A READING STUDY OF SPANISH HERITAGE SPEAKERS

_____________________ This descriptive study investigates the self-reported reading habits and levels of ability in reading of ten heritage speakers of Spanish enrolled in Spanish classes at Purdue University. Participants also read a four page magazine article in Spanish which had an input flood of 47 tokens of the present subjunctive and were asked to answer comprehension questions and present subjunctive recognition questions. The researcher hoped that through this focus-on-form reading article the participants would have a positive change in recognition of the grammatical form which is undergoing simplification in U.S. Spanish. Results for this small sample warrant more explicit focus-on-form instruction and activation of background knowledge, even on a familiar topic, for heritage speakers