Applied Psychology & Human Development

We examined theoretical issues concerning the development of reading fluency and language proficiency in 390 English Language Learners (ELLs,) and 149 monolingual, English-as-a-first language (EL1) students. The extent to which performance on these constructs in Grade 5 (i.e., concurrent predictors) contributes to reading comprehension in the presence of Grade 2 autoregressors was also addressed. Students were assessed on cognitive, language, word reading, and reading fluency skills in Grades 2 and 5. In Grade 2, regardless of language group, word and text reading fluency formed a single factor, but by Grade 5 word and text reading fluency formed two distinct factors, the latter being more aligned with language comprehension. In both groups a substantial proportion of the variance in Grade 5 reading comprehension was accounted for uniquely by Grade 2 phonological awareness and vocabulary. Grade 5 text reading fluency contributed uniquely in the presence of the autoregressors. By Grade 5 syntactic skills and listening comprehension emerged as additional language proficiency components predicting reading comprehension in ELL but not in EL1. Results suggest that predictors of reading comprehension are similar but not identical in ELL and EL1. The findings point to a more nuanced and dynamic framework for understanding the building blocks that contribute to reading comprehension in ELLs and EL1s in

This study examined the effects of first language characteristics on the development of two aspects of English morphological awareness: derivational and compound awareness in English language learners (ELLs) with Chinese or Spanish as their first language. It also assessed the contribution of derivational and compound awareness to word reading in the two groups of ELLs as well as in monolingual Englishspeaking children. Participants included 89 Spanish-speaking ELLs, 77 Chinese-speaking ELLs, and 78 monolingual English-speaking children from Grade 4 and Grade 7. Results showed that Chinesespeaking ELLs performed similarly to monolingual English speakers on English compound awareness, and monolingual English speakers outperformed Spanish-speaking ELLs. Spanish-speaking ELLs and monolingual children, in contrast, both outperformed Chinese-speaking ELLs on derivational awareness. Another key finding was that in all three groups of children, morphological awareness made a unique contribution to word reading after controlling for nonverbal ability, maternal education, and other reading related variables. These results underscore the influence of first language structure on the development of second language morphological awareness, and the similar contribution of morphological awareness to word reading across monolinguals and ELLs.

Abstract. This paper reports on an investigation into the morphosyntactic processing of second language (L2) learners who differ in terms of language learning experience. The chief area of interest was the relationship of L2 learning patterns and experience to the acquisition of ...

The present study investigated the role of phonological and orthographic processing skills in adult second language reading. The subjects were 60 ESL graduate students; all were native speakers of Farsi. Three types of ESL reading measures were used as criterion variables: reading comprehension, silent reading rate, and the ability to recognize individual words. Data were analyzed using correlational and hierarchical multiple regression. Efficiency in phonological and orthographic processing contributed significantly to individual differences on the reading measures. In particular, efficiency in orthographic processing contributed to the reading measures independently of syntactic and semantic measures. The study suggests that it is useful to consider individual differences in ESL reading with respect to individual differences in lower level processes – particularly the efficiency with which readers process phonological and orthographic information.

This two-year, longitudinal study compared the spelling development of two novel English phonemes (/ / and /θ/) among 35 Cantonese-speaking primary level children learning English as a second language (ESL) and 37 English-speaking (L1) children. Developmental trend analyses suggest a similar developmental trajectory of spelling levels across time for ESL and L1 children. However, the spelling errors of the Chinese ESL children reflected difficulty in representing phonemes that are absent in Cantonese phonology, and this difficulty is not merely at the orthographic level. Poor phonological representation of the phoneme /θ/ of ESL children was also reflected in an auditory discrimination task. Nevertheless, this negative transfer did not persist across time. By the time they reached the end of grade 2, the performance of ESL children was very close to that of L1 children. A causal relationship is shown via cross-lagged correlations between auditory discrimination and spelling performance for both L1 and ESL children. These results suggest an interactive relationship between a general development of phonological and orthographic knowledge and an L1 transfer effect in second language spelling acquisition.

In bilingual and multilingual settings one is constantly challenged by the difficulty of teasing apart phenomena associated with normal second language (L2) reading acquisition from authentic warning signs of reading failure. The bulk of this paper focuses on a critical discussion of a cluster of beliefs that pertain to the issues concerning the diagnosis of reading disability in multilingual and bilingual settings among school children. Findings from available research on reading acquisition among bilingual children and research focusing specifically on the assessment of English-as-a-second language (ESL) children who might be at risk for reading disability are used to evaluate the validity of these beliefs. While some beliefs are supported by research, others are not. In particular, the research suggests that reliable diagnosis of dyslexia among ESL children can be achieved by examining within-language differences on various indices of basic reading skills such as phonological processing, and by noting a significant gap between oral and reading comprehension.

A new rating scale to assess cultural diversity in North American people's understanding of epilepsy was developed and its psychometric properties were evaluated. The content of the scale was based on the hypotheses that cultural diversity and experience with epilepsy would be associated with differences in people's beliefs and attitudes about epilepsy. The sample, 117 Caucasians, 71 South Asians, and 40 East Asians, was drawn from a larger study. All participants had completed the newscale, Epilepsy Beliefs and Attitudes Scale (EBAS). Cronbach's coefficient ␣ for the items in the scale was 0.85. A method of principal-axis factor analysis yielded three factors which were referred to as the Neurological, Enviro-psycho-physical, and Metaphysical subscales to emphasize the underlying themes of beliefs and attitudes they represented. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed a significant main effect for culture (P < 0.0001), epilepsy status (Caucasians only) (P < 0.007), and epilepsy familiarity group (P < 0.002). Further analysis was conducted between demographic variables, culture, and participants' subscale scores. Results indicated that age, gender, and education were not related to differential responses to the scale. However, a significant effect for the duration of stay in North America was found (P < 0.02). An examination of the role of faith in higher power revealed that the participants may consider both the Neurological and Metaphysical beliefs concurrently. The results provided support for the EBAS as a reliable, valid, and culturally sensitive instrument.

When learning to program in Logo, many young children experience difficulties using the right and left turn commands. This paper looks at the spatial concepts required for the understanding and manipulation of these commands. We begin by providing an overview of research on children's Logo learning and point to specific problems children have with fight and left commands and to related characteristics of standard Logo systems that seem to contribute to these problems. To shed further light on the source of these problems, the psychological-cognitive literature on the development of spatial concepts concerned with the use of frames of reference and obliques is reviewed. It is argued that in order for children to handle meaningful programmLng projects they need to master a set of prerequisite skills. These skills, involving the development of elaborated and explicated spatial concepts, include a distinction between fight and left, the intentional reference to the Turtle as a frame of reference, the assignment of appropriate axes and the application of units of measurement for determining distance and angles. We conclude by suggesting that children need to be exposed to Logo programs designed to facilitate the development of spatial concepts which would enable the successful progression to more complex Turtle Geometry programming tasks.

The hypothesis that differences between first language (LI) and second language (L2) reading and spelling profiles could be accounted for by lack of proficiency in the L2 or differences in orthographic complexity was explored in a longitudinal study of 45 children acquiring reading and spelling skills concurrently in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2). The children were tested in Grades 1 and 2 on literacy measures in both languages. Neither of these explanations alone sufficed to explain the development of reading and spelling in the two languages. The less complex Hebrew orthography facilitated subjects' decoding performance, but failed to maintain that facilitation in spelling. Depressed second language effects were apparent in spelling but not in decoding, which actually favoured the subjects' L2. Developmental findings showed that, despite L1-L2 differences in orthographic complexity and language proficiency, the profiles of emergent spelling in both languages are strikingly similar. The rate of acquisition of conventional spelling, however, differentiates L1 from L2 performance.

The present study was designed to shed light on whether some of the problems that average and below average readers have in comprehending expository texts stem primarily from lack of familiarity with conjunctions or a tendency to ignore these markers. On the basis of Gates-MacGinitie reading comprehension scores, 93 students in grades 5 and 7 were classified into high, medium, and low reading levels. All students read short expository texts under four conjunction manipulation conditions and answered comprehension questions. The conjunction manipulations within the texts were designed for examination of the roles of analyzed linguistic knowledge and cognitive control in comprehension. Analyses indicated that all groups benefited from the highlighting of explicit conjunctions. The comprehension of interpropositional relationships by average and below average readers was enhanced when explicit conjunctions were available, relative to an implicit condition. Furthermore, the deep processing manipulation (conjunction multiple-choice cloze) actually hindered, rather than facilitated, comprehension for all

This study compared variables related to reading ability in Grade 3 students learning English as a first language (L1) and second language (L2). The students learning English as an L2 came from diverse backgrounds, with different levels of bilingualism in Spanish and English or Portuguese and English before they entered school. Both within-group and between-group differences emerged in comparing Spanish children from two cohorts, and in comparing the Spanish group to the Portuguese and English groups. Models predicting reading comprehension found differences with respect to the contribution of receptive vocabulary, decoding, and print exposure in the L1 and L2 groups, depending on the L2 students' bilingual language status and language acquisition experiences. Additionally, print exposure was more highly related to comprehension in the lowest performing L2 groups. Implications and future directions are discussed. Research and policy debates in the field of bilingual reading development have focused on the cognitive advantages and cognitive disadvantages of learning more than one language, and more specifically, learning to read in English as a second language (L2) (Bialystok, 2007). Additionally, studies have focused on comparing English as a first language (L1) or English L2 groups in their acquisition and performance on cognitive components related to reading (Bialystok,

The paper reported an exploratory study that tested (a) the relationship between phonological and morphological awareness in English (L1)-Arabic (L2) bilingual children in Canada (N = 43), and (b) the relevance of these skills to word and pseudoword reading accuracy, and to complex word reading fluency. The results showed a significant correlation between phonological awareness in English and in Arabic. However, morphological awareness in the two languages was not correlated. Phonological awareness predicted reading cross-linguistically, but only Arabic morphological awareness predicted word reading in English. Moreover, while both phonological and morphological awareness in English predicted independent unique variance in English word reading, only phonological awareness in Arabic predicted Arabic word reading. Complex-word reading fluency was predicted by morphological awareness within both languages. Similarly, in both languages, phonological awareness was the single factor predicting pseudoword decoding accuracy. The results are discussed in terms of cross-linguistic differences between English and Arabic in orthographic depth and in morphological structure and transparency.

This study investigated the adequacy of an expanded simple view of reading (SVR) framework for English language learners (ELLs), using mediation modeling approach. The proposed expanded SVR included reading fluency as an outcome and phonological awareness and naming speed as predictors. To test the fit of the proposed mediation model, longitudinal data from 308 ELLs from different linguistic backgrounds were analyzed using structural equation modeling. We examined the mediating role of Grade 2 word-level reading skills in the association between Grade 1 phonological awareness, naming speed, and listening comprehension and Grade 3 reading comprehension and reading fluency. The results indicated that word-level reading skills fully mediated the association between phonological awareness, reading comprehension and reading fluency. Word-level reading skills partially mediated the association between naming speed and reading fluency. Listening comprehension contributed directly to reading comprehension and reading fluency. It appears that reading development in ELLs is better understood when reading fluency is added to the SVR framework as an outcome and naming speed as a building block of SVR. Theoretical aspects of the mediation model in relation to ELL reading development are also addressed.

The validity of two measures of English reading comprehension was examined across three different groups of English language learners (ELLs; 64 Portuguese, 66 Spanish and 65 Cantonese). All three groups were achieving within the average range in second grade. An exploratory principal components analysis of reading skills was carried out to determine which skills were related to two commonly used tests of reading comprehension, the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery's test of Passage Comprehension (WLPB-PC; Woodcock, 1991) and the Gray Oral Reading Test-4 (GORT-4; Wiederholt & Bryant, 2001). The factor solutions were different for the three language groups but showed many similarities in that the GORT-4 and WLPB-R tests of reading comprehension fell on the same factor within each group. Hierarchical regression analyses examining relationships among vocabulary, decoding and reading comprehension showed that language group membership did not significantly predict performance on either measure of reading comprehension. Differences that arose are likely due to issues with task validity and not ELL status. Limitations and future research are discussed.

The present study examined the development of morphological awareness and its contribution to vocabulary and reading comprehension among young Chinese-speaking English language learners (ELLs). We focused on two aspects of morphological awareness: derivational awareness and compound awareness. Participants included 46 kindergarteners (younger cohort) and 34 first graders (older cohort) of Chinese descent in Canada at the beginning of the study. Children were administered a battery of English measures including derivational awareness, compound awareness, phonological awareness, receptive vocabulary, and reading comprehension at two time points spaced 1 year apart. Results demonstrated a steady growth in Chinese-speaking ELL children's derivational and compound awareness from kindergarten to Grade 2. Importantly, for the first graders, morphological awareness accounted for unique variance in vocabulary concurrently, and unique variance in both vocabulary and reading comprehension a year later. Generally speaking, the variance explained by morphological awareness increased with grade level, and derivational awareness accounted for more variance in vocabulary and reading comprehension than did compound awareness. These results underscore the emerging importance of morphological awareness, especially derivational awareness, in young Chinese-speaking ELL children's English reading development.

This special issue of Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal contains nine papers by researchers who presented at the Language and Reading Comprehension for Immigrant Children (LARCIC) conference, which took place at OISE/University of Toronto in 2009. The first set of five papers focuses on the contribution of cognitive factors to reading comprehension in language minority children, and the second set of four papers focuses on the joint effects of cognitive and socio-cultural factors on literacy development in these children. Three common themes emerge in the first set of papers. The first theme compares the cognitive processes that contribute to reading comprehension between language minority children and their peers who speak the societal language as the first language. In particular, the application of the Simple View of Reading model in language minority children is discussed. The second theme compares the reading performance of language minority children to their peers. The third theme explores the nature of reading constructs in language minority children. Two common themes underlie the second set of papers. The first theme addresses the mediating role of socio-cultural factors in vocabulary development in language minority children. The second theme explores the joint effects of cognitive and socio-cultural factors on cross-language transfer of literacy skills. Taken together, the papers presented in this special issue

This study evaluated the impact of two metalinguistic factors, English derivational awareness and English-Spanish cognate awareness, and the impact of two sociocultural factors, maternal education and children's length of residence in Canada, on English Language Learners (ELLs)' vocabulary knowledge. The participants of the study were 89 Spanish-speaking ELLs, 77 Chinese-speaking ELLs, and a comparison group of 78 monolingual English-speaking children in Grades 4 and 7. The sample included both first-generation (born outside of Canada) and second generation (born in Canada) immigrant children. The study yielded several important findings. First, it confirmed the strong link between derivational awareness and vocabulary knowledge observed in the previous research, and extended this relationship to two groups of ELLs from different first language backgrounds. Second, this study unveiled differences in vocabulary learning between Spanishspeaking and Chinese-speaking ELLs. While Spanish-speaking children were able to utilize the cognate strategy to learn English words, this strategy was not available for Chinese-speaking ELLs. With respect to the sociocultural factors, length of residence in Canada was significantly related to ELLs' vocabulary development. Interestingly, length of residence in Canada only influenced the development of noncognate vocabulary, but not cognate vocabulary, in Spanish-speaking ELLs, which provides additional evidence for these children's use of the cognate strategy.

This study examined emergent literacy skills of 61 kindergarten children whose families had immigrated to Israel from a primarily oral society (Ethiopia). Three complementary perspectives were examined: developmental patterns, individual differences, and the contribution of parent literacy. The emergent literacy skills of children whose families were from Ethiopia were compared to those of 52 children coming from a primarily literate culture. The groups had acquired less complex Hebrew literacy skills in the same order, including phonological awareness, letter naming and consonant writing. However, the Ethiopian Israeli children were less proficient on various aspects of Hebrew language proficiency, and less familiar with aspects of cultural and environmental literacy. Most were also unable to speak or comprehend Amharic. In both groups, phonological awareness explained individual differences in letter naming, but vocabulary and syntactic knowledge added to the explained variance on...