanding that L1 Sesotho spoken proficiency and L2 English-only instruction influences the underlying repertoire of PA skills used for L2 English reading acquisition, different from that of the L1 English reading acquisition process. The educational implications of these observations are discussed.

The relative contributions of vocabulary, decoding, and phonemic awareness to word reading in English versus German

Beginning readers in shallow orthographies acquire word reading skills more quickly than in deep orthographies like English. In addition to extending this evidence base by comparing reading acquisition in English with the more transparent German, we conducted a longitudinal study and investigated whether different early reading skills made different contributions to word reading as a function of orthography. Children (n = 133) were recruited from the first year of primary school in New Zealand (age 5;8) and Germany (age 7;2) and from kindergartens in Germany (age 5;0) to provide both age- and schooling-matched samples. Parallel measures of phonemic awareness, vocabulary, decoding skill, and word reading (accuracy) were administered at two time points, 1 year apart. An advantage for orthography and school attendance existed for reading development. Vocabulary made a greater contribution to word reading in English than in German as did decoding skill. Findings underscore the relative importance of vocabulary and decoding skills for early reading in English.

Cognitive Skill Transfer in English Reading Acquisition: Alphabetic and Logographic Languages Compared

The purpose of this article is to review published studies regarding acquisition of English as a second or foreign language by students of different linguistic backgrounds, in light of the English language’s opaque alphabetic orthography. This review focuses on the contribution of first language cognitive skills (orthographic knowledge, phonological awareness, and morphological awareness) in native speakers of languages with alphabetic and logographic orthographies, to English second-language reading skills (word reading and reading comprehension), to better understand the contribution of cognitive reading skills in alphabetic and logographic languages to the acquisition of English reading skills as a second language. The author examines findings in the context of second-language learning theories, and two contradictory hypotheses in particular—the linguistic interdependence hypothesis and the script-dependent hypothesis. The author finds that no consensus can be indicated as to the contribution of most native-language skills in alphabetic vs. logographic languages to the acquisition of second-language or foreign-language English reading, or even whether or not they are language-specific (script-dependent). The exception is phonological awareness in alphabetical orthographies (but not logographic orthographies) which received a consensus among researchers supporting its transfer from the native language to English as a second or foreign language.

Learning to read in English: Comparing monolingual English and bilingual Zulu-English Grade 3 learners

The acquisition of reading skills of 100 monolingual English and 100 bilingual Zulu-English third-grade learners was investigated by measuring their phonological- and reading skills. Little research exists on how the presence of a spoken-only Zulu (L1) could influence the English (L2) reading acquisition process. PA tasks were correlated with reading measures in English as an L1 and L2, but significant differences were found on all of the measures; implying overall support for use of PA measures for reading achievement in L1 English monolinguals and in the English (L2) of bilingual children, but with the understanding that L1 Zulu spoken proficiency and L2 English-only instruction influences the underlying repertoire of PA skills used for L2 English reading acquisition, different from that of the L1 English reading acquisition process. The implications of these findings for L2 reading development and using phonological measures across cultural-linguistic groups, for educational purposes, are discussed

Reading Acquisition, AAC and the Transferability of English Research to Languages with More Consistent or Transparent Orthographies

Research on reading in augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is primarily provided for the English language, which has nontransparent orthographic depth and a complex syllable structure. While there is a great deal to learn about English reading in AAC, there is substantially more information regarding reading in AAC in English than in other languages. In this article we compare reading acquisition in English and German, drawing from the existing research regarding reading for children with complex communication needs and describing how that might apply to German and other European languages with orthography that is more consistent than English (e.g., Swedish, Spanish, Finnish; Aro & Wimmer, ). The goal is to support the development of cross-linguistic understandings in reading and AAC.

Reading acquisition in English and German – An eye movement study

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Curriculum-Based Measurement in Assessing Bilingual Students: A Promising New Direction

There is growing concern that current methods of assessing students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds are sometimes biased against the student. For example, traditional forms of measuring English reading acquisition may demonstrate that a student has a learning disability or cognitive delay, when in fact; the student is merely having difficulty learning English. Alternative assessment methods are needed to monitor the English reading acquisition for these bilingual students for two reasons: (a) to ensure that they are not misidentified as needing special education and (b) to ensure that students who are in need of special education services receive the educational support necessary to be successful in school. This article discusses problems with traditional methods of assessing bilingual students and describes curriculum-based measurement (CBM) for use with bilingual Hispanic students. Additional information about the features of CBM is presented along with issues related to the use of CBM with bilingual Hispanic students.

Longitudinal Analysis of the Antecedents of Emergent Spanish Literacy and Middle-School English Reading Achievement of Spanish-Speaking Students

Among students entering kindergarten speaking Spanish, those with greater emergent Spanish literacy development and oral English proficiency were better able to maintain grade level performance in Spanish reading, transition more quickly to English reading, and attain a higher level of English reading proficiency in middle school. Non-English speaking student success in learning to read in English does not rest exclusively on primary language input and development, nor is it solely the result of rapid acquisition of English. Both apparently contribute to students' subsequent English reading achievement. Family factors predicting both early Spanish literacy and later English reading were parents' socioeconomic status and family literacy practices, as well as grandparents' educational level. Results suggest that early literacy experiences support subsequent literacy development, regardless of language; and time spent on literacy activity in the native language—whether it takes place at home or at school—is not time lost with respect to English reading acquisition, at least through middle school. The results also indicate the value of encouraging families to provide home literacy activities (in whatever languages they control) as well as formal preschool experiences.

Do orthographic and phonological peculiarities of alphabetically written languages influence the course of literacy acquisition?

The most important cognitive models of alphabetic literacy acquisition, like those proposed by Uta Frith and Philip Seymour (cf. Frith 1985, and Seymour & Elder 1986), are presented as models of the way alphabetic orthographies in general are learned even though they are inspired by the study of the acquisition of a single orthography, needless to specify it, the English one. Indeed, it is not the fault of scholars working in English-speaking countries if the cognitive psycholinguistics of the written language has been much less pushed on in the other countries. However, everybody admits that it is important to check how and to what extent the orthographic peculiarities of alphabetic languages influence the course of literacy acquisition. Why could or should orthography-related differences in literacy acquisition arise? English presents a relatively opaque system: there are many alternatives to spell phonemes and many ways of sounding out graphemes, and, in addition, many of the correspondences cannot be predicted from contextdependent graphophonological rules. Other languages present a much higher degree of orthographic transparency, either in one conversion direction (from spelling to sound or from sound to spelling) or in both directions. Literacy onset in languages having a highly transparent orthography might exhibit a much more precocious and systematic use of phonological decoding than is the case in English. Besides, some characteristics of the spoken language, like complexity of the syllabic structure (for example, clusters of two and three consonants at the onset and offset of the syllable) and number of vowels, might also influence the acquisition of the corresponding written language. English presents both a high number of vowels and of complex syllabic structures. These two characteristics of the language might not encourage or facilitate the resort to phonological transcoding in reading and writing. Compared to English, access to phonological transcoding might thus be easier for languages having either a small number of vowels or relatively simple phonological structures or both. Recently, Wimmer & Goswami (1994) compared reading acquisition in English and German. In German, the mapping between graphemes and phonemes is largely consistent. The results of this study suggest a much more