Down Syndrome Education International, Portsmouth, UK.
Br J Educ Psychol. 2011 Jun;81(Pt 2):344-54. doi: 10.1348/000709910X504122. Epub 2011 Mar 9.
A significant number of pupils in UK schools learn English as an additional language (EAL). Relative differences between the educational attainment of this group and monolingual, English-speaking pupils call for an exploration of the literacy needs of EAL learners.
This study explores the developmental progression of reading and listening comprehension skills and a range of reading-related skills in EAL learners, whose first language is of South Asian origin, and their monolingual peers.
Participants were 39 children learning EAL and 39 monolingual, English-speaking children who were all in school Year 3 at the start of the study.
Children completed standardized measures of comprehension, vocabulary, reading accuracy, and reading fluency in school Year 3 and again in Year 4.
The results suggest that, although children learning EAL often demonstrate fast and accurate reading accuracy skills, lower levels of vocabulary knowledge place significant constraints on EAL learners' comprehension of spoken and written texts.
Reciprocal relationships between vocabulary and comprehension may lead to increasing gaps in reading comprehension between monolingual and EAL pupils over time. It is proposed that support for the development of vocabulary skills in children learning EAL is needed in early years' classrooms.
英国学校中有相当数量的学生将英语作为附加语言（EAL）学习。这一群体与以英语为母语的学生在教育程度上的相对差异，要求我们探索 EAL 学习者的读写能力需求。
本研究旨在探讨以南亚语系为母语、正在学习 EAL 的学习者的阅读和听力理解技能以及一系列与阅读相关的技能的发展进程，并将其与以英语为母语的同龄学习者进行比较。
参与者包括 39 名学习 EAL 的儿童和 39 名以英语为母语的单语儿童，他们在研究开始时都在学校的 3 年级。
儿童在 3 年级和 4 年级时在学校完成阅读理解、词汇量、阅读准确性和阅读流畅性的标准化测试。
结果表明，尽管学习 EAL 的儿童通常表现出快速准确的阅读准确性技能，但较低的词汇量知识水平对 EAL 学习者理解口语和书面语文本的能力构成了重大限制。
词汇和理解之间的相互关系可能会导致单语和 EAL 学生的阅读理解差距随着时间的推移而逐渐扩大。因此，我们建议在早期教育课堂中为学习 EAL 的儿童提供词汇技能发展的支持。
