Oral reading fluency and comprehension in Kenya: reading acquisition in a multilingual environment

Abstract

Reading research has shown that variable relationships exist between measures of oral reading fluency and reading comprehension, depending on whether the language of the text is the reader's first language or an additional language. This paper explores this phenomenon, using reading assessment data for 2,000 Kenyan children in two or three languages: English, Kiswahili and one of two mother tongues, Dholuo or Gikuyu. The assessment data allowed us to compare reading and comprehension rates across languages. The data indicated that many children could read English words more easily than words in Kiswahili or their mother tongue; nevertheless, their reading comprehension was significantly lower in English than in Kiswahili, Dholuo or Gikuyu. The paper concludes that emphasising English reading fluency is an inefficient route to gaining reading comprehension skills because pupils are actually attaining minimal oral reading fluency in English and only modest comprehension skills in their own languages. The evidence also demonstrates that Kenya's national language policy of mother tongue as a medium of instruction in the early primary grades is consistently ignored in practice.

Multilingual assessment of early child development: Analyses from repeated observations of children in Kenya

“…These findings suggest that, when measuring children's vocabulary at a very young age, an assessment of mother tongue receptive vocabulary provides a strong indication of overall language ability, while LOI receptive vocabulary does not provide a full assessment of vocabulary development. Our findings are consistent with existing work in the study area, in which children demonstrated greater reading fluency in English than in Luo, but significantly lower reading comprehension scores in English than in Luo (Piper, Schroeder, et al, ). While children's familiarity with English through their classroom exposure is high, their actual understanding of English is often quite low (Trudell & Piper, ).…”

“…The adapted MDAT are the raw scores from the Kenya adaptation of the Malawi Developmental Assessment Tool (MDAT). Luo (Piper, Schroeder, et al, 2016). While children's familiarity with English through their classroom exposure is high, their actual understanding of English is often quite low (Trudell & Piper, 2014).…”

“…For this reason, children may perform better on certain aspects of the tests, such as letter sounds, syllables, or reading fluency, when they are tested in the LOI as compared to their native language (Bialystok, Majumder, & Martin, ). Greater reading fluency or decoding skills in the LOI, however, do not necessarily indicate that children have greater reading comprehension in the LOI (Piper, Schroeder, & Trudell, ; Piper, Zuilkowski, & Ong'ele, ). For multilingual children, assessment of language and other domains of development should account for all of the child's languages (Pearson, Fernandez, & Oller, ).…”

“There is still peace. There are no wars.”: Prioritizing unity over diversity in Botswana’s social studies policies and practices and the implications for positive peace

“…Third, language of instruction policies should cease to describe minority languages as problems to be overcome by abandoning them in favor of dominant languages; this would open a debate of how schools could include minority languages of instruction as a right for all children and as a resource to foster more equitable learning (see, for example, Piper, Schroeder, & Trudell, 2016).…”

Component skills of reading and their structural relations: evidence from three sub‐Saharan African languages with transparent orthographies

“…Another eminent line of work has shown that (text or oral) reading fluencythe ability to read connected texts with accuracy, speed and expressionis likewise critical to reading comprehension (Fuchs et al, 2001;Jenkins et al, 2003;Kim, 2015b;Kim, Park, & Wagner, 2014;Kim, Petscher, & Foorman, 2015;Kim, Petscher, Schatschneider, & Foorman, 2010;Kim, Wagner, & Lopez, 2012;Kuhn et al, 2010;Kuhn & Stahl, 2003; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000;Roehrig et al, 2008), including in sub-Saharan Africa (Piper, Schroeder, & Trudell, 2015). Theoretically, text reading fluency is related to reading comprehension, because fluent reading affords readers the cognitive fundssuch as working memory and attentionto be used for essential comprehension processes (Kim, 2015b;Kim & Wagner, 2015;LaBerge & Samuels, 1974;Samuels, 2006).…”