Reading recovery: investigating differential effects on the literacy development of young children for whom English is an additional language in comparison with their native speaking peers

This thesis studied young, struggling readers, all of whom had participated in the Reading Recovery literacy intervention, and investigated whether differential progress was made by children learning English as an additional language when compared with their native, English-speaking peers. The children were assessed on a pre- and post-test basis on literacy measures associated with reading comprehension in a UK context. Following a Pilot Phase, 52 children who were learning English as an additional language, and 48 native, English-speaking children were recruited from twenty-three primary schools in 8 local authorities across the UK. The children were administered standardised literacy measures, including the British Abilities Scale (BAS) single word reading test, the British Picture Vocabulary Scales (BPVS) vocabulary knowledge test, the Phonological Assessment Battery (PHAB) pseudo-word reading test, and two reading comprehension measures: the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT) and the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC). Statistical analyses were conducted on the data and the results indicated that differential progress was made by the groups, after initial levels of decoding or vocabulary were covaried. The first research question investigated the differential progress made by the two groups, and over the course of the intervention, the EAL children made more progress after controlling for initial skills at entry. After controlling for initial vocabulary levels, the EAL group made more gains than their NS peers, as measured by the BAS single word reading assessment. The second research question examined differential predictors of reading comprehension, and multiple regression analyses showed that vocabulary was a stronger predictor for EAL learners, whereas decoding was found to be a stronger predictor for NS learners. The findings suggest that it is important to develop the vocabulary abilities of EAL learners, as the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension acquisition was found to be stronger for this group than for the NS group. The findings also suggest that NS children’s decoding abilities must be supported, as the relationship between single word reading and the acquisition of reading comprehension was found to be stronger for this group than for the EAL group.