Language proficiency and reading ability in first‐ and second‐language learners

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the development of and interrelations between the language proficiencies and reading abilities of children learning to read in either a first language or a second language. The authors compared the reading‐comprehension, word‐decoding, and oral‐language skills of both high and low SES Dutch third and fourth graders to the skills of low SES minority third and fourth graders from a Turkish or Moroccan background living in the Netherlands. Several tests of reading comprehension, word decoding, oral text comprehension, morphosyntactic knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge were administered at the beginning of third grade, the end of third grade, and the end of fourth grade. The results showed the minority children to be faster decoders than the Dutch low SES children. With respect to reading comprehension and oral language proficiency, however, the minority children were found to lag behind the Dutch children in all respects. With respect to the interrelations between oral‐language skills and reading skills, the development of reading comprehension was found to be influenced more by top‐down comprehension‐based processes than by bottom‐up word‐decoding processes for both the first‐ and second‐language learners. The oral Dutch skills of the minority children played a more prominent role in the explanation of their reading‐comprehension skills than the oral‐language skills of the Dutch children, however.