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Second language (L2) reading research suggests that there is a complex interplay between L2 proficiency, first language (L1) reading and L2 reading. However, not much is known about the effect of L1 proficiency on L1 reading, and of L1 reading on L2 reading, or vice versa, in bilingual settings when readers have few opportunities for extensive reading in their L1. The relationships between L1 (Northern Sotho) and L2 (English) proficiency and L1 and L2 reading were examined in Grade 7 learners attending a high-poverty primary school in South Africa, during the course of a year when a reading intervention programme was implemented. The effect that attention to reading and accessibility of books had on the learners' reading proficiency in both languages was examined, and the factors that predicted academic performance were analysed. When the learners were engaged in more reading, L2 reading contributed more variance to L1 reading than L1 proficiency. Reading in both languages also contributed significantly to academic performance. The study highlights the need for more cross-linguistic reading research in different educational settings.One of the central issues in second language (L2) reading research, first articulated by Alderson (1984), revolves round the question: to what extent is L2 reading a language or a reading problem? The African continent is characterised by linguistic diversity but due to its colonial past, the majority of learners in Sub-Saharan Africa do not do their schooling in their home language but through the medium of a former colonial language. If schooling does occur in the home language, it does so for a few years only, before switching to the former colonial language. Schooling in Africa tends therefore to be characterised by literacy acquisition in an L2, or by some form of bilingual schooling where initial literacy is acquired in the home language and a switch is later made to L2 literacy. Africa thus offers an ideal setting for studying the language/reading questions that preoccupy much of L2 reading research. Yet surprisingly little research has emerged from this rich context.In this article, we examine these language/reading questions from an African perspective, using data from a high-poverty primary school in an urban South African setting.

Much research exists about South

Background: Reading development in agglutinating African languages is a relatively under-researched area. While numerous studies highlight the low comprehension levels among learners reading in African languages in South Africa, little has been done to probe beneath this ‘comprehension iceberg’ in terms of decoding skills.Aim: As a tentative step towards benchmarking in African languages, we analyse the sub-components of reading across three languages (Northern Sotho, Xitsonga and isiZulu), to better understand the nature of alphabetic knowledge, word reading and fluency in these languages, how these relate to one another, and how accuracy and speed relate to comprehension.Setting: Data was obtained from 785 Grade 3 learners across three African languages in three provinces in South Africa.Methods: The early grade reading assessment (EGRA) framework was adapted to the written features of the three languages to assess letter-sounds, single-word reading, non-word reading, oral reading fluency (ORF) and oral comprehension.Results: We present results on fluency, accuracy and comprehension and their interrelationships in these morphologically rich languages. While differences emerged between the conjunctive and disjunctive orthographies, strong relations occurred across the languages between letter-sound knowledge and word reading, word reading and oral reading fluency, and ORF and reading comprehension. Results suggest minimum thresholds of accuracy and ORF in each language, below which it is virtually impossible to read for meaning.Conclusion: There is a strong need for language-specific norms and benchmarks for African languages. Preliminary minimum decoding thresholds for comprehension found in these three languages serve as a move in that direction.

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To succeed at university, students need to read expository texts effectively and meaningfully in order to access and understand information, and internalise it for study purposes. Reading is a wmpim, multi-componential phenomenon that includes both decoding and comprehension processes. An important component of the comprehension process is the reader's ability to integrate current information with information that has already been mentioned earlier in a text. One aspect of this integration process involves anaphoric resolution, whereby co-referentiality occurs when an anaphoric item (e.g. a pronoun, determiner or noun phrase) is linked with an already given antecedent in the text. Successhl anaphoric resolution is typically associated with skilled readerskomprehenders. This paper reports on findings from a study that investigated anaphoric resolution by ESL students during the reading of expository texts used at first-year level. Linguistic and textual factors such as type and inference strength of anaphoric tie were taken into account to test for differential processing effects. The relationship between skill in anaphoric resolution and academic performance is explored, and the implications of these findings are discussed.

In this article, we report on a study that examined the active and receptive English vocabulary of two different groups of Grade 3 learners in South African township schools. The groups consisted of English Home Language (HL) learners in the Western Cape and Xhosa HL and English First Additional Language (FAL) learners in the Eastern Cape. The purpose was to document their different vocabulary trajectories during Grade 3. The Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey was used to measure the active vocabulary levels of 118 learners at the beginning and the end of the school year. Another 284 learners from the same eight Grade 3 classes participated in a receptive vocabulary test at the end of the year. This test assessed their knowledge of the 60 most frequent words that occur in South Africa Grade 4 English textbooks. Results showed that although the HL learners knew almost double the number of words their English FAL peers did, both groups of learners increased their active word knowledge through the year by about 9%. Regarding their receptive vocabulary, the English FAL learners on average only knew 27% of the most frequent words at the end of their Grade 3. No significant gender differences were found. Learners in both language groups who were above their grade age had significantly lower scores than their younger peers. This confirms findings that children who start school with weak language skills tend to stay weak. Finally, initial active vocabulary knowledge was found to be a strong predictor of vocabulary development during the school year.