Acquiring reading and vocabulary in Dutch and English: the effect of concurrent instruction

To investigate the effect of concurrent instruction in Dutch and English on reading acquisition in both languages, 23 pupils were selected from a school with bilingual education, and 23 from a school with education in Dutch only. The pupils had a Dutch majority language background and were comparable with regard to social-economic status (SES). Reading and vocabulary were measured twice within an interval of 1 year in Grade 2 and 3. The bilingual group performed better on most English and some of the Dutch tests. Controlling for general variables and related skills, instruction in English contributed significantly to the prediction of L2 vocabulary and orthographic awareness at the second measurement. As expected, word reading fluency was easier to acquire in Dutch with its relatively transparent orthography in comparison to English with its deep orthography, but the skills intercorrelated highly. With regard to cross-linguistic transfer, orthographic knowledge and reading comprehension in Dutch were positively influenced by bilingual instruction, but there was no indication of generalization to orthographic awareness or knowledge of a language in which no instruction had been given (German). The results of the present study support the assumption that concurrent instruction in Dutch and English has positive effects on the acquisition of L2 English and L1 Dutch

Predictors of reading literacy for first and second language learners

In this study an attempt was made to construct a multi-factor model predicting the development of reading literacy in the upper grades of primary school in the Netherlands for subgroups of 729 first language (L1) learners and 93 second language (L2) learners. Following a longitudinal design, it was explored to what extent the variation in reading literacy development in L1 and L2 from grade 4 to grade 6 can be explained from children’s word decoding, language, mathematics and nonverbal reasoning skills, reading motivation and self confidence as well as their home reading resources. The results showed that L1 and L2 learners differed in reading literacy skills, language, mathematics, and reasoning skills. Structural equation modelling showed that the reading literacy development in both L1 and L2 learners could be explained from decoding, language, mathematics and reasoning skills, as well as their motivation and self-confidence. A striking difference was the fact that home reading resources had an impact on reading literacy in L1 learners but not in L2 learners

Spelling pronunciation and visual preview both facilitate learning to spell irregular word

Spelling pronunciations are hypothesized to be helpful in building up relatively stable phonologically underpinned orthographic representations, particularly for learning words with irregular phoneme-grapheme correspondences. In a four-week computer-based training, the efficacy of spelling pronunciations and previewing the spelling patterns on learning to spell loan words in Dutch, originating from French and English, was examined in skilled and less skilled spellers with varying ages. Reading skills were taken into account. Overall, compared to normal pronunciation, spelling pronunciation facilitated the learning of the correct spelling of irregular words, but it appeared to be no more effective than previewing. Differences between training conditions appeared to fade with older spellers. Less skilled young spellers seemed to profit more from visual examination of the word as compared to practice with spelling pronunciations. The findings appear to indicate that spelling pronunciation and allowing a preview can both be effective ways to learn correct spellings of orthographically unpredictable words, irrespective of age or spelling ability. Copyright © 2006 by The International Dyslexia Association®

The role of two reading strategies in text comprehension: An eye fixation study in primary school children

This study examined whether 10-12-year-old children use two reading strategies to aid their text comprehension: (1) distinguishing between important and unimportant words; and (2) resolving anaphoric references. Of interest was the question to what extent use of these reading strategies was predictive of reading comprehension skill over and above decoding skill and vocabulary. Reading strategy use was examined by the recording of eye fixations on specific target words. In contrast to less successful comprehenders, more successful comprehenders invested more processing time in important than in unimportant words. On the other hand, they needed less time to determine the antecedent of an anaphor. The results suggest that more successful comprehenders build a more effective mental model of the text than less successful comprehenders in at least two ways. First, they allocate more attention to the incorporation of goal-relevant than goal-irrelevant information into the model. Second, they ascertain that the text model is coherent and richly connected. © United Kingdom Literacy Association 2007