title: Early literacy and comprehension skills in children learning English as an additional language and monolingual children with language weaknesses.
abstract: Many children learning English as an additional language (EAL) show reading comprehension difficulties despite adequate decoding. However, the relationship between early language and reading comprehension in this group is not fully understood. The language and literacy skills of 80 children learning English from diverse language backgrounds and 80 monolingual English-speaking peers with language weaknesses were assessed at school entry (mean age = 4 years, 7 months) and after 2 years of schooling in the UK (mean age = 6 years, 3 months). The EAL group showed weaker language skills and stronger word reading than the monolingual group but no difference in reading comprehension. Individual differences in reading comprehension were predicted by variations in decoding and language comprehension in both groups to a similar degree.
authors.affiliation: Department of Education, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD UK.
authors.forename: Claudine
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-0174-3418
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bowyer-Crane
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Communication Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Silke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fricke
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Communication Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: Blanca
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Schaefer
authors.affiliation: Department of Education, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Arne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lervåg
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, UCL, London, UK.
authors.forename: Charles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hulme
keywords: EAL; Oral language; Reading comprehension; Word reading