The Effect of Bilingualism on the Developing of English Reading Skill

AbstractReading skill has been noticed by majority of Iranian English teachers and learners because of its importance in promoting language use and success in understanding authentic materials. Due to this fact that bilingualism and multilingualism have been increased around the world, most of the researchers investigated the impact of bilingualism in learning English. The aim of this study is to find the effect of bilingualism on learners reading ability. To this end, 60 female students from a secondary school in Kouhdasht, Iran, were selected, and assigned to two homogeneous groups of bilingual (Laki- Persian) and monolingual (Persian). During 12 sixty-minute sessions within eight weeks, both group practiced reading through extensive, intensive reading and summarizing. After treatment the result revealed that reading skill was statistically significant in bilingual students, in comparison with monolingual counterparts. The findings of this study have various implications for language teachers and policy makers to provide bilingual students with optimal teaching and learning opportunities