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Factors Contributing the Development of Reading Fluency in Poor and Good ELL Children

Esther Geva and Zohreh Yaghoub Zadeh

The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto egeva@oise.utoronto.ca

Abstract

The research examined longitudinally (Grade 2 and Grade 3) the extent to which (a) ELL and English-as-a-first-language (EL1) children resemble on various aspects of reading fluency, (b) whether individual differences in reading fluency in ELL and EL1 children can be understood in terms of similar underlying component process, and (c) longitudinal predictors of reading fluency. The overall sample consisted of 183 Grade-2, ELL children from different L1 backgrounds, and 79 native speakers of English as a first language children (hereafter, EL1), tested in Grade 2 and Grade 3. There were significant differences between the EL1 and ELL children on indices of oral language proficiency (vocabulary and syntactic awareness). Both language groups improved over time. In spite of an oral language proficiency advantage in the EL1 group, children in the EL1 group did not do better than the ELL children on any of the cognitive and reading measures. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that the most robust predictors of reading fluency (accuracy and speed scores) of simple narratives in both language groups were rapid automatized naming (RAN) and phonological awareness (PA). 40% of the variance in the ELL group and 33% of the variance in the EL1 group was explained by these two variables. Vocabulary, entered first, contributed 10% to the explained variance in reading fluency in the ELL group, but was not significant in the EL1 group. Additional analysis focussed on clusters of poor and good readers, defined in terms of performance on RAN and PA: High RAN+ High PA, low RAN+ High PA, and Low RAN+ Low PA and (i.e., "double deficit"). In both language groups children with good PA and fast RAN outperformed children in the other two subgroups on all the accuracy indices (e.g., word recognition, pseudoword reading), as well as on word and text fluency indices. Furthermore, children with good PA but slow RAN outperformed children in the "double deficit" group. Performance at Time 1 predicted reading fluency at Time 2. Implications for reading fluency, L2 reading theory, assessment, future research directions and educational practices will be discussed.

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