A study of bilingual children reading in a second language.

This research tested the hypothesis that bilingual children, using their second language and matched with monolingual children on a word recognition test, may differ significantly from them in the miscues made when reading and in attitudes to reading. Some prior research has indicated ethnic minority pupils underachieving in British schools. However, much research in the teaching of reading has been based on standardised tests which may be culturally biased and which may be sometimes less than specific about the particular minority groups involved. It gives little indication about how teaching might be made more effective and the children's reading skills enhanced. The research analysed the miscues made in the reading of a story, the retelling and the answers to questions about the story. It analysed the results of a cloze test and an attitudes to reading measurement. The subjects were 41 monolingual English children and 41 bilingual Pakistani children in four Sheffield primary schools. They were matched in pairs for sex, schools, chronological ages and reading ages from a word recognition test. Each child was taped reading and retelling a story that had been matched in a pilot study to the reading ages of the children. Using the Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Signed Ranks Test, the data was analysed for older and younger children, for less and more able readers and for a group of bilingual girls and boys. The results of the analysis were ambiguous. Only 25 of the 200 variables examined showed statistically significant differences between groups. These did, however, suggest some disruption to comprehension in reading, especially among the younger and less able bilingual readers. However, this disruption was not apparent among the more able bilingual readers, suggesting that they had reached parity with their monolingual peers. The possible implications of the research results for the classroom are discussed.