Table_1_Reading comprehension and strategy use: Comparing bilingual children to their monolingual peers and to bilingual adults.DOCX

The current study investigated the predictive ability of language knowledge and reported strategy use on reading comprehension performance in English-speaking monolingual and bilingual students. One hundred fifty-five children in grade 4 through 6 (93 bilinguals and 62 monolinguals) were assessed on receptive vocabulary, word reading fluency, reading comprehension, and reading strategy use in English. An additional 38 adult bilinguals (i.e., English Language Learners) were assessed on the same measures. Although, the bilingual adult group and bilingual children had significantly lower English vocabulary knowledge relative to the monolingual children, the bilingual adults exhibited reading comprehension performance that was on par with the monolingual children; both groups outperformed the bilingual children. This discrepancy was accounted for by reported strategy use, wherein bilingual adults reported more inferencing, more connecting between sections of text and more reference to the text structure than the children. Reported strategy use also accounted for unique variance in reading comprehension performance above and beyond the contributions of English vocabulary knowledge and word reading fluency. Findings highlight the strategies that successful readers report and emphasize the value of promoting effective strategy selection in addition to language instruction in the development of reading comprehension skill.

本研究探讨了语言知识与自我报告的策略使用对英语单语及双语学生阅读理解表现的预测能力。本研究纳入155名4至6年级儿童（其中双语者93名，单语者62名），对其英语接受性词汇、字词阅读流畅度、阅读理解及阅读策略使用情况进行了评估；另有38名成年双语者（即英语学习者（English Language Learners））接受了相同测评。尽管双语成年组与双语儿童组的英语词汇知识均显著低于单语儿童组，但双语成年组的阅读理解表现与单语儿童组相当，且两组均优于双语儿童组。该差异可通过自我报告的策略使用得到解释：相较于儿童群体，双语成年者报告使用了更多的推理策略、文本段落间联结策略以及文本结构参考策略。自我报告的策略使用在英语词汇知识与字词阅读流畅度的贡献之外，仍可解释阅读理解表现的独特变异。本研究结果明确了成功读者所报告使用的阅读策略，并强调在阅读理解技能发展过程中，除语言教学外，推广有效的策略选择训练同样具有重要价值。