Reading Efficiency in Native English Speaking and English as Second Language Children

Reading Efficiency in Native English-Speaking and English-as-a-Second-Language Children: The Role of Oral

Proficiency and UnderlyingCognitive-Linguistic Processes

Esther Geva

University of Toronto

Zohreh Yaghoub Zadeh

Canadian Council on Learning

Theresearchexaminedtheextenttowhich(a)Grade2English-as-a-second-lan-guage(ESL)andEnglish-as-a-first-language(EL1)childrenresembleeachotheronwordandtextreadingefficiencyand(b)whetherindividualdifferencesinwordandtextreadingefficiencyinthetwolanguagegroupscanbeunderstoodintermsofsim-ilarunderlyingcomponentprocesses.Despiteanorallanguageproficiencyadvan-tageintheEL1group,noEL1advantageexistedonanyofthecognitiveandreadingmeasures.Orallanguageproficiency,phonologicalawareness,rapidautomatizednaming,andaccuratewordrecognitionweresignificantpredictorsofwordandtextefficiencyintheESLgroup.OnlyrapidautomatizednamingandwordrecognitionweresignificantintheEL1group.Overall,withtheexceptionofEnglish-languageoralproficiencyskills,EL1andESLprofilesofthreeefficiencysubgroups(poorde-coders, low efficiency, and high efficiency) were highly similar.

Thegoalofthisarticleistoinvestigatethedevelopmentofwordandtextreadingeffi-ciencyinyoungchildrenlearningtoreadintheirsecondlanguage(L2).BecausealmostnoresearchhasbeenconductedonthedevelopmentoffluencyandefficiencyinL2read-ing,webeginbyprovidingabriefoverviewofthefirstlanguage(L1)-basedliterature.

CorrespondenceshouldbesenttoEstherGeva,TheDepartmentofHumanDevelopmentandAp-pliedPsychology,OntarioInstituteforStudiesinEducationoftheUniversityofToronto,Toronto,On-tario, Canada M5S 1V6. E-mail: egeva@oise.utoronto.ca

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Noconsensusexistsinthereadingliteraturewithregardtotheconceptofread-ingfluency(Wolf&Katzir-Cohen,2001).Termssuchasfluency,efficiency,andautomaticityoverlaptosomedegreeandareoftenusedassynonyms(NationalReadingPanel,2000).Someusethetermautomaticitytorefertovariousaspectsofwordidentificationthatcanbeprocessedwithlittleeffortandattention.Theoriesofautomaticity(LaBerge&Samuels,1974)assumethataccuracydevelopsbeforespeedandthatanefficientreaderisonewhocanreadwordsbothaccuratelyandfast.Theoriesofverbalefficiency(Perfetti,1985)emphasizetheimportanceofef-fectivelexicalretrievalprocessesandtheirimpactonindividualdifferencesinreadingcomprehension.Researchershavesuggestedthatcomprehensioncanbeenhancedwhenlexicalaccessprocessesareexecutedefficientlyandautomati-cally,sothatcognitive-processingresourcesarenotovertaxed(Bowers,Golden,Kennedy,&Young,1994;Bowers&Wolf,1993;Carver,1997;LaBerge&Samuels,1974;Perfetti,1985;Shany&Biemiller,1995;Stanovich,1992).TheNationalReadingPanel(2000)expandedtheconceptofreadingfluencytoinclude“theabilitytogroupwordsappropriatelyintomeaningfulgrammaticalunitsforin-terpretation”(pp.3–6).Inthisarticleweusethetermwordreadingefficiencytore-fertoaccurateandfastreadingofisolatedwords,andtextreadingefficiencytore-fer to accurate and fast reading of text.

Recentmodelsespouseamoredynamic,developmental,andcomponentialap-proachtothestudyofreadingfluency(e.g.,Berninger,Abbot,Billingsly,&Nagy,2001;Kame’enui,Simmons,Good,&Harn,2001;Levy,2000;Wolf&Katzir-Co-hen,2001).KuhnandStahl(2000)discussedhowthedevelopmentofreadingflu-encyrelatestothestagesofdevelopmentdescribedbyChall(1996).WolfandKatzir-Cohensuggestedthatintheearlystagesofreadingdevelopmentfluencyentailsthegradualdevelopmentofaccurateandautomaticexecutionoflowerlevelcomponentsinvolvingorthographic,phonological,lexical,morphological,andsyntacticskills.Tobeefficientreaders,childrenneedtoincreasetheirrepertoireoflargeorthographicunitsthatareeasilyaccessiblefrommemoryandtocarryouttheselowerleveloperationswithspeed.Oncereadershavedevelopedefficiencywiththesebasicaspectsofreadingandworddecodingbecomeseffortlessandfast,textreadingefficiencyisreflectedinparalinguisticfeaturessuchasprosody.Effi-cienttextreadingallowsfortheallocationofattentionalresourcestohigherlevelreading skills involved in comprehension.

WolfandKatzir-Cohenmaintainedthatdysfluentreadingcanbetheresultofimpairmentinanycomponentprocess(Meyer&Felton,1999;Wolf,Bowers,&Biddle,2000).Overall,lessskilledL1readersaredescribedintheL1readingliter-atureasrecognizingprintedwordsmoreslowlythanskilledreaders(Biemiller,1977/78;Carver,1997;Denckla&Rudel,1976;Ehri,1998;Manis,Seidenberg,Doi,McBride-Chang,&Patterson,1996;Perfetti,1985;Torgesen,2001;Wagneretal.,1997).Twounderlyingprocessesthathavebeenimplicatedinefficientwordreadingarephonologicalawarenessandnamingspeed.Sometheoreticiansmain-

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tainthatnamingspeedandphonologicalawarenesstapcommonunderlyingpho-nologicalprocesses(e.g.,Wagneretal.,1997).Othersmaintainthatnamingspeedmayinvolveproblemswithadistinctphonologicalandvisualtimingmechanismnecessaryforestablishingunitizedorthographicandphonologicalcodes(e.g.,Bowers&Wolf,1993;Breznitz,2001,2002;Wolf&Bowers,1999;seeSavage,2004,forareview).Notwithstandingthisunresolvedtheoreticaldebate,L1-basedstudiesonthespeedofnamingvariousstimuliindicatethatindividualdifferencesinspeedofletter,digit,orwordnamingpredictfluentreadinginL1(Kirbyetal.,2003;Stage,Sheppard,Davidson,&Browning,2001;Wimmer,Maryinger,&Landerl, 2000; Young & Bowers, 1995).

READING DEVELOPMENT IN L2

ResearchonL2readingdevelopmentinL2childrenisnotasextensiveastheliter-atureonL1readingdevelopment.However,inthelastdecadethedatabaseonL2readingdevelopmenthasexpanded.Ithasshownthat(a)accuracyindexesofwordrecognitionandspellingskillsinyoungL2childrenareoftenidenticaltothoseofL1children(e.g.,Geva,YaghoubZadeh,&Schuster,2000;Lesaux&Siegel,2004;Lipka,2003;Wade-Woolley&Siegel,1997;Wang&Geva,2003);(b)cog-nitive-linguisticcomponentssuchasphonologicalawarenessandrapidautoma-tizednaming(RAN)canbemeasuredreliablyandutilizedtopredictperformanceonwordreadingskillsinL1andL2childrenalike(e.g.,Chiappe&Siegel,1999;Comeau,Cormier,Grandmaison,&Lacroix,1999;Durgunoglu,Nagy,&Hancin-Bhatt,1993;Gevaetal.,2000;Gottardo,Yan,Siegel,&Wade-Woolley,2001;Lesaux&Siegel,2003;Lindsey,Manis,&Bailey,2003;Wade-Woolley&Siegel,1997);and(c)onceindividualdifferencesinphonemicawarenessandrapidnaminghavebeentakenintoaccount,orallanguageproficiencyskillsdonotaddsubstantiallytothevarianceinaccuratebasicreadingskillsinL2children(Arab-Moghaddam&Sénéchal,2001;Durgunogluetal.,1993;Geva&Siegel,2000; Geva et al., 2000; Gholamain & Geva, 1999; Lindsey et al., 2003).

AlthoughL2oralproficiencymaynotmakeauniquecontributionoverandaboveotherbasicreadingcomponentstoaccuracyinL2wordrecognitionandspellingskills,itisreasonabletoexpectthatitshouldplayamorepronouncedrolewhenwordandtextreadingefficiencyaretargeted.ThisissuehasreceivedverylittleattentionintheL2literatureandhasbeenlargelylimitedtothereadingper-formanceofadultL2readers(e.g.,Nassaji&Geva,1999;Segalowitz,1986;Shimron&Sivan,1994;Wade-Woolley&Geva,1999).Todate,onlyahandfulofL2studieshavesystematicallyexaminedthedevelopmentofwordandtexteffi-ciencyinL2children(e.g.,Geva&Clifton,1994;Geva,Wade-Woolley,&Shany,1997;Quiroga,Lemos-Britton,Mostafapour,Abbott,&Berninger,2002).ThestudiesbyGevaandhercolleaguesfocusedprimarilyonL1–L2transfer.Both

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studieshaveshownthatprimary-levelpoordecoderswerelessfluentthangoodde-codersinreadingtextsinEnglish,intheirL1,andintheirL2(FrenchandHebrew,respectively).OfparticularrelevanceinthepresentcontextistheGevaetal.(1997)studyinwhichperformanceonbothaccuracyandspeedindexesofwordreadinginL1(English)andL2(Hebrew)wereverysimilar.Thisresultisconsis-tentwiththeobservationthatorallanguageproficiencydidnotmakeauniquecon-tributiontowordrecognitioninL2children.Inaddition,inaresultreplicatingJacksonandDonaldson(19),Gevaetal.reportedthatintheirL1(English),chil-dren’stextreadingtimewasfasterthanreadingthesamewordspresentedoutofcontext.However,contextdidnothaveafacilitatingeffectinHebrew,astheirHe-brew proficiency was minimal.

Questionsconcerningtheroleoflanguageproficiencyinenhancingreadingef-ficiencyareparticularlypertinentinL2contexts.CarlisleandBeeman(2000)re-portedthatprimary-levelSpanish–Englishbilingualchildren’svocabularyknowl-edgepredictedreadingcomprehensioninthesamelanguage.AnintuitivelysensiblehypothesisisthatwordrecognitionskillsofL2childrenshouldbeslowerthanthoseoftheirL1counterpartsbecausetheirvocabularyisnotasdevelopedandbecausetheymaybeslowerinaccessinglinguisticinformation(e.g.,phono-logical,semantic,morphological)thantheirL1counterparts.Thesamewouldbeexpected to be true for text reading fluency in young L2 learners.

ThequestionthenbecomestowhatextentareL1-basedtheoriesofreadingeffi-ciency,whichattributeslowerreadingtolessefficientwordrecognitionskillsandtoreducedaccesstolinguisticinformation,applicabletoL2learners?Areindivid-ualdifferencesinreadingefficiencyrelatedtoindividualdifferencesinunderlyingprocessessuchasphonologicalawarenessandrapidnamingjustastheyappeartobeinL1children?Alternatively,areoralproficiencyandtheabilitytobenefitfromlinguisticcontextthedrivingforcesinenhancingL2wordreadingefficiencyandtextefficiency?Accordingtothelatterexplanation,L2childrenwouldbeexpectedtohavelessefficientwordrecognitionskillsthantheirL1counterpartsandtobelessfluentreadersbecauseoflimitationsintheefficiencyofretrievingphonologi-cal, semantic, and grammatical information.

Insummary,althoughrecentresearchhasshedsomelightonthecognitive,lin-guistic,andorthographicunderpinningsofaccuratewordrecognitionskillsinL2children,adearthofknowledgeexistsaboutthedevelopmentofreadingefficiencyinL2children.Thisstudyfocusesontheemergenceofreadingefficiencyinyoung,primary-levelEnglish-as-a-second-language(ESL)childrenwhohavemasteredthebasicprinciplesofwordreading.Thestudy’sfirstobjectiveistocom-pareESLandEnglish-as-a-first-language(EL1)childrenonwordandtextreadingefficiencyandtoexaminetheeffectsofcontextonreadingefficiency.Acompari-sonofreadingefficiencyinEL1andESLchildrenwouldshedlightontheassump-tionthatEL1childrenshouldbemoreefficientreadersthanESLchildrenduetotheirbettercommandofthelanguage.Asecondobjectiveistoexaminetheextenttowhichasimilarsetofunderlyingprocessesdrivewordandtextreadingeffi-

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ciencyinEL1andESLchildren.Toachievethisobjective,weexploretherelativecontributionofindividualdifferencesinorallanguageproficiency,underlyingcognitive-linguisticprocesses(e.g.,nonverbalability,rapidserialnaming,phono-logicalawareness),andwordrecognitiontotextandwordreadingefficiencyinEL1andESLchildren.Thethirdobjectiveistoexaminesimilaritiesanddiffer-ences in profiles of EL1 and ESL groups that differ in their reading efficiency.

METHOD

Participants

ESLandL1participantswererecruitedfromthreesubsequentcohortsofchildrenin12schoolsinfourschoolboardsinalarge,multiethnicmetropolisinCanada,where4of10residentswerebornoutsidethecountry.ItisnottheobjectiveofthisresearchtoexaminetheimpactofsocioeconomicstatusonreadingachievementinESLchil-dren.Moreover,wedidnothaveaccesstoindividualfamilylevelsocioeconomicsta-tusdata.The2001CanadianCensusdata1indicatethat,onaverage,anonofficiallan-guage(i.e.,neitherEnglishnorFrench)wasthelanguagespokenby58%ofthepeoplelivinginthecommunitiesfeedingintotheparticipatingschools(thepercent-agesrangedfrom43%to73%).Onaverage,68%ofthefamilieslivinginthesecom-munitiesimmigratedtoCanadawhentheywereatleast20yearsold(withlittlevari-abilitybetweenthecommunities);another23%indicatedthattheyimmigratedbetweentheagesof5and19.Inotherwords,themajorityoftheresidentswerefirst-generationimmigrants.Theincidenceofpoverty2variedsomewhatamongthecommunities.Whereasin2ofthecommunitiesnoincidenceofpovertywasre-ported,ineachoftheothercommunitiesacertainproportion(12%–50%)wereclas-sifiedaspoor;theaverageincidenceofpovertywas23%.Itisalsoimportanttonotethatthemedianfamilyincomeineachofthe12communitieswassubstantiallylowerthanthemedianreportedforthemetropolis.Anotherkeyindexofsocioeconomicstatusisparentaleducation.Quiteabitofvariabilityexistsintermsofthehighestlevelofeducationachieved,reflectingimmigrationtrendsandCanadianimmigra-tionpolicies.Onaverage,17%oftheindividualsinthecensusdistricthadlessthan9yearsofeducation,27%obtainedatleastsomesecondaryeducation,13%hadahighschoolcertificate,8%hadtraininginatrade,another19%hadcollegeeducation,and20%hadobtainedabachelor’sdegreeorahigheruniversitydegree.

ispossibletoaccessthecensusdemographicdatafordisseminationareasfromStatisticsCan-ada.Disseminationareasaresmall,relativelystablegeographicunits,composedofoneormoreblocks,whichrespecttheboundariesofcensussubdivisionsandcensustracts.Theyareuniformintermsofpopulationsize(400–700),andtheyarethesmalleststandardgeographicareaforwhichallcensusdataaredisseminated.Thedemographicinformationprovidedisbasedonthedatafromthedisseminationareas in which the participating schools are located.

2Poverty is defined as a family income of $30,000 (Canadian) or less for a family of four.

1It

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Theinitialsampleconsistedof183ESLchildrenand70EL1children.Thedataof3(4.3%)EL1childrenand18(8.8%)ESLchildrenwhohadastandardscorebe-low80onameasureofnonverbalability(MatrixAnalogiesTest[MAT];Naglieri,19)werenotincludedintheanalyses,leavingfinalsamplesof183Grade2ESLchildren (46% girls) and 67 (62% girls) EL1 children.

ThenativelanguagegroupsrepresentedintheESLsampleareCantonese(19%),Punjabi(41%),Tamil(18%),andPortuguese(22%).TheESLchildrencomefrom12schools,andtheEL1childrenfrom7oftheseschools.Themeanagewas 88.43 months for the EL1 sample and 87.32 months for the ESL sample.ConsentformsinEnglishandchildren’shomelanguageweredistributedineachoftheparticipatingclassrooms.Onlychildrenwithparentalconsentpartici-patedinthestudy.Interviewsofparentsabouthomeliteracyandtheextenttowhichthenativelanguagewasusedathomewerenotconductedduetolanguagebarriers,budgetaryconstraints,andreluctancebytheschooldistrictstoallowac-cesstoparents.However,informationabouttheEL1orESLlanguagestatusofchildrenwasdeterminedthroughinformationabouteachchildrecordedinschoolfilesandparentresponsesincludedintheconsentforms.Thisinformationwassubsequentlyvalidatedduringinterviewswithclassroomteachers.OnlychildrenwhoseschoolrecordsandteacherinterviewsindicatedanESLstatuswereconsid-eredassuchinthestudy.Inaddition,childrenwhohadnotlivedinanEng-lish-speakingcountryforatleast4monthsattheonsetofGrade1werenotin-cluded.Thisprecautionwastakentoensurethatchildrenwhowereincludedhadsome systematic exposure to the rudiments of language and literacy instruction.InEnglish-speakingCanada,school-agechildrenwhoarerecentarrivalsfromanon-English-speakingcountrytypicallyattendschool-basedESLclassesforupto2years.Intheschooldistrictswherethisstudywasconducted,ESLinstruction,whichisprovidedonawithdrawalbasis,typicallyoccursindaily30-to40-minsessionswithgroupsofthreetofivechildren.InthesesmallgroupsallchildrenhavesimilarlevelsofEnglishlanguageproficiencybutnotnecessarilythesameL1.TeacherswithESLspecialisttrainingconducttheseclasses.ESLclassesfocusonthedevelopmentofspokenEnglishandonreadinessforliteracyskills.BesidestheESLtutoring,newimmigrantchildrenattendregularclassrooms,inwhichallinstruction takes place in English.3

Classroomteachersareexpectedtoprovideappropriateadaptationstothecurric-ulum.SomeoftheESLchildreninthisstudywereattendingESLclassesatthetimeoftestingorhadattendedsuchclassesintherecentpast.Exceptforpull-outsforsmall-groupESLtutoring,theESLchildrenwerecompletelyintegratedintothereg-ularclassroom.

inlargeurbancentersinCanadaareethnicallyandlinguisticallydiverse.Therefore,

providingsystematiclanguageandliteracyinstructioninthehomelanguageisnotfeasible.Insomecommunities,however,childrenmayattendheritagelanguageprograms.Typically,theseclassestakeplaces after school or on weekends.

3Classrooms

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Measures

Cognitive and Linguistic MeasuresNonverbal intelligence.ChildrencompletedtheMAT(Naglieri,19),ameasureofnonverbalintelligence.Inthistest,childrenarepresentedwithanillus-trationofanincompletevisuo-spatialmatrixandaskedtocompleteitbylocatingthemissingpieceamongfiveorsixpatternedsegments.Thetesthasfoursubtests(patterncompletion,reasoningbyanalogy,serialreasoning,andspatialvisualiza-tion),eachofwhichconsistsof16matrixes.Testingwithineachsubtestisdiscon-tinued after four consecutive errors. Results are reported in standard scores.RAN.TheRANtask,developedbyDencklaandRudel(1976),wasusedtomeasurespeedofrapidserialnaming.Inthiscontinuousnamingtask,childrenareaskedtonamefivelettersasfastastheycan.Eachletterappears10timesinran-domorderwithin10setsoffiveitems.PriortoadministeringtheRANtask,thechildisaskedtonameeachofthefiveletterstoascertainfamiliaritywiththelet-ters.TheRANmeasureisnotadministeredtothosechildrenwhocannotnameallfiveletterswithoutassistance.Thechildren’stime(inseconds)tonameallthelet-tersontheboardisusedasthenamingspeedmeasure.Notethatthelowerthescore is the faster is the naming speed.

Phonological awareness (PA).PAwasmeasuredwithataskadaptedfromtheAuditoryAnalysisTaskdevelopedbyRosnerandSimon(1971).Inthisseg-mentation-deletiontask,childrenmustisolateanddeletesyllablesorphonemesandindicatetheresultingword(e.g.,“Saymeat.Nowsayitwithoutthe/m/.”).MethodologicalconsiderationsguidedusinadaptingthistasktotheESLpopula-tion.Inparticular,itwasnecessarytominimizethepossibleconfoundingoflan-guageproficiencywithperformanceonthisphonologicalawarenesstask.Ourpri-maryconcernwasthatmanyofthewordsortheresultingwordsontheoriginalAuditoryAnalysisTaskarenotlikelytobefamiliartoyoungESLchildren(e.g.,stale).Theitemsontheadaptedtaskareallhigh-frequencywords,andtheresult-ingwordsafterthechilddeletesthephonemeorsyllablearealsohigh-frequencywords(e.g.,“Sayleg.Nowsayitwithoutthe/l/.”).Ofthe25itemsonthetask,thefirst4involvesyllabledeletion,andtheremainderrequirephonemedeletioninwordinitial,wordfinal,orwordmedialposition.Someitemsrequirethedeletionofaphonemeinaconsonantcluster.Fourpracticeitemsprecedetheadministra-tionofthetestitems.Administrationisdiscontinuedafterfiveconsecutiveerrors.The total correct scores are reported. The Cronbachαis .92.

Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test–Revised.TheExpres-siveOne-WordPictureVocabularyTest–Revised(Gardner,1990)wasusedtoas-sesslanguageproficiency.Itisastandardizedmeasureofexpressivevocabularyinwhichchildrenareaskedtoprovideone-wordlabelstolinedrawingpicturespre-

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sentedtothemoneatatime.Thetest,whichincludes100nounsandverbs,isdis-continuedonceacriterionofsixconsecutiveerrorshasbeenestablished.Thetotalnumber of correct responses was used in the analyses.

Grammatical judgment.Children’ssyntacticknowledgewasassessedus-ingitemsadaptedfromagrammaticaljudgmentmeasuredevelopedbyJohnsonandNewport(19).Inthis40-itemmeasureofreceptivesyntacticskills,thechildlistenstoprerecordedtapedsentencesthatareeithergrammaticallycorrect(e.g.,“Weatethewholepizzabyourselves.”)orincorrect(e.g.,“Januaryisthemostcoldmonthoftheyear.”).Halfofthesentencesaresyntacticallycorrect,andtheotherhalfaresyntacticallyincorrect.Eachsentenceisplayedtwiceonataperecorder,andthechildisaskedtoindicatewhetherthesentenceissaid“therightway”or“thewrongway.”Nodiscontinueruleisusedonthistest.Thetotalscorewasbasedon the number of correctly judged sentences. The Cronbachαvalue is .77.Basic Reading Skills MeasuresWord Attack.TheWordAttacksubtestoftheWoodcockReadingMasteryTest–Revised(Woodcock,1987)wasusedtoassesschildren’sabilitytoutilizetheirknowledgeofgrapheme–phonemecorrespondencerulesandorthographicrepresentationstodecodeor“attack”pseudowordsinEnglish.Thistestconsistsof50pronounceablepseudowordsthatcomplywithEnglishorthographicrules(e.g.,plip,cigbet).Childrenreadthepseudowordsoneatatime,andtestingisdiscontin-uedwhenthechildmakessixconsecutiveerrors.Resultsarereportedintermsoftotal correct scores.

Word Recognition.Toassesschildren’sEnglishwordrecognitionskillstheWordRecognitionsubtestoftheWideRangeAchievementTest–Revised(Jastak&Wilkinson,1984)wasused.Thistestconsistsof42unrelatedwords.Itbeginswithhighlyfamiliar,shortwords(e.g.,cat),andgraduallythewordsbecomelessfrequentandmorecomplexorthographically(e.g.,pseudonym).Testingisdiscon-tinuedwhenthechildmakes10consecutiveerrors.Resultsarereportedintermsoftotal correct scores.

Reading Efficiency MeasuresTheBiemillerTestofReadingProcesses(Biemiller,1981)wasusedtomeasurewordandtextreadingefficiency.Thetestyieldsmeasuresofaccuracyandspeedinreadingisolatedwordsandconnectedtext.Theisolatedwordlistscomefromthecorresponding texts.

Word efficiency.Thissubtest,whichrequireschildrentoreadisolatedwords,providesanindicationofchildren’sabilitytoidentifyunrelatedwordsac-curatelyandquickly.Childrenarepresentedwithtwolists,eachconsistingof50

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randomlyordered,single-morphemewords(takenfromthetwocorrespondingtexts;seethefollowingdiscussion)andaskedtoreadthemasfastaspossible.Thefirst list has easier words than the second.

Text efficiency.TheTextReadingsubtestfocusesontextreadingefficiency.Participantsarepresentedwithtwonarrativetexts(containing100wordseach).Theyarerequiredtoreadeachtextaloudasquicklyastheycan.Thesubtestin-cludestwonarratives,an“easy”text,which,accordingtoBiemiller(1981)usesprimer-levelwords(e.g.,bear,thank,no,they,water,fish,tried,andfather),andarelativelymore“difficult”text,whichconsistsofwordsthataretypicalofmiddleelementary-levelreading(e.g.,register,asked,interested,saw,things,wood,tour-ists,andalso).Thereadingmaterialsareeasytominimizeconfoundingofspeedand accuracy (Jackson & Donaldson, 19).

Test administration.Thechildfirstreadstheeasytextandthenthecorre-spondingwordlist.Themoredifficulttextandthecorrespondingwordlistaread-ministerednext.Bothsetscontainwordsthatwerechosenbecausetheycanbede-codedwithminimaldifficulty.AsBiemiller(1981)pointedout,thegoalofthetestistoascertainnothowmanywordschildrencanreadbutratherthespeedatwhichtheyreadthesewords.Assessmentofreadingefficiency,however,canbecompro-misedifchildrenmaketoomanyerrors.Theassessoristhusinstructedtoaidthechildwhostumblesonawordbyprovidingwithoutdelaytheunknownwordaswellasthesubsequenttwowords.TheBiemillerteststipulatesthatifachildmakesmorethan25%errorsonthefirsttexttheyshouldnotbeadministeredthesecondtext.Accordingly,inthisstudy,whenchildrenfailedtoreadthefirstpas-sagewithanacceptabledegreeofaccuracy(75%accuracyregardlessofspeed),theywereconsideredtobepoordecodersandwerenotadministeredthesecondpassage and corresponding word list.4

Speed scoring.Toobtainaspeedscoreintheisolatedwordscondition,wedividedthetotalnumberofsecondsthataparticipanttooktoreadtheeasyandhardlistsbythetotalnumberofcorrectwordsreadacrossthetwolists.Thesameproce-durewasrepeatedtocalculatetextspeedscores.TheEL1andESLgroupsdidnotdifferonwordaccuracy(85%and88%,respectively)orontextaccuracy(%and90%, respectively).

comparisonofefficiencyscoresintheEL1andESLgroupswiththosepublishedbyBiemiller(1981)revealedthatthespeedscoresreportedbyBiemillerforthesameagegroupwerehigherthanthoseobtainedinthisstudy.However,Biemillerexcludeddataofchildrenwhomademorethanthreeerrorsonthetasksbecausehefocusedontherelationshipbetweenspeedandaccuracyinchildrenwhoreadwithaccuracy.TheobjectiveofthisstudyistocompareESLandEL1children,and,therefore,theexclusioncriterionwasdifferent—onlychildrenwhomademorethan25%errorswhentheyreadthefirst and easy text were excluded.

4A

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GEVA AND YAGHOUB ZADEH

Reading efficiency scores.Twodependentmeasureswerederived—awordefficiencyscoreandatextefficiencyscore.EfficiencyscoreswerecomputedbasedonaprocedureusedbyStanovichandWest(19).First,foreachpartici-pantthenumberoferrorsoneachtaskandthetimetoperformeachtaskwerecon-vertedintotheirrespectiveZscores.TheresultingaccuracyandspeedZscoresforeachtaskwerethencombinedandaveragedtoyieldasinglecompositeefficiencyscore.Thetwoword-basedcompositeefficiencyscores(basedontheeasyanddif-ficultlists)wereaveragedtoyieldanoverallscorethatrepresentsthechild’sabil-itytoreadwordsefficiently.Thesameprocedurewasappliedtodevelopanoveralltextefficiencyscorethatrepresentsthechild’sabilitytoreadwithaccuracyandspeedthetwonarratives.NotethatthelowertheZscore,themoreefficientthechild’s reading.

Procedures

Aspartofalargerproject(whichbeganwhenthechildrenwereinGrade1),chil-drenwereadministeredaseriesoftestsinthefirsthalfoftheir2ndyearinelemen-taryschool.AtthattimechildrenintheEL1andESLgroupshavespent1½to2½yearsinschoolsinwhichEnglishisthelanguageofinstruction(i.e.,seniorkinder-gartenandGrade1).Thesetaskswerepartofalargerbatteryoftests,whichwasadministeredacrossfourtestingsessions,eachlastingapproximately30min.Al-thoughthebatterieswereadministeredinarandomorder,testswithinthebatterieswereadministeredaccordingtoafixedrandomorder.Childrenweretestedonanindividualbasisbyoneofanumberofexperiencedgraduatestudents.FortheMAT, standardized scores were used. However, raw scores were used when otherstandardizedtestssuchastheExpressiveOne-WordPictureVocabularyTest(Gardner,1990)andtheWoodcockReadingMasteryTest–Revised(Woodcock,1987) were used, because the norms were not developed for ESL children.

RESULTS

Ofthe67EL1children,12(18%)weredeemedtobepoordecoders,astheymadetoomanydecodingerrorsontheeasystoryandwere,therefore,notabletoprog-resstothedifficultstory.Ofthe183ESLchildren,32(17%)werenotabletoprog-resstothedifficultstoryandwerelikewiseconsideredpoordecoders.Fifty-fourEL1and151ESLchildrenmettheminimumrequirementsforbecomingefficientreadersbecausetheywereabletocompleteboththeeasyanddifficultsubtasksoftheBiemiller(1981)test.Across-tabchi-squareanalysiswasdonetoexaminewhethertheproportionofpoordecoderswashigherintheESLgroupthanintheEL1group.ThisanalysisrevealsthattheproportionofpoordecodersintheEL1and ESL groups was similar,χ2(1,N= 250) = .07,p= .460.

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ThefocusofthisarticleisonacomparisonofunderlyingprocessesassociatedwithreadingefficiencyinESLandEL1children.ThebulkoftheResultssectionfocusesonacomparisonofEL1andESLchildrenwhowereabletoreadbothsto-rieswithrelativeaccuracyandspeed.AttheendoftheResultssectionwerevisitthepoordecodersgroup,whenwecomparetheprofilesoftherelativelyefficientreaderswiththeprofilesofthepoordecoders.Bonferonicorrectionwasappliedtoadjustthealphalevelformultipleanalyses.Analphaof.01wasselectedastheminimum acceptable level.

Comparison of EL1 and ESL Groups on Cognitive,Language, and Reading Measures

Table1providessummarystatisticsbylanguagegroupassociatedwithallthecog-nitive,linguistic,reading,andoralproficiencymeasures.Amultivariateanalysis

TABLE 1

Differences Between EL1 and ESL Groups on Age, MAT, SyntacticKnowledge, Vocabulary, PA, and RAN:Descriptive Statistics and

Multivariate Analysis of Variance Summary Table

EL1a

MeasuresAge (months)MAT

GramJudgExpVocPARANWordRecWordAttWordAccTextAccWordSpTextSp

M88.43101.5029.6361.8112.0434.6611.0015.8384.7488.561.501.17

SD3.617.2.7611.534.747.714.508.6611.8215.45.71.55

M87.32101.0326.06.4213.6329.9812.0017.9587.67.661.13.99

ESLb

SD3.5.465.3414.806.156.444.2710.5911.9717.99.61.55

Language Group, Fc

3.790.1118.92***47.92***2.9918.85***2.111.732.400.14.02**4.83

Note.EL1=Englishasafirstlanguage;ESL=Englishasasecondlanguage;MAT=MatrixAnalogiesTest;PA=PhonologicalAwareness;RAN=RapidAutomatizedNaming(inseconds);GramJudg=GrammaticalJudgmentTest;ExpVoc=ExpressiveOne-WordPictureVocabularyTest;WordRec=TotalwordsreadcorrectlyonWideRangeAchievementTest–Revisedwordrecognition;WordAtt=TotalcorrectonPseudowordreading;WordAcc=%wordsreadcorrectlyon2Biemillerwordlists(outof100);TextAcc=%correctwordsover2Biemillertexts(outof200);WordSp=speedperword(inseconds)over2Biemillerwordlists(lowerisfaster);TextSp=speedperword(inseconds)to read 2 Biemiller texts (lower is faster).

an= .bn= 151.cAnalysis is based on low- and high-efficiency groups only.**p< .001. ***p< .0001.

42

GEVA AND YAGHOUB ZADEH

ofvariance(MANOVA)revealedthatthelanguagegroupsdidnotdifferfromeachotherontheMAT,andtheMANOVAdidnotrevealsignificantdifferencesbe-tweenthetwolanguagegroupsonage.However,ascanbeseeninTable1,onthetwoorallanguageproficiencyindexes(ExpressiveOne-WordPictureVocabularyTestandtheGrammaticalJudgmenttask)themeanintheEL1groupwassignifi-cantlyhigherthanintheESLgroup.Inthisregard,itisusefultonoteaswellthatacomparisonofgroupmeanswithgradeequivalentnormsrevealedthattheExpres-siveOne-WordVocabularymeanintheEL1groupwaswithintheaveragerange(withameanageequivalentof7years10months),whereastheageequivalentscoreintheESLgroupwasabout2yearsbelowthatoftheEL1group(withameanage equivalent of 5 years 9 months).

Onthenamingspeedmeasure(i.e.,RAN),childrenintheESLgroupweresig-nificantlyfasterthantheirEL1counterparts.Onthephonologicalawareness(i.e.,PA)task,thewordrecognitiontaskandthewordattacktasknodifferencesexistedbetween the ESL and EL1 children.

AscanbeseeninTable1,despitethedifferencesinorallanguageproficiency,ESLandEL1groupsdidnotdifferonaccuracyindexesofbasicreadingskills(i.e.,wordrecognitionandwordattack).Basedonthetestnorms,thegroupmeansob-servedforboththeEL1andESLgroupswerewithinthenormalrangefortheirgradeinschool(gradeequivalent=2.1–2.2).Inthesamevein,acomparisonofthegroupmeansonthewordattacktaskrevealedthattheESLgroupwasslightlyhigher (grade equivalent = 2.2) than the EL1 group (grade equivalent = 1.9).ToexaminecontexteffectsonaccuracyandspeedintheEL1andESLgroups,two-wayanalysesofvariance(ANOVAs)wereconductedwithcontext(wordsvs.text)asarepeatedmeasureandgroup(EL1vs.ESL)asanonrepeated,independ-entvariable.Resultspertainingtoreadingaccuracyindicatedthatamaineffectex-istedforcontext,F(1,248)=.32,p<.0001,suggestingthatinbothlanguagegroupsreadingincontextwassomewhatmoreaccuratethanreadingisolatedwords.Thelanguagegroupeffectwasnotsignificant,indicatingthatthetwogroupsreadatthesamelevelofaccuracy.However,asignificantLanguageGroup×Contextinteractionexists,F(1,248)=6.59,p<.01,indicatingthatcontextwasmorefacilitatingintheEL1group.Resultsofthetwo-wayANOVApertainingtospeedshowthatasignificantmaineffectexistsforcontext,F(1,248)=162.26,p<.0001,indicatingthatinbothlanguagegroupstextswerereadfasterthanisolatedwords.Amaineffectwasalsofoundforlanguagegroup,F(1,248)=8.28,p<.005,indicatingthatESLchildrenwerefaster,andasignificantContext×Lan-guageGroupinteraction,F(1,248)=26.02,p<.0001,indicatingagainthatcon-text was more facilitating in the EL1 group than in the ESL group.

Tosummarize,theEL1groupoutperformedtheESLgrouponthelanguageproficiencymeasures,buttheESLgroupoutperformedtheEL1grouponlet-ter-namingspeed(i.e.,RAN)andword-namingspeed.ThegroupsdidnotdifferonPA,wordrecognition,andpseudowordreading.Finally,thecontexteffectwasmore pronounced in the EL1 group than in the ESL group.

READING EFFICIENCY IN ESL CHILDREN

43

Correlates of Reading Efficiency

ToexaminepatternsofindividualdifferencesinreadingefficiencyintheEL1andESLgroups,wefirstexaminedintercorrelationsamongthereadingefficiencyscoresandthepotentialpredictorvariables.Table2providesasummaryoftheseanalyseswithineachlanguagegroup.Ingeneral,itisnoteworthythatintheESLgroupmostvariablescorrelatedsignificantlywitheachother,whereasintheEL1groupthiscorrelationwasnotconsistent.Theresultsofthecorrelationalanalysescoupledwiththeoreticalconsiderationsguidedusintheselectionofpredictorvari-ablesinsubsequenthierarchicalregressionanalysesandindeterminingtheorderinwhichvariableswereenteredintotheregression.Inparticular,potentialpredic-torvariablesthatareofamoregeneralnature,suchasnonverbalabilityandlan-guageproficiencyindexes,wereenteredfirst.Thevariablesofinterest(i.e.,basicprocessingindicessuchasphonemicawarenessandnamingspeed)wereenteredinsubsequentsteps.Wordrecognitionwasenteredlasttoexaminetheextenttowhichaccuratewordrecognitionmakesauniquecontributiontoreadingeffi-ciencyoverandabovethecontributionofthegeneralandbasicprocessingvari-ableslistedabove.NotethepositiveandsignificantcorrelationbetweenExpres-sive One-Word Picture Vocabulary and Grammatical Judgment (r= .48).Predictors of Reading Efficiency

AscanbeseeninTable2,veryhighcorrelationsexistbetweenthetwo(untimed)basicwordreadingmeasures(wordattackandwordrecognition)andthewordandtextefficiencymeasures.Toavoidmulticolinearity,wordattackwasnotincludedintheregressionanalyses,butwordrecognitionwasenteredlastfortheoreticalreasons.Inparticular,thewordrecognitiontaskincludesalargearrayofwordsvaryinginfrequencyandregularity,anditcorrelateswithspellingandortho-graphicskills.Inthesehierarchicalregressionanalyses,conductedseparatelyfortheEL1andESLsamples,textefficiencyandwordefficiencywerethedependentmeasures.Inthefirstsetofregressionanalyses,allpotentialpredictorswerein-cluded.Insubsequentanalysesnonsignificantpredictorswereomittedifagivenvariable was not significant for both language groups.Predictors of Reading Efficiency in the ESL Group

ThefirstsetofhierarchicalregressionanalysesexaminedtheroleofMAT,oralprofi-ciency(asmeasuredbyvocabularyknowledgeandgrammaticaljudgment),phono-logical-processingskills(asmeasuredbyPAandRAN),andwordrecognitionskillsinexplainingindividualdifferencesinwordandtextreadingefficiencyintheESLgroup.Ingeneral,thepercentageofvarianceexplainedbyeachofthepredictorvari-ableswassimilarforboththewordandtextreadingefficiencymeasures.AscanbeseeninTable3,MATdidnotplayasignificantroleinexplainingvarianceinword

44

3–.121.368**1.000.367*.268–.216–.307–.250.346.381*.096.466***.479***1.000.248.108–.084–.014.2.127.001.356***.401***.293**1.000–.149–.327*–.279.562***.662***.033–.169–.147–.243*–.267**1.000.590***–.610***–.556***–.581***–.0–.193–.273**–.378***–.508***.604***1.000.966***–.798***–.680***–.090–.142–.239*–.337***–.493***.624***.967***1.000–.790***–.661***4567.029.339***.380***.416***.693***–.3***–.838***–.813***1.000.826***10.017.369***.345***.368***.731***–.447***–.739***.719***.850***1.000TABLE2IntercorrelationsAmongAge,MAT,LanguageMeasures,PA,RAN,WordEff,andTextEffintheEL1andESLGroupsESL12EL11.Age2.MAT13.GramJudg4.ExpVoc5.PA6.RAN7.TextEff8.WordEff9.WordRec10.WordAtt1.000.030–.112.065.199–.124–.073–.073.153.246–.225*1.000.280.298.184–.084–.238–.228.246.293Note.EL1n=,andESLn=151.EL1correlationsareabovethediagonalandESLarebelowthediagonal.MAT=MatrixAnalogiesTest;PA=phono-logicalawareness;RAN=RapidAutomatizedNaming;WordEff=wordefficiency;TextEff=textefficiency;EL1=Englishasafirstlanguage;ESL=Englishasasecondlanguage;GramJudg=GrammaticalJudgmentTest;ExpVoc=ExpressiveOne-WordPictureVocabularyTest;WordRec=totalwordsreadcorrectlyonWideRangeAchievementTest–Revised;WordAtt=totalcorrectonPseudowordReading.*p<.01.**p<.001.***p<.0001.READING EFFICIENCY IN ESL CHILDREN

TABLE 3

Hierarchical Regression Analyses Predicting Reading Efficiency in ESL,

With MAT, Syntactic Knowledge, Vocabulary, PA, and RAN

as Independent Variables

Word Efficiency

VariableMAT

GramJudgExpVocPARANWordRec

R2.02.06.13.31..73

∆R2.02.04.07.18.23.19

∆F3.036.2110.7236.2169.0596.33

pns.014.001.0001.0001.0001

β.12.09–.08–.01.24–.72

R2.03.09.16.32.53.75

∆R2.03.05.07.16.20.22

Text Efficiency

∆F5.108.12.4333.9060.34120.76

pns.005.001.0001.0001.0001

β

45

.07.07–.09.03.19–.77

Note.ESL=Englishasasecondlanguage;MAT=MatrixAnalogiesTest;PA=phonologicalawareness;RAN=RapidAutomatizedNaming;GramJudg=GrammaticalJudgmentTest;ExpVoc=ExpressiveOne-WordPictureVocabularyTest;WordRec=totalwordsreadcorrectlyonWideRangeAchievement Test–Revised.

andtextreadingefficiencyintheESLgroup.Ofthetwoorallanguageproficiencymeasures,grammaticaljudgmentwasmarginallysignificant(p=.014),explaining4%ofthevarianceinwordreadingefficiency,anditwassignificant,explaining5%ofthevarianceinthecaseoftextreadingefficiency.Vocabulary,thesecondmeasureoforallanguageproficiency,wassignificant,explaininganadditional7%ofthevarianceinbothwordefficiencyandtextreadingefficiency.PAexplainedanaddi-tional18%ofthevarianceinwordreadingefficiencyand16%ofthevarianceintextreadingefficiency.RANaddedafurther23%totheexplainedvarianceinwordread-ingefficiencyand20%totextreadingefficiency.ItisnoteworthythatRANandPAexplainedtogether41%ofthevarianceinwordreadingefficiencyand37%ofthevarianceintextreadingefficiency,eventhoughtheywereenteredafterMATandtheoralproficiencyindexes.Finally,wordrecognition,enteredlast,explainedanaddi-tional19%ofthevarianceinwordreadingefficiencyand22%intextreadingeffi-ciency.Altogether,73%ofthevarianceinwordefficiency,and75%ofthevarianceintextefficiencywasexplainedbythepredictorvariables.Predictors of Reading Efficiency in the EL1 Group

AswasthecaseintheESLgroup,thehierarchicalregressionanalysesexaminetheroleofMAToralproficiency,PA,RAN,andwordrecognitioninexplainingwordandtextreadingefficiencyintheEL1group.DuetopowerconstraintsintheEL1sample,inthefirststepthepredictormeasureswereenteredinthreeblocks:MATinthefirstblock,thetwooralproficiencymeasuresinthesecondblock,andthetwophonological-processingmeasures(RANandPA)andwordrecognitioninthethird block.

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GEVA AND YAGHOUB ZADEH

TABLE 4

Hierarchical Regression Analyses Predicting Reading Efficiency in EL1,With MAT, Vocabulary, Syntactic Knowledge, Vocabulary, PA, and RAN

as Independent Variables

Word Efficiency

Text Efficiency

pns

R2.06

∆R2.06

∆F2.

pns

VariableBlock 1MATBlock 2

GramJudgExpVocBlock 3PARANWordRecPARANWordRec

R2.06

∆R2.06

∆F2.82

.13.081.99ns.14.092.27ns

.71.08.42.69.57.08.34.2827.374.0426.4440.08.0001ns.0001.0001.69.11.41.68..11.31.2724.125.6624.1037.08.0001ns.0001.0001

Note.EL1=Englishasafirstlanguage;MAT=MatrixAnalogiesTest;PA=phonologicalaware-ness;RAN=RapidAutomatizedNaming;GramJudg=GrammaticalJudgment;ExpVoc=ExpressiveOne-WordPictureVocabularyTest;WordRec=totalwordsreadcorrectlyonWideRangeAchieve-ment Test–Revised.

Resultsofthefirstsetofanalysespertainingtowordandtextreadingefficiency(seetoppanelofTable4)showthatonlythethirdblock—consistingofPA,RAN,andwordrecognition—wassignificant.Becausethefirsttwoblockswerenotsignif-icantforeitherwordortextefficiency,weeliminatedthesevariablesfromsubse-quentanalyses.ThelowerpanelofTable4providesasummaryoftheseresults.InthesecondsetofanalysesPA,RAN,andwordrecognitionwereenteredoneatatime.TheseanalysesrevealedthatPAwasnotsignificantforwordortextreadingeffi-ciency,andRANwashighlysignificant,explaininganadditional34%ofthevari-anceforwordefficiencyand31%fortextefficiency.Wordrecognition,enteredlast,explainedanadditional28%ofthevarianceinwordefficiencyand27%intexteffi-ciency.Altogether,62%ofthevarianceinwordefficiencyand58%ofthevarianceintextefficiencywereexplainedbyRANandaccuratewordrecognition.5

5Itshouldbenotedthatmultipleregressionanalyses,usingspeedofwordandtextreadingasade-

pendentvariables(ratherthanefficiencyscores)andtheidenticalsetofpredictorvariablesreportedinthetext,yieldedsimilarresultstothosereportedinthisarticle,withonlyslightfluctuationsintheper-centage of variance explained by each additional variable.

READING EFFICIENCY IN ESL CHILDREN

47

Bydefinition,itisnotpossibletomeasurereadingefficiencyinchildrenwhosereadingskillsarenotsufficientlydeveloped.Atthesametime,itisusefultoexam-ineprofilesofEL1andESLchildrentobetterunderstandtheunderlyingmecha-nismsthatdistinguishsubgroupsofchildrenthatdifferinreadingefficiency.Weturn to this topic in the next section.

Subgroup Reading Efficiency Profiles

TheefficientEL1andESLreaders(i.e.,thosewhocompletedbothtextsontheBiemiller,1981,task)weredividedfurtherintotwosubgroups,highefficiencyandlowefficiency,basedonthemedianofthereadingefficiencydistribution.Toex-cludeborderlinecasesaroundthecutoffpoint,dataofchildrenwhosetextreadingefficiencyZscoreswerebetween–.05and.05weredropped.Tothisend,thedataof6(9%)EL1participantswereexcluded,aswerethedataof5(3%)ESLpartici-pants.Thehigh-efficiencygroupconsistedofchildrenwhoseZscoreswereatleast.05abovethemedianonthetextreadingefficiencyindex.Thelow-efficiencygroupconsistedofchildrenwhoseZscoreswereatleast–.05belowthemedianonthetextreadingefficiencyindex.TheEL1low-efficiencygroupconsistedof20(30%)children,andtheEL1high-efficiencygroupconsistedof29(43%)children.TheESLlow-efficiencygroupconsistedof42(24%)children,andtheESLhigh-efficiencygroupconsistedof104(57%)children.Thethirdsubgroupinte-gratedintothisanalysisconsistedofthepoordecoderswhowerenotabletocom-

FIGURE1ESLandEL1profilesofpoordecoders,low-efficiency,andhigh-efficiencyread-ers (Zscores).

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GEVA AND YAGHOUB ZADEH

pletethetwostories.Thepoordecodersubgroupconsistedof12(18%)childreninthe EL1 group and 32 (17%) children in the ESL group.

Figure1providesavisualdepictionoftheEL1andESLhigh-efficiency,low-efficiency,andpoordecoderprofiles.Toexaminethereadingefficiencygroupandlanguagegroupeffectsonthecognitive,linguistic,andreadingmea-sures,aMANOVAwithSchefféposthocanalyseswascarriedout.TheresultsoftheseanalysesaresummarizedinTable5.Consistentwiththepreviousanaly-ses,asignificantlanguage–groupeffectexistsonthetwoorallanguageindexesaswellasonRANbutnotonMAT,PA,oranyofthereadingmeasures.Asig-nificantreadingefficiencysubgroupeffectoccursonallthemeasuresexceptfortheExpressiveOne-WordVocabularyTest,whichwasmarginallysignificant(p=.015).Posthocanalysesindicatedthatthepoordecodersubgroupandthelow-efficiencysubgroupweresignificantlylowerthanthehigh-efficiencygrouponMATandonthelanguageproficiencymeasures.TheefficiencygroupsalsodifferedfromeachotheronRAN,PA,wordrecognition,andwordattack.Theinteractionbetweenlanguagegroupandreadingefficiencygroupwasnotsignif-icantforanyofthevariables.

TABLE 5

The Effect of Language Group, Efficiency Group, and the Language Group× Efficiency Group Interaction on MAT, Syntactic Knowledge, Vocabulary,PA, RAN, Word Recognition, Word Attack, Word and Text Accuracy, andWord and Text Speed:Multivariate Analysis of Variance Summary Table

Language Group

Effect

F

MAT

GramJudgExpVocRANPA

WordRecWordAtt

1.0322.***84.17***26.41***0.050.260.76

Language ×EfficiencyEffect

F0.020.343.181.794.010.822.45

Efficiency Group Effect (a,b,c)aF8.03***8.28***5.67*68.88***31.80***165.07***83.24***

Post Hoca < c***; b < c**a < c**; b < c**a < c***; b < c**a < b < c***

a, b < c***; a < b**a < b < c***

a, b < c***; a < b**

Note.AllmeasuresconvertedtoZscores.MAT=MatrixAnalogiesTest;PA=phonologicalawareness;RAN=RapidAutomatizedNaming(inseconds);GramJudg=GrammaticalJudgment;ExpVoc=ExpressiveOne-WordPictureVocabularyTest;WordRec=totalcorrectonWideRangeAchievement Test–Revised; WordAtt = total correct on Pseudoword Reading.aa = poor decoders, b = low-efficiency readers, c = high-efficiency readers.*p< .01. **p< .001. ***p< .0001.

READING EFFICIENCY IN ESL CHILDREN

49

DISCUSSION

ESL and EL1 Differences on Cognitive-Linguistic andReading Measures

ResultsofthisstudyareinlinewithpreviousresearchthathasshownthateventhoughEL1andESLchildrendifferontheiroralproficiency,theycanperformatthesamelevelonaccuracyindexesofbasicreadingskillssuchaswordrecognitionandwordattack(e.g.,Gevaetal.,2000;Gottardoetal.,2001;Lesaux&Siegel,2003).Thisstudytakestheresearchinthisareaonestepfurtherbyexaminingreadingeffi-ciencyofESLchildrenattheprimarylevel.ResultsofthisstudysuggestthatESLchildrencanreadwordsandsimpletextswiththesameefficiencyasEL1children.ThesefindingschallengetheintuitivebeliefthatESLchildrenwouldreadisolatedwordsandtextlessefficientlybecauseoflowercommandoftheL2.

Surprisingly,theESLchildrenreadisolatedwordssignificantlyfasterthanthechildrenintheEL1group,andtheywerealsofasterthantheEL1grouponase-quentialletter-namingtask.ThisfindingisconsistentwiththefindingsofLesauxandSiegel(2003),whofoundanESLadvantageonnamingspeed.TheESLad-vantageonwordreadingspeedandletter-namingspeedcanbeapproachedfromthree different angles.

First,thesedifferencescouldbeattributedtosocioeconomicstatusfactors.However,childrenintheEL1andESLgroupsweresampledfromschoolslocatedinthesameworking-classneighborhoods,thusreducingthestrengthofthisargu-ment.Second,giventhatEL1andESLchildrenwereselectedfromthesameschools,theargumentthattheresultsmightreflectsystematicdifferencesinin-structionalapproachescanberuledout.Third,groupdifferencesinspeedcouldbeattributedtogroupdifferencesinabilityinoneoftwoways.Oneargumentisthatthegroupsmightdifferingeneralcognitiveability.However,resultsindicatethattheEL1andESLgroupsdidnotdifferonnonverbalaspectsofcognitiveability.Relatedly,somemightarguethatthedifferencesreflectthepositiveimpactofbi-lingualismonunderlyingbasiccognitiveprocessesthatareessentialforreadingdevelopment(Bialystok,2001;Bialystok&Herman,1999).Todate,thisargumenthasbeenexaminedwithregardtometalinguisticskills,andnosoundtheoreticalorempiricalevidenceexiststosuggestthatbilingualismmighthaveafacilitatingef-fect on basic naming speed processes.

InthiscontextitisimportanttobemindfulofCummins’s(2000)thresholdhy-pothesisthatattemptstoreconcileresearchevidenceonpositiveandnegativeef-fectsofbilingualism.Thishypothesissuggeststhatlanguageandcognitivedevel-opmentmightbeenhancedinbilinguals,providedthatrelativelyhighlevelsofproficiencyhavebeenattainedinbothlanguages.Clearly,thishypothesisisnotap-plicabletoyoungESLlearners.Noneoftheseexplanationsaresatisfactory,and

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furtherresearchisnecessarytoexplorethefactorsthatmightcontributetotheESLadvantages, reported in this article and elsewhere (e.g., Lesaux & Siegel, 2003).ItisnoteworthythatESLchildrenaresimilartotheirEL1counterpartsintheirabilitytoreadsimplenarrativeswithaccuracyandspeed.Inotherwords,pri-mary-levelESLchildrencandevelopaccuracyandspeedinL2readingand,in-deed,achieveefficiencysimilartothatoftheirEL1counterparts,providedthattheyareexposedtosystematicinstructioninlanguageandliteracyinEnglish(Gersten&Baker,2003;Gersten&Geva,2003;Lesaux&Siegel,2003;Stuart,1999)andthattheyhavewell-developedwordrecognitionskills.AsChall(1996)remarked,inStage2mostchildrenlearntousetheirdecodingknowledgeanduti-lizethe“redundanciesofthelanguageandthestoriestheyread”(p.19),whichcanbethecaseforESLchildrenaswell,providedthatthelanguageofthenarrativesisnottoodemanding.Atthesametime,itisimportanttorememberthattheroutetra-versedbyEL1andESLchildrenisnotidentical:TheEL1childrencometoschoolalreadyequippedwiththelanguagetheyneedtoenablethemtoreadsimpletexts(Chall,1996),whereastheESLchildrendeveloptheirlanguageskillsinparalleltothedevelopmentoftheirreadingskills.Itisalsoimportanttobearinmindthat,notwithstandinghomelanguage,readingefficiencyisaconstructwhoseveryna-ture changes with development and that it is not an all-or-none phenomenon.Previousliteratureoncontexteffects(e.g.,Jackson&Donaldson,19)hasshownthatcontextenhanceswordreadingefficiency.Likewise,inthisresearchmonolingualandESLchildrenarefoundtoreadwordsfasterandmoreaccuratelywhenthewordsarepresentedincontextthanwhenthesamewordsarepresentedinisolation.However,thecontextfacilitationwasmorepronouncedintheEL1groupthanintheESLgroup,presumablyduetothefactthattheEL1childrenhavebettercommandoftheEnglishlanguagethantheESLchildren.Abettercommandofthelanguagehelpschildrentoanticipatewordspresentedincontextanden-hancesaccurateandfastrecognitionofprintedwords.Inastudyofprimary-levelchildren,Gevaetal.(1997)showedthatwhenchildrenreadintheirL1contextfa-cilitationisusedandwordsarereadmoreaccuratelyandfaster.However,thisfa-cilitationwasnotdetectedwhenthesamechildrenreadintheirL2(Hebrew),alan-guageinwhichtheyhadminimalproficiency.ThediscrepancybetweentheresultsoftheGevaetal.studyregardingthecontexteffectforL2readersmaybeduetodifferencesinmorphosyntacticcomplexity(Hebrewisdenser)andthefactthatthelevelofEnglishorallanguageproficiencyoftheESLparticipantswasmoread-vancedinthisstudythanwasthecaseintheGevaetal.study.Finally,futurere-searchneedstoexaminetheextenttowhichtheresultscanbereplicatedinade-signinwhichword-readinglatencyismeasuredforwordspresentedoneatatimeonacomputerscreen.JacksonandDonaldsonfoundthatprecociousyoungerread-ersweredisadvantagedontheBiemiller(1981)scrambledlistbutnotwhenword-readinglatencywasmeasuredwithwordspresentedindividuallyonacom-puterscreen.ItispossiblethatbecausetheEL1childrenmightbemoresensitiveto

READING EFFICIENCY IN ESL CHILDREN

51

grammaticalpatternsandgrammaticalexpectanciesthantheESLchildren,thereadingofascrambled,seriallypresentedlistismoredebilitatingtothemthantoESL children.

Factors Contributing to Reading Efficiency in EL1and ESL Children

Thesecondobjectiveofthisstudyistoexaminetherelativecontributionoforallanguageproficiency,underlyingcognitive-linguisticprocesses,andwordrecog-nitiontoreadingefficiency.Thisobjectiveembracestworelatedquestions:Whataretheprocessingfactorscontributingtowordandtextreadingefficiency,andtowhat extent does the same pattern exist in the ESL and EL1 groups?

Anintuitivelyappealingargumentmightbethattoreadwordsefficientlychil-drenneedtohavewell-developedvocabularyandwell-developeddecodingskillsbutthatsyntacticanddiscourselevelknowledgeisnecessarytoreadtextswithef-ficiency.However,theresultsdidnotrevealadifferentpathforwordandtextread-ingefficiencyintheEL1orESLgroups.IntheESLgroupvocabularyandsyntac-ticknowledgeexplainedjointly11%ofthevarianceinthecaseofwordefficiencyand12%inthecaseoftextefficiency.TheseresultssuggestthattheESLpartici-pantsreachedsomekindofathresholdintheirEnglishlanguageproficiencythatenabledthemtoreadwitheasetextsthatdonotchallengetheircurrentlinguisticknowledge.Thatis,itappearsthatwhenthelanguageusedinthereadingmaterialsisbeloworperhapsjustattheleveloforalproficiency(Chall,1996),L2oralprofi-ciencycontributesonlymarginallytowordortextreadingefficiencyofESLchil-dren,anditplaysnoroleinthecaseofEL1children.Thescenariomightbediffer-entwhenthereadingmaterialsaremoredemandingintermsoftherangeofvocabularyandsyntacticstructures.Thisissueneedstobeexploredinfuturere-search.Moreresearchisneededtoexaminethecontributionoforallanguageprofi-ciencywhenlinguisticallymoredemandingtextsarepresented.Furthermore,inthisresearchaccuracyaspectsoforallanguageproficiencyweretapped.Theex-tenttowhichorallanguagefluencymightcontributemoresubstantiallytoreadingefficiency is another question that should be targeted.

Resultsofthisstudydemonstratethatoverandabovethecontributionoforallanguageproficiency,RAN,PA,andwell-developedwordrecognitionskillscon-tributesubstantiallytowordandtextreadingefficiencyofESLchildren.RANandPAarethesameprocessingconstructsthathavebeenshownelsewhere(e.g.,Gevaetal.,2000;Gholamain&Geva,1999;Lesaux&Siegel,2003)toaccountforindi-vidualdifferencesinaccuratewordrecognitionskillsofEL1andESLchildren.Inthisresearchweexaminetheroleoftheseprocessesaswellaswordrecognitioninreadingefficiency.TheresultsshowthattherolesplayedbyPA,rapidnaming,andaccuratewordrecognitionskillsinaccountingforindividualdifferencesinwordandtextefficiencyarenotidenticalforEL1andESLchildren.Eachofthesevari-

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ablescontributessubstantiallytoreadingefficiencyinESLchildren.InthecaseofEL1children,rapidnamingandwordrecognitionplayasubstantialroleinwordand text efficiency, whereas PA does not.

Onewayofthinkingabouttheseresultsisthat,infact,ESLchildrenaremorechallengedbythereadingtaskspreciselybecausetheyreadinalanguageinwhichtheyarenotfluent.Therefore,theyneedtodrawonallthecognitiveandlinguisticresourcesthattheyhave.ThisexplanationissupportedbytheobservationthatintheESLgroup(butnotintheEL1group)mostofthecognitive,linguistic,andreadingmeasurescorrelatedsignificantlywitheachother.Thatis,thoseESLchil-drenwhoaremoreefficientreadersaremorelikelyalsotohavebetterlanguageskills,fasternamingspeed,betterdevelopedPAskills,andmoreadvancedwordrecognitionskills.ItisinterestingtoconsiderpossibletheoreticalunderpinningsofthedifferencesintheamountofvarianceexplainedbyrapidnamingandPAineachlanguagegroup.WeproposethatperhapstheseEL1–ESLdifferencesreflectthatinESLlearnerstheeffectofunderlyingcognitive-linguisticprocessesismoregenericormoreextensive.Itislikelythatwithincreasedlanguageproficiencyandadditionaldevelopmentofmoreadvancedreadingskillstheseunderlyingpro-cessesmaygraduallybecomemorespecializedanddomainspecific,thewaytheyare in the EL1 group. This hypothesis is worth exploring in future research.

Ingeneral,youngESLschoolchildrenwhohaveacquiredacertainleveloforallanguageproficiencyinEnglishandwhodevelopedtheiroralandliteracyskillsinanimmersioncontextcanberathersimilartotheirEL1counterpartsintermsoftheeasewithwhichtheycanexecutebasicwordrecognitionprocessesandreadeffi-cientlysimplenarratives.Clearly,aspectsoflanguageproficiencysuchaslexicalandgrammaticalskillsareessentialforreadingefficiency;theESLchildrenwhowereefficientreadersalsohadhigheroralproficiencyinEnglishthanthoseESLchildrenwhowerelessefficient.Atthesametime,simplisticnotionsofL2readingperformancethatemphasizeprimarilyorallanguageproficiencyneedtobere-fined.Thisrefinementcanbeachievedbyconsideringthecognitive-linguisticpro-cessesthatunderliereadingprocessesandthatappeartobesourcesofindividualdifferencesinefficientreadingofEL1andESLchildren.LessefficientreadinginESLandEL1childrenalikecanbeattributedtolessefficientwordrecognitionskills and to reduced or less effective access to linguistic information.Comparing the Profiles of ESL and EL1Efficiency Subgroups

L1-basedresearchsuggeststhatnotallchildrenwhoreachGrade2arereadytode-veloptheirreadingefficiencyandthatsomecontinuetobe“dysfluent”(Wolf&Katzir-Cohen,2001).ResultsofthisstudyextendthisstatementtoESLchildrenintheprimarylevel.TheexaminationofprofilesofEL1andESLsubgroupsthatdif-ferintheirreadingefficiencyunderscorestherangeoflanguageandreadingskills

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thatexistamongESL(andEL1)learnersandprovidesusefulinsightsintothetypeofreadingskillsthatEL1andESLchildrendevelopandthecognitiveandlinguis-tic resources they draw on to read with efficiency.

Severalobservationscanbemadeonthebasisofanexaminationoftheeffi-ciencygroupprofilesdepictedinFigure1.Mostimportant,thesubgroupsdefinedonthebasisofreadingefficiencyareconsistentlydifferentfromeachotheroncog-nitive,orallanguage,andreadingmeasures.Next,clearly,regardlessofefficiencygroup,EL1childrenhavebetterdevelopedorallanguageskillsinEnglishthanESLchildren.However,thelanguagegroupeffectconcerningrapidnamingisinthereversedirection,withESLchildrenwithineachefficiencygroupoutperform-ingtheirEL1counterparts.(Possibleexplanationsforthisfindinghavebeenprevi-ouslydiscussedwithregardtoESL–EL1differencesonrapidautomatizedletternaming.)Third,itisofinterestthatESLchildrenwhowereclassifiedashigh-effi-cientreadershadsignificantlyhigherscoresonPAthanthehigh-efficientEL1children,whereasamonglow-efficientandpoordecoders,EL1childrenoutper-formedtheirESLcounterparts.Becausethehigh-efficiencyEL1andESLgroupsdidnotdifferonnonverbalability,anexplanationforthisunexpectedresultbasedongeneral,nonverbalcognitiveabilitycanberuledout.However,possiblythisESLadvantageinthehigh-efficientgroupmayberelatedtotheenhancingeffectsofbilingualism.Itispossiblethatthehigh-efficientESLchildrenbenefitfromtheirbilingualstatusinawaythatdistinguishesthemfromESLchildrenwhoarelessefficientreaders.Theymaybebetterabletoextractsubtlephonologicaldis-tinctionsandhavemoreprecisephonologicalrepresentationsthatmayberelatedalsototheirrelativelybetter-developedvocabulary(Metsala&Walley,1998).Finally,itisinformativetonotethatthehigh-efficiencyESLchildrenhadbetterdevelopedorallanguageproficiencyinEnglishthantheESLchildrenwhowerepoor decoders or low-efficiency readers.

Thereareclinicalandresearchimplicationstotheseobservations.WhenyoungESLchildrenhaveproblemsindevelopingreadingefficiencyevenwhentheyreadsimplematerials,attributiontolackofadequateorallanguageproficiencyisnotwarrantedautomatically—especiallywhenESLchildrendeveloptheiroralandlit-eracyskillsinasystematicreadinginstructionprogram.Theculpritinthiscasemaybeinaccurateanddysfluentwordrecognitionskillsanddeficitsintheunder-lyingcognitive-linguisticprocessesnecessaryforthedevelopmentofaccurateandfluentwordrecognitionskills.Inadditiontoorallanguagedevelopment,suchchil-drenmaybenefitfrominterventionapproachesthatfocusonthedevelopmentofefficientwordrecognitionskills(Gersten&Baker,2003;Gersten&Geva,2003;Quiroga et al., 2002).

FutureresearchshouldcontinuetoexplorethedevelopmentofreadingefficiencywithL2childrenofdifferentages,withdifferentlevelsoforallanguageproficiency,andwithacademicreadingmaterialsthatvaryinlinguisticandorthographicde-mands.Specialattentionisalsoneededtoexaminetherelevanceofthesefindingsto

GEVA AND YAGHOUB ZADEH

childrenwho,inadditiontobeingL2learners,mayhavealearningdisabilityoralan-guageimpairment.Thisresearchwasconductedinurbanandsuburbanareasthatareethnicallyandlinguisticallymixed,butsomeimmigrantcommunitiesaremoreho-mogeneousinsocioeconomicstatusandhomelanguage.Toexaminethegeneralizabilityoftheseresults,large-scale,multilevelstudiesneedtobeconductedthatconsidertheeffectsofwithin-childfactorsandcontextualfactors,includinglevelofethnicdiversityatthecommunityandschoollevelforlanguageandliteracyoutcomes.Finally,giventhelargenumberofchildrenwholearntoreadinanL2withouttheoptionoffirstmasteringtheirL1readingskills,questionspertainingtoL2readingefficiencyandtotheimpactofdifferenteducationalpracticesonreadingefficiencyandonreadingcomprehensionofacademicandnarrativetextsdeservesustainedandsystematicattentioninthenearfuture.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thisresearchwassupportedbygrant410–96–0851fromtheSocialSciencesRe-searchCouncilofCanadaandagrantfromtheOntarioMinistryofEducationtoEstherGeva.ZohrehYaghoubZadehisananalystattheCanadianCouncilonLearning.

WethankthestaffandchildrenatthePeelBoardofEducation,theTorontoDis-trictSchoolBoard,theTorontoSeparateSchoolBoard,andtheYorkRegionSepa-rate School Board of Education for their patience and cooperation.

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Manuscript received April 23, 2004Accepted April 19, 2005