Reading Development in Adolescent First and Second Language English Learners: A Comparison Using Age Match Design

Fourteen Iranian-Canadian bilingual students were tested for language ability as well as cognitive and phonological processing skills in two languages: Farsi and English. They were compared to 30 Iranian monolingual chronological age matched students and 30 Canadian chronological age matched peers. Since there were not any standardized tests in Farsi, one of the aims of this study was to begin creating the language ability measures in Farsi, and to test their reliabilities. In general, from six developed and translated Farsi tasks, three of them were found to be reliable. It was found that bilingual students perform better on memory tasks, compared to two other monolingual groups. There were not any group differences on English measures of reading comprehension and word reading among Iranian bilingual students and their English age matched peers. Additionally, the results of this study showed that Iranian bilinguals performed better on the measure of receptive vocabulary, knowing more English words in comparison to Canadian monolinguals. This finding could be explained by the higher socio-economic status and greater number of English books that Iranian bilinguals have. The final key finding is that Iranian bilinguals perform more poorly on Farsi tasks, and better on English measures compared to Iranian monolinguals