Reading Comprehension and Strategy Use in Bilingual Pre-Service Teachers

Individuals recruit reading strategies as they read a passage in order to support reading comprehension. Second language learners (SLLs) often experience more challenges with reading comprehension (RC) than monolingual learners (Geva & Farnia, 2012). Importantly, effective RC strategies may support SLL’s comprehension. An understanding of the reading strategies teachers engage in is critical to understanding the type of strategies teachers may model during read alouds with their students. To determine strategies readers recruit to extract meaning from a text, think-alouds are typically used. Our research questions include (1) What RC strategies do bilingual pre-service teachers use when processing texts in their first language (L1) and second language (L2), (2) What role does strategy use, language proficiency and working memory play in successful RC? and (3) Do strategy prompts lead to successful RC? To answer these questions, pre-service French L2 teachers read short stories in English and French while conducting a think-aloud (prompted vs. unprompted), where they describe what they are thinking as they are reading, and answer reading comprehension questions. They also completed tasks to assess vocabulary knowledge and executive control abilities. Results indicate that the most popular strategies were summarizing and necessary inferencing. Participants used these strategies more often in French than English. Conversely, participants used elaborative inferencing more often in English than French. Results will be discussed with respect to strategy recruitment and its relation to reading comprehension success. This research can inform educators on the strategies that should be targeted in students’ L1 and L2 reading