The relationship between language dominance and pre-reading skills in young bilingual children in Egypt

This study explored the relationship among pre-reading skills, language proficiency, and visual perceptual abilities in 150 children who had been exposed to both English and Arabic (mean age 70 months). Information regarding language proficiency was gathered indirectly through reports from teachers and parents and directly through children’s test performance. Consequently, the children were divided into three language dominance groups: stronger in Arabic, stronger in English, or equally strong in both English and Arabic. The main aim of this study was to determine whether the pre-literacy skills (visual processing skills, phonological processes, and orthographic knowledge) differed across the three groups and were correlated with langauge dominance. No significant relationships were found between language dominance and tasks that pertained to phonological awareness skills, which may support the notion of the transfer of phonological processing skills between languages. Visual processing and visual memory skills did not differ across language groups, a finding which was expected, as these functions do not directly pertain to language dominance. However, overall the groups did better on the English orthographic task than on the Arabic orthography, perhaps because they found Arabic print more visually confusing and demanding than English.     

The relationship between the reading and signing skills of deaf children in bilingual education programs

This paper reports on one experiment in which we investigated the relationship between reading and signing skills. We administered a vocabulary task and a story comprehension task in Sign Language of the Netherlands and in written Dutch to a group of 87 deaf children from bilingual education programs. We found a strong and positive correlation between the scores obtained in the sign vocabulary task and the reading vocabulary task when age, short-term memory scores, and nonverbal intelligence scores were controlled for. In addition, a correlation was observed between the scores in the story comprehension tasks in Sign Language of the Netherlands and written Dutch but only when vocabulary scores for words and signs were not taken into account. The results are briefly discussed with reference to a model we recently proposed to describe lexical development for deaf children in bilingual education programs (Hermans, D., Knoors, H., Ormel, E., & Verhoeven, L., 2008). In addition, the implications of the results of the present study for previous studies on the relationship between reading and signing skills are discussed.     

Cross‐language relationship between Spanish and English oral reading fluency among Spanish‐speaking English language learners in bilingual education classrooms

This study examined whether oral reading fluency in a child's first language (Spanish) as assessed by Curriculum‐Based Measurement (CBM) was related to oral reading fluency in a second language (English) and whether Spanish oral reading fluency probes administered in the fall were predictive of English oral reading fluency outcomes for spring of the same academic year. A total of 68 bilingual education students across grades 1 through 5 were assessed in Spanish and English during the fall, winter, and spring. Results showed that reading in Spanish and English across grades and time periods correlated moderately high with the exception of fourth grade. In addition, Spanish oral reading fluency at the beginning of the year significantly predicted English reading outcomes at the end of the year. These findings suggest that CBM can be a valuable tool for evaluating the relationship between oral reading fluency in both the first and second language. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 44: 795–806, 2007.     

浅析语言环境与少数民族学前儿童双语习得之关系

本文以新疆少数民族学前儿童作为研究对象,从地区语言环境与语言习得理论入手,并根据笔者实际生活中对少数民族学前儿童语言环境的调查,简要阐述了语言环境对少数民族学前儿童双语习得的影响,通过对语言环境的创设,使少数民族幼儿更容易掌握运用语言的技巧,提升双语习得的能力,并提出了创设双语环境的几点建议,希望能对提高少数民族幼儿双语习得能力有所帮助。     

The relationship between IQ and reading disabilities in English-speaking Canadian and Spanish children

This study was designed to examine the role of intelligence (IQ) in the definition of reading disabilities (RD) in languages with different orthographic systems. A sample of 94 Spanish children and 157 English-speaking Canadian children with RD was classified into four groups on the basis of IQ scores from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised (< 80; 81-90; 91-109; 110-140). We examined the reading and spelling skills of Canadian and Spanish children as a function of Full Scale, Verbal, and Performance IQ scores. Significant differences between the languages were found when reading performance was analyzed as a function of Verbal IQ scores, in that there were some differences between the groups of Canadian children with RD but not between the groups of Spanish children. The Canadian children with Verbal IQ scores < 80 demonstrated relatively lower performance in reading and spelling skills than the Canadian groups with higher IQ scores. There were differences in reading tasks as a function of Performance IQ in English but not in Spanish. The differences in the role of IQ as a function of orthographic systems may relate to the greater significance of visual-orthographic as opposed to phonological processing in English.     

The relationship between children's reading motivation and reading competence

It has been found that motivation is very important to children’s reading competence.This paper intended to study intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and find their relationship with children’s reading competence.In order to do so,previous investigations about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were critically reviewed,and their results were discussed in this paper.     

The relationship between reading comprehension strategies and reading attitudes

The aim of this study is to determine the relationship between levels of reading comprehension strategy use, reading attitudes, and the amount of reading per year among elementary school students. The study was conducted with 1316 students (649 girls and 667 boys) attending the fourth and fifth grades of 15 elementary schools in Denizli, Turkey. Stratified Sampling Method was employed to obtain data using Reading Attitude Scale (RAS) and Reading Comprehension Strategies Scale (RCSS). The analyses indicate that reading attitude is a significant predictor of the level of reading comprehension strategies used by students (R² = 0.44). The findings show that there is a negative and low-level relationship (r = ?0.054) between daily time spent reading and the level of strategy used, and a positive and low-level relationship (r = 0.01) between the level of strategy used and the number of books that a child reads per year.     

Predictors of reading and comprehension abilities in bilingual and monolingual children: a longitudinal study on a transparent language

Many studies have shown that learning to read in a second language (L2) is similar, in many ways, to learning to read in a first language (L1). Nevertheless, reading development also relies upon oral language proficiency and is greatly influenced by orthographic consistency. This longitudinal study aimed to analyze the role of linguistic predictors (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, pseudoword repetition, morphosyntactic comprehension, lexical knowledge and rapid naming) in reading outcomes (fluency, accuracy and comprehension) in a group of bilingual children (n = 30) reading Italian as an L2, compared to a group of monolingual children (n = 56). We ran a multi-group structural equation model. Our findings showed that rapid automatized naming was a significant predictor of reading speed in both groups. However, the study revealed different patterns of predictors for reading accuracy, predictors for monolinguals being LK, phonological awareness and lexical knowledge, while pseudoword repetition was a predictor for bilinguals. Morphosyntactic comprehension was the most significant predictor of comprehension skills in bilingual children. Implications for clinical and educational settings are discussed.     

The use of repair strategies: bilingual deaf children using sign language and spoken language

The language effects on repair strategies employed by 7 bilingual deaf children (native signers who also used spoken language) was examined. During two sessions--one conducted in sign language and the other in spoken language--each child described a picture. The examiner stopped the child twice to request clarification. The children's responses to the requests were coded into seven repair strategies. Results indicated that language mode significantly influenced repair strategy behavior: In sign language, the children used a greater frequency, variety, and level of strategies. The position of the clarification request also had an effect: Later in the sequence, the children used more advanced strategies. It was assumed that these native signers evidenced a higher language level in sign, which allowed them to use more advanced communicational strategies in sign than in spoken language. This performance gap should be considered in intervention.     

浅析语言和言语的关系

语言和言语是著名的现代语言学之父索绪尔在区分语言学研究对象提出的两个重要概念。本文将从语言和言语入手,论述语言和言语的内容、形式等,继而着重讨论语言和言语之间的社会和心理逻辑层面上的关系。     

The developmental relationship between bilingual morphological awareness and reading for Chinese EFL adult learners: a longitudinal study

The present research aimed to explore the developmental relationship between bilingual morphological awareness and reading for Chinese natives learning English as a foreign language (EFL learners). Pre- and post-tests were conducted with in an interval of 9 months. Morphological and reading measures in Chinese and English were administered to 139 participants. The results confirmed the intra-language correlations between morphological awareness and reading. The study also demonstrated that the contribution of English derivational awareness to English reading was higher than that of English compound awareness. Chinese compound morphology was found to explain a greater amount of variance of English reading in posttest than pretest. The results indicate the relationship between bilingual reading and morphological awareness was subjected to the similarities between the two languages in terms of morphological features as well as language proficiency.     

Vicarious language instruction with bilingual children through self-modeling

The present experiment was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a self-modeling procedure and a self-modeling procedure combined with social reinforcement on the language acquisition of bilingual children. In the self-modeling condition the children were prompted to mimic portions of sentences on audiotape. These fragments were edited into complete sentences and served as models during instruction. Children in the self-modeling group displayed significantly more adjective usage and adopted more of the modeled content than children whose self-modeled responses were socially reinforced and children assigned to the two control conditions.     

The relationship between linguistic characteristics and reading/writing performances of Norwegian children

The relations between different word categories and children's reading and writing performances were examined in twenty 9-year-old children. Results indicated for Norwegian, which is more regular than English but less regular than Finnish, that the length and the frequency of words and their interactions are factors substantially related both to children's reading, writing time (writing velocity), and spelling performances, whereas the regularity factor affected children's spelling only. Significant intercorrelations among reading and writing (accuracy and spelling) measures were found.     

Relations between early reading and writing skills among Spanish-speaking language minority children

Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of reading skills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children’s Spanish early reading skills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language) were related to their Spanish and English early writing skills using a sample of 554 children whose home language was Spanish. Multivariate regression analyses with simultaneous outcomes (Spanish and English invented spelling skills) were conducted to evaluate whether children’s early reading and writing skills were related across languages. Results indicated that children’s print knowledge and phonological awareness skills, but not oral language skills, were significantly related to their Spanish and English invented spelling skills. Spanish early literacy skills were not differentially related to Spanish and English reading and writing skills. The magnitude of the relations between print knowledge and oral language skills and children’s invented spelling skills varied as a function of child age; however, the magnitude of the relation between phonological awareness and invented spelling skills did not differ as a function of child age. Furthermore, results suggested that language minority children’s early reading and writing skills are related but distinct constructs and that children may be able to apply information gained from learning to read and write in their first language when learning to write in their second language.     

Modeling reading vocabulary learning in deaf children in bilingual education programs

The acquisition of reading vocabulary is one of the major challenges for deaf children in bilingual education programs. Deaf children have to acquire a written lexicon that can effectively be used in reading. In this paper, we present a developmental model that describes reading vocabulary acquisition of deaf children in bilingual education programs. The model is inspired by Jiang's model of vocabulary development in a second language (N. Jiang, 2000, 2004a) and the hierarchical model of lexical representation and processing in bilinguals (J. F. Kroll & E. Stewart, 1988). We argue that lexical development in the written language often fossilizes and that many words deaf readers acquire will not reach the final stage of lexical development. We argue that this feature is consistent with many findings reported in the literature. Finally, we discuss the pedagogical implications of the model.     

The relationship between syntactic awareness and reading performance

This study was designed to examine the relationship between syntactic awareness and reading performance. A major concern was to provide an estimate of the effect of syntactic training that was not confounded with training that focused on semantic features of words. The training exercises used in the study focused on all levels of syntactic awareness in order that the effect of such training could be assessed on students’ performance on tasks that tapped each of the levels. Results of this study showed that syntactic awareness could be improved through training. The effect was stable, being apparent at the two post-test times. However, no evidence was found for a systematic effect of improved syntactic awareness on reading ability. Moreover, syntactic training did not show any greater effect than no treatment or semantic training on children’s grammatic comprehension, their ability to use fix-up strategies, or on their general reading ability score. Training had a different impact on the accuracy of oral reading for the syntactic and semantic training groups. Thus, in terms of the developmental sequence of syntactic awareness proposed by Gombert (1992), children trained in the cloze procedure improved at the two highest levels, whilst showing neither a corresponding change in the lower levels of awareness, nor improved functional reading performance.     

英语教学中语言与文化关系的研究

语言根植于文化中,得体恰当的语言交流是建立在对文化理解的基础之上。在语言教学中让学生了解英美国家文化,启迪学生的跨文化交际意识,让学生的文化积累与语言技能同步发展。本文就语言与文化的关系、传承文化的可行性、文化的具体内容、文化传播的具体实践方式作了详尽的探索和研究。     

论言语交际与社会生活的关系

言语交际是加强精神文明建设的基础和保证 ,是建立人际关系的通途与桥梁 ,在社会生活中起着重要作用。要建立祥和、真诚的人际关系 ,要推动社会主义精神文明建设的深入发展 ,我们每个公民就应该都讲究言语艺术 ,讲究言语之美。     

Bimodal bilingual language development of hearing children of deaf parents

Adopting a bimodal bilingual language acquisition model, this qualitative case study is the first in Germany to investigate the spoken and sign language development of hearing children of deaf adults (codas). The spoken language competence of six codas within the age range of 3;10 to 6;4 is assessed by a series of standardised tests (SETK 3-5, TROG-D, PDSS). Additionally, a language assessment tool designed specifically for hearing bilingual children named HAVAS 5 is employed to measure both the children’s spoken and sign language abilities. A heterogeneous picture emerges: all codas show abilities equal to those of monomodal monolingual children in their age range with regard to German sentence structure and verb inflection and an extensive receptive vocabulary, but deviations from the age norm are observed for the production of verbs and prepositions. Furthermore, three codas show below average T-values in some grammatical subtests. Overall, the findings suggest that at least some codas may acquire both of their languages (i.e. spoken and signed German) simultaneously. However, our study also indicates that the spoken language development of some codas as well as the acquisition context of this minority group strongly resembles a form of successive language acquisition that is known from children who acquire German as an early second language in a migration background.