Journal of Educational Psychology
2009, Vol. 101, No. 2, 330 –344
© 2009 American Psychological Association
0022-0663/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0014320
Are First- and Second-Language Factors Related in Predicting SecondLanguage Reading Comprehension? A Study of Spanish-Speaking
Children Acquiring English as a Second Language From First
to Second Grade
Alexandra Gottardo and Julie Mueller
Wilfrid Laurier University
First-language (L1) and 2nd-language (L2) oral language skills and L2 word reading were used as
predictors to test the simple view of reading as a model of 2nd-language reading comprehension. The
simple view of reading states that reading comprehension is related to decoding and oral language
comprehension skills. One hundred thirty-one Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs) were tested in 1st
grade and many were followed into 2nd grade, including a full sample of 79. Structural equation
modeling confirmed that a 5-factor measurement model had the best fit, suggesting that L1 and L2
phonological awareness should be viewed as separate but related constructs and that L1 and L2 oral
language proficiency, measured by vocabulary and grammatical awareness, were separate constructs. The
structural model indicated that for this group of ELs, who were educated in English, English oral
language proficiency and word reading were the strongest predictors of English reading comprehension.
Other models that deleted 1 of these crucial components resulted in significantly poorer fit. Therefore,
the results support the validity of the simple view of reading as a model for the development of reading
comprehension in young ELs. Implications for theory and practice, specifically assessment of ELs, are
discussed.
Keywords: reading comprehension, second language learners, Spanish–English
Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Reese, Garnier, Gallimore, & Goldenberg,
2000), few researchers have tested models of reading comprehension for children learning their L2 (Aarnoutse, van Leeuwe,
Voeten, & Oud, 2001; Hoover & Gough, 1990; Manis, Nakamoto,
& Lindsey, 2006; Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2005; Verhoeven, 2000). In addition, many of the existing studies have included only L2 variables. The goal of this study was to test the
utility of the simple view of reading (SVR) model of reading
comprehension for young English L2 learners. In this framework,
are Spanish or English variables more likely to predict English
reading comprehension? To test this model, we tested measurement models for the relevant underlying constructs, word reading,
phonological awareness, and oral language proficiency using variables measured in the L1, Spanish, and the L2, English.
An influential model of reading comprehension developed for
monolingual English speakers, the SVR has shown that both
decoding skills and listening comprehension skills are necessary
for reading comprehension (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Tunmer &
Hoover, 1992). Specifically, the SVR states that reading comprehension equals the product of listening comprehension and decoding skills (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Tunmer & Hoover, 1992). A
deficit in either listening comprehension skills or decoding leads to
difficulties in reading comprehension. When the model was first
posited, decoding was taken to mean efficient “context-free word
recognition” (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Tunmer & Hoover, 1992).
In many cases, decoding is assumed to encompass pseudoword
reading (Braze, Tabor, Shankweiler, & Mencl, 2007; Hoover &
Gough, 1990). Therefore, in this study we use the terms word-level
The ultimate goal of reading is the comprehension of text,
which, among other things, facilitates “reading to learn” (Chall,
1996). Although word-level reading develops along similar trajectories for first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) learners
(see August & Shanahan, 2006; Durgunoglu, 2002; and Geva &
Wang, 2001, for reviews), research has shown that elementary
school–aged Spanish–English bilingual students lag behind English L1 speakers on reading comprehension (August, Carlo,
Dressler, & Snow, 2005). Although factors related to reading
comprehension have been explored (Nagy, Garcia, Durgunoglu, &
Alexandra Gottardo, Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; Julie Mueller, Faculty of Education,
Wilfrid Laurier University.
The data were collected in Michigan through Grand Valley State University. The research was supported by a grant to Alexandra Gottardo
through the DELSS network, which was jointly funded by the National
Institute for Child Health and Human Development and the Institute of
Education Sciences. We would like to thank the schools, teachers, students,
and families from the Grand Rapids Public Schools and the Holland Public
Schools. We would also like to thank Heidy Stanish for her invaluable
assistance coordinating the project. Also, thank you to our team of testers.
Thank you to Cynthia Riccio for her assistance in describing the development of the Test of Phonological Awareness in Spanish and to Pam Sadler
for her statistical advice.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alexandra Gottardo, Department of Psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University,
N2075C—Science Building, 75 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5. E-mail: [email protected]
330
PREDICTING SECOND LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION
reading, word recognition with implied access to the phonological
form, and pseudoword reading interchangeably with decoding.
Gough and Tunmer’s (1986) original work did not posit a
developmental progression in the relationships among, and relative
contributions of, listening comprehension and decoding to reading
comprehension. Subsequently, researchers have studied whether
the relationships among these key variables change with age,
reading experience, or both in native English speakers. Some
researchers have suggested that early reading comprehension is
more strongly related to word decoding than to listening comprehension in monolingual English speakers (Torgesen, Wagner, &
Rashotte, 1997), and relations among variables change over time
(Hoover & Gough, 1990). In second grade, word recognition
accounted for 27% of the unique variance in reading comprehension, whereas in eighth grade it accounted for 2% of the unique
variance (Catts, Hogan, & Adolf, 2005). Conversely, listening
comprehension accounted for 9% of the unique variance in reading
comprehension in second grade, whereas in eighth grade it accounted for 36% of the unique variance (Catts et al., 2005). By
eighth grade, the majority of variance contributed by word recognition was shared with listening comprehension. Fourth-grade
performance fell in between second- and eighth-grade performance in terms of relationships among variables.
Carver (1997) posited a modified model of reading comprehension that had basic components in common with the SVR. He
showed that for monolingual English readers who have mastered
word reading, reading comprehension is more closely related to
listening comprehension skills. However, somewhat later work
found that although the importance of listening comprehension in
predicting reading comprehension increased from second to sixth
grade, the importance of decoding skills remained the same in
these grades (Carver, 1998). Other researchers have found that
decoding and listening comprehension contribute unique variance
to reading comprehension in young adults. This finding held for
such diverse samples as young adults with reading scores in the
below average to average range (Braze et al., 2007) and college
students (Cunningham, Stanovich, & Wilson, 1990). In a slightly
modified version of the SVR, vocabulary contributed additional
unique variance to reading comprehension (Braze et al., 2007).
Therefore, given the amount of evidence supporting the value of
the SVR in explaining reading comprehension in English L1
readers, it seems natural to test the utility of the SVR for L2
learners.
The SVR model of reading comprehension has been tested in L2
learners of English and Dutch, using L2 factors as predictors
(Manis et al., 2006; Proctor et al., 2005; Verhoeven, 2000). However, reading in an L2 provides an additional level of complexity.
What is the role of L1 proficiency in addition to L2 proficiency in
reading (Koda, 1996; Oller & Pearson, 2002)? In this article, we
examine which factors measured in first grade are related to L2
reading comprehension in second grade in Spanish-speaking English learners (ELs). We test the SVR using Spanish and English
measures of oral language skill and phonological awareness measured in first grade and English word-level reading measured in
second grade as direct and indirect predictors of English reading
comprehension. We also examine measurement models to determine whether the Spanish and English constructs predicting English reading comprehension are best characterized as single crosslanguage constructs or separate but related constructs. What are the
331
effects of Spanish and English skills on English reading comprehension? Are relations between reading and other linguistic tasks
different if measured in Spanish or English? Is an accepted model
of reading comprehension developed for native English speakers,
the SVR, valid for predicting reading comprehension in young
ELs?
Reading Comprehension
Although word-level reading skills in L2 learners often reach
the average range in comparison to norms established for monolingual speakers (Lesaux & Siegel, 2003; Verhoeven, 2000), research has shown that ELs and Dutch L2 learners lag behind L1
speakers on reading comprehension (August et al., 2005; Verhoeven, 2000). Vocabulary knowledge is another skill that is delayed
in L2 learners. It is highly related to reading comprehension in
children who are L2 learners and is often used as a proxy for
listening comprehension (Carlisle, Beeman, Davis, & Spharim,
1999; Lindsey, Manis, & Bailey, 2003; Manis, Lindsey, & Bailey,
2004; Verhoeven, 2000). Other oral language proficiency skills
that are delayed in L2 learners as compared to their nativespeaking peers include syntactic skills (Droop & Verhoeven, 1998;
Lipka & Siegel, 2007). These findings suggest that oral language
skills should be broadly conceptualized in L2 learners.
Proctor et al. (2005) tested the SVR to determine factors related
to the English reading comprehension performance of fourth-grade
children who were Spanish speakers. The model showed that
English word-level reading skills were related to English reading
comprehension. However, in a modification of the SVR, the model
showed that both general English listening comprehension skills
and English vocabulary knowledge were independently and significantly related to English reading comprehension performance
(Proctor et al., 2005). Hoover and Gough (1990) also found support for the SVR, using English variables in relation to English
reading comprehension in young Spanish–English speakers.
Therefore, as suggested for monolingual English-speaking children by Gough and Tunmer (1986) in the SVR, both decoding and
listening comprehension contributed to reading comprehension
performance in children who are EL and in the middle elementary
grades. However, do these relations hold for younger EL children
with lower levels of English decoding and oral language skills?
What is the role of L1 factors?
Lindsey et al. (2003; Manis et al., 2004) measured early English
reading comprehension skills in Spanish speakers who received
their initial reading instruction using a structured systematic phonics program (Hagan, 1997). Spanish and English measures of
phonological processing and listening comprehension were administered in kindergarten and first grade as predictors of English
reading comprehension in first and second grades. These studies
showed that both Spanish and English factors were related to
English reading comprehension. Although the exact measures that
were related to reading comprehension changed slightly over time,
all of the relevant measures were tasks related to decoding and
word-level knowledge. However, these children had received a
unique educational experience, including early structured, systematic phonics instruction, first in Spanish and then in English. In
addition to being explicitly taught to read Spanish, the children had
achieved approximately average levels of English word reading by
the end of first grade (Lindsey et al., 2003).
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GOTTARDO AND MUELLER
A Canadian group of ELs with several different L1s had the
same absolute levels of English reading comprehension in second
grade as did their native English-speaking peers (Lesaux & Siegel,
2003). However, the ways in which the groups achieved these
scores were somewhat different. For the native English-speaking
group, phonological processing and grammatical knowledge measured in kindergarten were related to reading comprehension in
second grade. For the EL group, only English phonological awareness and letter identification were related to English reading.
Similarly, Verhoeven (2000) found that separate models of reading
comprehension were required to explain Dutch reading comprehension in native speakers and L2 learners.
To summarize, the literature shows that L2 reading comprehension is related to both L1 and L2 variables. Studies reporting
achievement in reading comprehension provide inconclusive results, with some studies showing similar levels of reading comprehension in English-speaking children and EL children and other
studies showing delays in reading comprehension for the ELs.
Although some tests of the SVR have been conducted with L2
learners, they have largely included only L2 measures.
Role of L1 and L2 Factors in Predicting Reading
The debate as to whether linguistic skills in children’s L1 or L2
are most predictive of L2 reading ability is relevant for both
theoretical and practical reasons. In addition, it is important to
determine the relations between L1 and L2 skills to correctly
specify the latent constructs in the structural models being tested.
The current study tested the relative predictive ability of L1 and L2
measures and their relations to each other.
Theoretical models of L2 reading have addressed the debate as
to whether linguistic processes are language universal or language
specific. On one hand, underlying linguistic processing skills in the
area of oral syntax, phonology and morphology, and word reading
might transfer from the child’s L1 to the child’s L2. This relationship across languages allows skills from one language to facilitate
acquisition of skills in another language (Cummins, 1984). On the
other hand, specific linguistic knowledge from the child’s L1
might interfere with language development in the child’s L2 (Nagy
et al., 1993). Evidence exists in the literature for both positive and
negative relations between L1 and L2 processing.
An early and general version of the language-universal theory,
the linguistic interdependence hypothesis, states that strong L1
language skills transfer to L2 language skills (Cummins, 1984). A
recent language-universal theory is the central processing hypothesis, which suggests that specific cognitive and linguistic processes
are related across languages and are basic to reading in any
language (see Geva & Siegel, 2000). Language-general linguistic
knowledge such as phonological awareness might need to be
acquired only once while acquiring L1 literacy, in contrast to other
processes that might need to be acquired for each language (Durgunoglu, 2002). For other areas, such as semantic processing, L1
and L2 skills are likely separate (Cobo-Lewis, Eilers, Pearson, &
Umbel, 2002). Grammatical knowledge is likely to be related
across languages if the grammatical structures are formed in similar ways and unrelated if the structures are unique to the L1 or L2
and require experience with the given language (Gottardo, 2002).
Another explanation of cross-language relations is that skills might
reflect the language-independent, metalinguistic nature of the
skills (Durgunoglu, 2002; Wade-Woolley, 1999).
The L1 and L2 might provide unique and different contributions
to reading development. For example, the script and phonology of
the L1 and the L2 can explain the relationships between reading
and oral language in the L1 and L2 (Geva & Siegel, 2000; Ziegler
& Goswami, 2005). The degree of similarity between L1 and L2
phonology will affect language-specific phonological representations (see Eckman, 2004, for a review) and written language
acquisition (Geva & Wade-Woolley, 1998; Geva, Wade-Woolley,
& Shany, 1997; Wade-Woolley & Geva, 2000). In addition, the
syllabic structure of the language can have an impact on the ways
speakers segment their language (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). For
example, English is characterized by complex syllable onsets and
syllable boundaries that are unclear (Alvarez, Carreiras, & Taft,
2001). These properties might make speakers more sensitive to
onset-rime segments (DeCara & Goswami, 2003). Spanish has a
simpler syllabic structure with consistent and easy-to-determine
syllable boundaries (Bradley, Sanchez-Casas, & Garcia-Albea,
1993). Therefore, the syllable might be a more psychologically
salient sublexical unit in Spanish (Alvarez, Carreiras, & Perea,
2004; Bradley et al., 1993).
In addition to the phonological properties of the L1 and L2,
differences in the ways languages map print to speech might affect
the relationships between L1 and L2 reading skills (Ziegler &
Goswami, 2005). An L1 with a shallow orthography is likely to
facilitate L2 reading to a greater extent than an L1 with a deep
orthography (DaFontoura & Siegel, 1995; Gottardo, Yan, Siegel,
& Wade-Woolley, 2001). For the languages in this study, Spanish
is the shallow or transparent orthography, and English is the
quasi-regular alphabetic orthography (Cuetos, 1993; Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, & Patterson, 1996).
Proponents of examining performance in the L1 and L2 have
suggested that examining only L2 performance will underestimate
ELs’ linguistic ability, specifically that of Spanish–English speakers, by partitioning skills across languages (Oller & Pearson,
2002). For example, known vocabulary items might be specific to
each language, and therefore scores would fall into the average
range if the languages were considered together (Umbel, Pearson,
Fernandez, & Oller, 1992). Studies with Spanish–English speakers
showed that Spanish and English phonological awareness were
related to concurrent and longitudinal English word-reading performance (Durgunoglu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993; Gottardo,
2002; Lindsey et al., 2003; Manis et al., 2004; Oller & Pearson,
2002; Swanson, Saez, & Gerber, 2006). Therefore, assessments of
ELs should be conducted in both languages.
Branum-Martin et al. (2006) reiterated the need to look at both
languages together and suggested a “joint measurement model
including both English and Spanish [phonological awareness]
tasks” (p. 172). Their results showed moderate to large correlations
across languages on phonological awareness for kindergarten children. Although the high correlations between English phonological
awareness and Spanish phonological awareness might suggest a
single factor, the results of the structural equation model did not
support a single-factor model. Spanish and English phonological
awareness variables were statistically distinct with a high degree of
overlap (Branum-Martin et al., 2006). Therefore, even L1 and L2
variables that are considered highly related might best be characterized as separate constructs when developing models of reading
PREDICTING SECOND LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION
for bilingual people. This finding suggests that measurement models that include L1 and L2 variables should be tested to determine
whether the latent constructs are best characterized as language
specific or language general. In summary, theoretical models and
multiple research studies have provided a rationale for including
L1 and L2 measures in determining predictors of L2 word reading
for bilingual people.
On a practical level, determining the added value of testing
students in their L1 is crucial because problems are inherent in
testing students’ language and literacy skills in their L1. For
example, outside of communities with high concentrations of
educated non-English speakers, it is often difficult to find trained
personnel who can provide assessments in the child’s L1 (Westernoff, Nilssen-Lalla, & Bismilla, 2000). Another problem with L1
testing is the appropriateness of assessment instruments. Even if
tests are available in the L1, and even if there are no dialect issues,
such tests might not be appropriate if the need to assess arises after
a few years. This is because children whose schooling occurs in an
L2 gradually lose their L1 proficiency (Jia & Aaronson, 2003;
Westernoff, 1991). Even if they continue to be proficient in the L1,
they typically do not continue to develop their academic L1
language and literacy skills at the same rate as children who live
exclusively in an L1 environment.
Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to test the SVR
as a model of English reading comprehension using Spanish and
English oral language skills and English word reading as predictors. We used structural equation modeling to test instantiations of
the model. We expected that word reading and oral language
proficiency, specifically in English, would be significantly related
to reading comprehension as in the SVR (Hoover & Gough, 1990).
As suggested by Hoover and Gough (1990), the young age of our
sample, first and second graders, and their limited reading and
English language experience prevented ceiling effects and made
them ideal for testing the SVR. We also used structural equation
modeling as a tool to determine whether variables such as Spanish
and English oral language skills and phonological awareness that
are directly and indirectly related to reading comprehension should
be considered single, cross-language constructs or should be represented as separate but correlated constructs in relation to reading
comprehension. As per Branum-Martin et al. (2006), we expected
that the constructs for phonological awareness would be related
across languages but would be better represented by separate
constructs for each language. Oral language skills as measured by
vocabulary and syntactic processing would best be represented as
separate constructs (Durgunoglu, 2002).
Method
Participants
The participants included 131 native Spanish-speaking ELs. The
children were tested in first grade and again in second grade. The
children had a mean age of 6 years, 4 months (SD ⫽ 7 months,
range ⫽ 5 years to 7 years, 8 months), when they were first tested.
The sample included 66 boys and 65 girls who spoke Spanish at
home. The majority of the children (80%) were of Mexican origin,
with many of their parents having been migrant workers. Originally, 131 children were tested in Grade 1. However, because of
this group’s high mobility, only 91 children were tested in Grade
333
2, with only 79 receiving all relevant measures. Only one difference was found in Grade 1 measures when the children who
dropped out of the study after Grade 1 were compared with the
sample tested in Grade 2. Those who dropped out had lower scores
on the Spanish oral cloze, t(65) ⫽ 2.26, p ⬍ .05 (see Table 1). The
next greatest t value was 1.13, with all other t values less than 1.
All ps were .25 or greater.
Demographic data. Eighty-two of the children were enrolled
in a school in a large urban area. An additional 49 children
attended one of three schools in a small town. Because of the
differences in the sample sizes across schools and similarities
among the schools in the small town, all comparisons are reported
by district. The socioeconomic status of the urban school was very
low, with 97% of children in the school qualifying for free or
reduced-price lunch. The majority of the children in the urban
school were Latino (83%), and 10% were African American. This
urban school showed low academic achievement, with only 12%
of the children meeting or exceeding standards in Grade 4 reading
as compared with a state average of 56%. The socioeconomic
status of the small-town schools was higher, with between 53%
and 59% of children qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch. In
addition, the ethnicity of the schools was mixed; 39% to 46% of
the children were of Latino origin and 41% to 51% of the children
were of White origin. Children from other ethnic groups such as
Asian Americans and African Americans also attended the schools
in much smaller numbers. Overall achievement for the schools in
the small town was higher. For example, all of the schools in the
district met the state’s adequate progress requirements. Despite the
higher socioeconomic status and achievement at the school level,
the samples did not differ on most of the English reading measures
included in the model (see Table 2).
In addition to family income as determined by school data,
parental employment and education were indicators that the participants from both sites in this study were of low socioeconomic
status. These data were collected by means of a questionnaire sent
home in Spanish. Most of the parents who responded to the
questionnaire were employed in skilled and semiskilled trades. The
majority of the fathers (67%) were skilled laborers or engaged in
construction-related trades. Other fathers worked as manual laborers (27%), and 6% worked in sales or service. The majority of
mothers reported engaging in manual labor (67%), and 33% reported they were homemakers or unemployed. Finally, the participants’ parents had low levels of education. Although none of the
parents were educated in the United States, most of the parents
(61% of fathers and 67% of mothers) had completed elementary
school in their home country. However, only 28% of the fathers
and 25% of the mothers had completed some high school. These
data are based on the results of a small sample of the parents who
responded to the home questionnaire (32%). Despite the low levels
of education reported by the parents, these data might overestimate
the education level of the parents in the full sample, as parents who
are more educated and have higher literacy rates in Spanish might
have been more likely to complete the questionnaire.
Classroom context. Instruction was conducted in English.
However, in the large urban school, the classroom teachers were
fluent Spanish speakers. In contrast, in the small-town schools,
only the teachers who taught English as a second language spoke
Spanish. However, despite access to Spanish in school, the group
from the very low socioeconomic status school in the large urban
GOTTARDO AND MUELLER
334
Table 1
Means and Standard Deviations of Observed Measures for Comparisons Between Students With Complete Data and Those With
Missing Data
Measure
Male/female
Urban/rural
Phonological awareness
English
Phoneme detection
Phoneme deletion
CTOPP blending pseudo
Spanish: Phoneme detection
TPAS final phoneme
TPAS rhyming
TPAS initial phoneme
Oral language proficiency
English
Peabody Vocabulary (PPVT–III)
Oral cloze
Spanish
Peabody Vocabulary (TVIP)
Oral cloze
Word reading
English
Woodcock Word Identification Grade 1
Woodcock pseudoword Identification Grade 1
M
SD
Complete
(n ⫽ 85)
SD
40/45
57/28
Missing
(n ⫽ 45)
SD
t (equal
variances)
26/19
31/14
8.56
3.31
6.86
7.53
19.20
19.39
22.34
2.8
4.3
4.9
3.3
5.0
3.7
4.9
8.71
3.53
7.04
7.78
18.98
19.37
22.44
2.7
4.3
4.3
3.5
5.2
3.7
4.6
8.34
3.00
6.51
7.09
19.78
19.45
22.27
3.0
4.2
5.9
2.9
4.6
3.6
5.6
0.72 y
0.68 y
0.47 n
1.13 y
0.77 y
0.11 y
0.15 n
56.34
4.17
21.0
2.4
57.21
4.10
20.5
2.5
55.11
4.23
22.1
2.4
0.55 y
0.31 y
40.24
8.04
12.5
2.6
40.52
8.46
12.6
2.2
39.93
7.25
12.5
3.2
0.25 y
2.26ⴱⴱ n
8.72
3.89
9.9
5.3
9.01
4.10
10.2
5.5
8.3
3.57
9.6
4.8
0.54 y
0.41 y
Note. CTOPP ⫽ Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing; TPAS ⫽ Test of Phonological Awareness in Spanish; PPVT–III ⫽ Peabody Picture
Vocabulary Test—III; TVIP ⫽ Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody; Woodcock ⫽ Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised; y ⫽ yes; n ⫽ no.
ⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .001, Bonferroni correction value.
district had lower Spanish syntactic awareness and phonological
awareness scores on some measures than the small-town group.
The initial testing was conducted in fall of first grade, when
formal literacy instruction had just begun. When asked about their
reading program, the first-grade teachers claimed to use an eclectic
approach with repeated reading and phonics when needed. However, a systematic phonics program was not implemented at the
school when the data were collected. Kindergarten literacy instruction had focused only on letter knowledge.
Reading Measures
Word-level reading (decoding). Standardized tests of word
and pseudoword reading were administered at each testing session.
English word reading was measured using the Word Identification
subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised
(WRMT–R: Woodcock, 1987), for example, come, boy, and summer. Unlike other versions of word reading tests, the Woodcock
Reading Mastery Test—Revised measures only word reading,
beginning with high-frequency monosyllabic words (i.e., you and
up). Pseudoword reading was measured using the Word Attack
subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised (Woodcock, 1987), for example, ap, oss, and poe. The children were
explicitly told that they were supposed to read the words in English
to ensure that they would not perform these tasks as if they were
decoding Spanish words. Therefore, if a child read an English
pseudoword in a letter-by-letter way as they would a Spanish word
(e.g., p-o-e), it was scored as incorrect. Reported reliabilities from
the norms for children at ages 6 and 7 are .95 for Word Attack and
.96 for Word Identification (Woodcock, 1987).
Reading comprehension. Reading comprehension was measured in Grade 2 using the Passage Comprehension subtest of the
Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery—Revised (Woodcock,
1991). The children read short passages and had to orally provide
the missing word. The initial items provided picture cues to assist
the children in supplying the missing words. Reported reliability
from the norms for children at age 7 is .95 (Woodcock, 1991).
Oral Language Measures
Receptive vocabulary. Vocabulary knowledge was measured
in English using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—III (Dunn
& Dunn, 1997). The child was asked to select the picture from an
array of four that best matched the spoken word presented by the
examiner (e.g., “Show me reading” or “Show me cow”). Reported
reliability from the norms for children at age 6 is .94 (Dunn &
Dunn, 1997). Spanish vocabulary knowledge was measured using
the Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody (Dunn, Lugo,
Padilla, & Dunn, 1986). The reported reliability for children age 6
is .93 (Dunn et al., 1986).
Syntactic processing. An oral cloze task was administered to the
children in English and in Spanish as an additional measure of the
children’s oral language proficiency. Many educators believe that oral
language proficiency is related to decoding skill in L2 learners (Cummins, 1984). The oral cloze task adapted from Siegel and Ryan (1988)
required that the child fill in the missing word in the sentence. The
oral cloze task measured metalinguistic knowledge at a syntactic
level. Some researchers believe that metalinguistic knowledge is a
general linguistic skill that is related to reading and includes syntactic
awareness and phonological awareness (Tunmer & Hoover, 1992),
PREDICTING SECOND LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION
335
Table 2
Alphas, Means, and Standard Deviations of Observed Measures and Comparisons Between Urban and Rural Samples
Measure
Phonological awareness
English
Phoneme detection
Phoneme deletion
CTOPP blending pseudo
Spanish: Phoneme detection
TPAS final phoneme
TPAS rhyming
TPAS initial phoneme
Oral language proficiency
English
Peabody Vocabulary (PPVT–III)
PPVT–III SS
Oral cloze
Spanish: Peabody Vocabulary (TVIP)
Oral cloze
Word reading
English
Woodcock Word Identification Grade 1
Woodcock Word Identification SS Grade 1
Woodcock pseudoword identification Grade 1
Woodcock pseudoword SS Grade 1
Woodcock Word Identification Grade 2
Woodcock Word Identification SS Grade 2
Woodcock pseudoword identification Grade 2
Woodcock pseudoword SS Grade 2
Reading comprehension
English: Passage comprehension Grade 2
␣
n
M
SD
Urban
(n ⫽ 89)
SD
Rural
(n ⫽ 42)
SD
t (equal
variances)
.72
.90
.89
.74
.82
.77
.81
131
131
119
129
114
115
115
8.56
3.31
6.86
7.53
19.20
19.39
22.34
2.80
4.26
4.85
3.26
4.97
3.67
4.91
8.34
2.74
6.29
7.05
18.49
19.02
21.79
2.7
3.8
4.7
2.8
4.4
3.6
5.1
9.05
4.52
8.12
8.48
20.81
20.21
23.56
3.1
5.0
5.1
3.9
5.8
3.8
4.4
1.36 y
2.06ⴱ n
1.93 y
2.18ⴱ n
2.12ⴱ n
1.63 y
1.80 y
.95
131
131
131
127
127
56.34
74.37
4.17
40.24
8.04
20.98
17.1
2.44
12.51
2.61
53.82
20.6
61.69
21.1
2.03ⴱ y
3.82
40.24
7.65
2.3
11.9
2.7
4.91
40.25
8.81
2.6
13.7
2.1
2.42ⴱ y
0.01 y
2.41ⴱ y
131
131
131
131
79
79
79
79
8.72
88.68
3.89
86.68
41.43
93.86
18.65
97.49
9.94
21.6
5.26
18.24
15.30
18.7
10.38
18.31
6.79
8.0
12.81
12.3
2.89ⴱⴱ n
3.21
4.4
5.33
6.5
1.91 n
42.13
14.5
39.92
17.1
0.60 y
19.70
10.7
16.56
9.6
1.24 y
85
11.02
6.72
10.44
6.8
11.53
7.0
0.68 y
.65
.93
.64
.96
.95
.96
.95
.95
Note. CTOPP ⫽ Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing; PPVT–III ⫽ Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—III; TVIP ⫽ Test de Vocabulario en
Imagenes Peabody; Woodcock ⫽ Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised; SS ⫽ standard scores; y ⫽ yes; n ⫽ no.
ⴱ
p ⬍ .05. ⴱⴱ p ⬍ .001, Bonferroni correction value.
and other researchers believe that phonological awareness is uniquely
related to reading and separate from syntactic awareness (Gottardo,
Stanovich, & Siegel, 1996; Shankweiler, Crain, Brady, & Macaruso,
1992; Stanovich & Siegel, 1994).
Parallel versions of the oral cloze task were constructed in
English and Spanish to examine awareness of similar syntactic
structures across languages. When possible, direct translations of
the English sentences were used for the Spanish stimuli. The items
were orally presented by the experimenter and required an oral
one-word response by the participants. Items tapped different
levels of morphological and syntactic knowledge including plural
morphemes and tense markers (e.g., “Sally has a party dress and
a school dress. She has two ___” and “Maria tiene un vestido
para fiesta y otro para la escuela. Ella tiene dos ___”; “Everyday we play. Today we play. Yesterday we ___. Tomorrow
we ___” and “Cada dı́a jugamos. Hoy nosotros jugamos. Ayer
nosotros ___. Mañana nosotros ___”). Both the English and the
Spanish versions of the task contained 14 experimental items
and 2 training items that were administered to the children. All
of the items in the oral cloze task were scored according to a
strict criterion of correctness. A correct response required that
the child give a single-word response that fulfilled both the
syntactic and the semantic constraints of the sentence. The
English version of the task yielded a moderately low internal
consistency reliability coefficient (␣ ⫽ .65). The Spanish ver-
sion of the task also yielded a moderately low internal consistency reliability coefficient for the sample (␣ ⫽ .64).
Phonological Awareness Measures
Three measures of phonological awareness, one standardized
and two experimental, were administered in English. English-like
pseudowords were used to present stimuli that were equally unfamiliar to all of the participants. Items in the experimental tasks
were generally monosyllabic, as is common in English phonological tasks. These items did not include phonemes that do not exist
in Latin American Spanish (e.g., th). Four measures of phonological awareness were administered in Spanish. Three of the Spanish
measures were taken from a prerelease version of a standardized
test. Many of the Spanish items for the phoneme-level tasks were
bisyllabic words, as this type of word is much more common than
monosyllabic words. None of the specific items overlapped, although the phonemes that had to be detected did (e.g., /s/, /l/, and
/m/). Although syllable-level phonological awareness tasks might
be more strongly related to Spanish reading, these measures are
less relevant to English reading (DeCara & Goswami, 2002). The
large number of phonological awareness measures was administered to systematically determine the relationship of different L1
and L2 phonological awareness measures to L2 reading.
336
GOTTARDO AND MUELLER
English phonological awareness. The English standardized
measure was the sound blending of nonwords subtest of the
Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Wagner, Torgeson, & Rashotte, 1999). The children had to respond to the question “What made-up word do these sounds make?” (e.g., n-a-s-p).
The reliability reported in the manual for this subtest is .89 for
children age 6.
We also administered experimental pseudoword phoneme detection and deletion tasks. For the initial phoneme detection task,
the children were asked to identify which pseudoword out of three
presented stimuli began with a different phoneme (e.g., sesk, susk,
and shem; adapted from Stanovich, Cunningham, & Cramer,
1984). A picture of a monster accompanied each pseudoword so
that the child was only required to point to the correct item to
reduce recall demands (Gottardo, 2002). This procedure also
avoided errors based on repetition of unfamiliar stimuli. Children
were cued to listen for the sound at the beginning of the word. Two
training items were administered that emphasized the initial sound
component of the word and provided corrective feedback. All 15
items were administered to all children. This task yielded a moderately high internal consistency reliability coefficient (␣ ⫽ .72).
The pseudoword phoneme deletion task required the children to
delete phonemes from orally presented pseudowords. The task
included items that required the deletion of initial phonemes (e.g.,
“Say neep. Say it without the /n/”), final phonemes (e.g., “Say ket.
Say it without the /t/”), and phonemes from blends (e.g., “Say
skaff. Say it without the /k/”). The items included phonemes that
are present across multiple languages (i.e., English, Spanish, and
Chinese) but have an English-like phonological structure in that
they included blends. The correct responses in the phoneme deletion task also resulted in pseudowords. The 30 items were arranged
in approximate order of difficulty beginning with initial phoneme
deletion and ending with the deletion of phonemes from blends.
The task was discontinued if the participant produced five consecutive incorrect responses. A correct response resulted when the
child deleted the correct phoneme on the basis of the pseudoword
that the child repeated initially. This scoring procedure allowed us
to accommodate for developmental articulation errors and potential differences in pronunciation based on L1. Concrete objects such
as blocks were used to train the students and ensure that they comprehended the task demands to the best of their ability. This task
yielded a high internal consistency reliability coefficient (␣ ⫽ .90).
Phonological awareness in Spanish was measured using a prerelease version of the Test of Phonological Awareness in Spanish
(Riccio, Imhoff, Hasbrouk, & Davis, 2004). Three subtests were
administered to all participants: a rhyming task that required
the child to identify whether two words rhymed (e.g., “Piensas que
mar rima con o suena casi como par?”); an initial phoneme
matching task in which the child was asked to identify whether two
words began with the same sound (e.g., “Piensas que goma empieza con el mismo sonido que gato?”); and a final phonemematching task in which the child was required to distinguish
whether two words ended with the same sound (e.g., “Piensas que
roto termina con el mismo sonido que barco?”).
Initially the authors of the Test of Phonological Awareness in
Spanish (Riccio, Imhoff, Hasbrouk, & Davis, 2004) worked with
students to develop the items and tasks; the tasks were designed to
be comparable to subtests of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (Wagner et al., 1999). Many of the test devel-
opers were Spanish speakers—some Cuban, some Mexican, and
some non-Hispanic. Having identified the tasks, the group identified words in Spanish that were high frequency and would be
appropriate for the specific tasks. The greatest challenge was the
development of the rhyming task, specifically gaining consensus
among the Spanish-speaking consultants as to how to define rhyme
in Spanish. After the initial field trial, some items were then
eliminated. Additional experts in various countries including
Spain, Mexico, and Colombia evaluated the item pool to ensure
that items were not specific to one Spanish-speaking group (Cynthia A. Riccio, personal communication, May 21, 2008). All items
from each subtest, 27 to 32 items, were administered to the
children. The alpha coefficients for our sample for the three
subtests of the Test of Phonological Awareness in Spanish were
moderately high to high (rhyme ⫽ .77; initial sound ⫽ .81; final
sound ⫽ .82).
Lastly, an experimental phoneme detection task paralleling the
English task was administered. Three Spanish words were read
orally to the children. The children were asked to identify which
word began with a different sound than the other two words (e.g.,
ni, nada, and sola). Given the structure of Spanish, many of the
word were bisyllabic. All 15 items were administered. The internal
consistency reliability coefficient was moderately high (␣ ⫽ .74).
Procedure
The children were tested individually in a quiet room in their
school in fall of first grade and winter of second grade. A fluent
speaker of both languages administered the experimental and
standardized tasks to the children in English and in Spanish. In first
grade, the English testing session lasted approximately 60 min and
the Spanish testing session lasted approximately 30 – 45 min. The
testing sessions occurred on 2 separate days to avoid language
confusion, 1 day for English and the other day for Spanish. To
counterbalance the effects of experience with the tests, approximately half of the children were tested in Spanish first, and the
other half were tested in English first. Children were tested again
slightly more than 1 year later in second grade. The same reading
and phonological awareness tests were administered. The reading
comprehension test was added. See the Appendix for a table of
relevant measures administered in each language by construct.
Results
Data Screening
Initially, the data were screened for missing data, multicollinearity, outliers, and normality assumptions, according to Kline’s
(1998) guidelines for data preparation and data screening for
structural equation modeling. The second-grade reading comprehension variable contained a large portion of missing data. This
variable was missing at random because of attrition across 2 years
of the study (see Participants section).
Outliers, identified as more than ⫾3 standard deviations from
the mean, were modified to the next extreme score for English
pseudoword reading. We found very low scores for first-grade
word reading. We conducted log transformations on the English
word and pseudoword reading measures but were unable to normalize the data (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). The lack of variabil-
PREDICTING SECOND LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION
ity on the first-grade word and pseudoword reading measures
made them inappropriate for use in structural equation modeling.
In addition, graphs of relations between first- and second-grade
word reading showed that the correlations were driven almost
exclusively by a few outliers. Therefore, we dropped the firstgrade reading measures from the analyses in favor of retaining
only second-grade word and pseudoword reading as measures of
decoding.
Descriptive Statistics
The means, standard deviations, and reliability scores for the
observed variables are displayed in Table 2. The descriptive statistics provide the opportunity for comparison across tasks and
languages. Because some of the Spanish measures are not standardized, we report raw scores for all tasks.
The mean scores on the phonological awareness tasks are not
directly comparable between English and Spanish. However, raw
scores indicate similar performance on phoneme detection tasks
(8.56/15 on the English task and 7.53/15 on the Spanish task). The
Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing blending of
pseudowords mean score indicates that this sample of students
scored in the 50 percentile for their age at the time of testing in first
grade.
English oral language proficiency scores for this sample of
students were low. For example, the mean score on the English
standardized vocabulary measure (Peabody Picture Vocabulary
Test—III) was more than 1 standard deviation below the mean (see
Table 2 for means). Students performed relatively better on the
Spanish measures but still below norms for monolingual Spanish
speakers (see Tabors, Paez, & Lopez, 2003, for similar results).
Mean scores for first-grade word identification were somewhat
deceiving in that a small number of children were proficient
readers, but the majority were nonreaders (see Table 2 for means
337
and standard deviations). The median raw scores for Grade 1 word
reading and pseudoword reading were 5 and 1, respectively, and
the modes were 0 for both measures. For example, 67 children
(51%) received pseudoword reading scores of 0 or 1, and 52
children (40%) received word reading scores of 0, 1, or 2. Standard
scores were more normally distributed because many of the children were so young at the beginning of first grade that scores of 0
on word and pseudoword reading were still within the average
range. Second-grade scores for word identification (see Table 2)
indicated that the children were reading in the low average range,
with mean standard scores of 93.86 for the Word Identification
subtest and 97.49 for pseudoword reading. Therefore, the children
progressed to obtain mean word-level reading scores within the
low average range in English by second grade, which indicated
excellent growth. Passage comprehension scores at second grade,
however, were somewhat below grade level. The mean score of
11.02 represents a 1.7 grade level of reading comprehension.
Intercorrelations among both Spanish and English measures are
displayed in Table 3. We used a Bonferroni correction level of p ⬍
.001 as the criterion for significance to control for Type I error.
Correlations within constructs were generally strong, indicating
that the tasks used to measure the latent constructs were related to
some degree. The two variables measuring oral language proficiency within language in English and Spanish were significantly
correlated (rs ⫽ .64 and .47, respectively). The English phonological awareness measures were all significantly correlated as well
(rs ⫽ .44 to .47). The intercorrelations among the Spanish phonological awareness measures were significant (rs ⫽ .39 to .64)
except for the correlation between the initial phoneme task and the
rhyming task (r ⫽ .17). As expected, the Grade 2 English word and
pseudoword reading measures were highly correlated (r ⫽ .75).
The pattern of intercorrelations across languages suggested that
the latent constructs discriminate by language (see Table 3). That
Table 3
Correlations Among Observed Variables in the Structural Equation Model
Variable
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
16.
17.
18.
EPHDT
EPHDL
ESBL
SILPH
SRHYM
SFLPH
SPHDT
EPPVT
EOCLZ
STVIP
SOCLZ
EWDID
EPWID
ERCMP
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
—
.47ⴱⴱ
.45ⴱⴱ
.45ⴱⴱ
.24
.24
.43ⴱⴱ
.38ⴱⴱ
.36ⴱⴱ
.04
.15
.26
.19
.31ⴱⴱ
—
.44ⴱⴱ
.21
.31ⴱⴱ
.14
.33ⴱⴱ
.36ⴱⴱ
.40ⴱⴱ
.19
.24ⴱⴱ
.36ⴱⴱ
.38ⴱⴱ
.39ⴱⴱ
—
.27
.28
.29
.44ⴱⴱ
.41ⴱⴱ
.42ⴱⴱ
.03
.15
.45ⴱⴱ
.42ⴱⴱ
.50ⴱⴱ
—
.17
.44ⴱⴱ
.60ⴱⴱ
.15
.23
.14
.17
.39ⴱⴱ
.27
.40ⴱⴱ
—
.41ⴱⴱ
.39ⴱⴱ
.31ⴱⴱ
.34ⴱⴱ
.19
.18
.11
.06
.09
—
.64ⴱⴱ
.23
.21
.16
.27
.23
.16
.24
—
.30ⴱⴱ
.32ⴱⴱ
.17
.28
.37ⴱⴱ
.33
.33
—
.64ⴱⴱ
.13
.22
.27
.21
.29
9
—
⫺.04
.16
.29
.24
.40ⴱⴱ
10
—
.47ⴱⴱ
⫺.09
⫺.01
⫺.06
11
16
17
18
—
.02
⫺.02
.01
—
.75ⴱⴱ
.83ⴱⴱ
—
.65ⴱⴱ
—
Note. EPHDT ⫽ English phoneme detection task; EPHDL ⫽ English phoneme deletion task; ESBL ⫽ English Comprehensive Test of Phonological
Processing sound blending task; SILPH ⫽ Spanish Test of Phonological Awareness in Spanish (TPAS) initial phoneme matching task; SRHYM ⫽ Spanish
TPAS rhyming task; SFLPH ⫽ Spanish TPAS final phoneme matching task; SPHDT ⫽ Spanish phoneme detection task; EPPVT ⫽ English Peabody
Picture Vocabulary Test–III Picture Vocabulary; EOCLZ ⫽ English oral cloze task (adapted from Siegel & Ryan, 1988); STVIP ⫽ Spanish Test de
Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody picture vocabulary; SOCLZ ⫽ Spanish oral cloze task (adapted from Siegel & Ryan, 1988); EWDID ⫽ English
Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised Word Identification; EPWID ⫽ English pseudoword identification; ERCMP ⫽ English Woodcock Reading
Mastery Test—Revised passage comprehension.
ⴱⴱ
p ⬍ .001, Bonferroni correction value.
338
GOTTARDO AND MUELLER
is, the intercorrelations among English oral language proficiency
measures and Spanish oral language proficiency measures were
nonsignificant (rs ⫽ ⫺.04 to .22). The Spanish phoneme detection
task was significantly correlated with all three English phonological awareness measures, with correlations ranging from .33 to .44.
The English phoneme detection task was also significantly correlated with the Spanish initial phoneme task (r ⫽ .45). The English
phoneme deletion task was significantly correlated with the Spanish rhyming task (r ⫽ .31). The significant correlations across the
languages suggest that phonological awareness might be related
across languages.
Structural Equation Modeling
Using AMOS 5.0 software (Arbuckle & Wothke, 1999), we
computed full information maximum likelihood estimates to test
models of the interrelationships between English and Spanish
reading constructs and the predictive power of word reading and
oral language skills on reading comprehension. Despite missing
data, the full information maximum likelihood approach yields
unbiased “consistent and efficient parameter estimates” (Arbuckle
& Wothke, 1999, p. 333; Schafer & Graham, 2002). The estimates
of parameters are based on calculations that include all of the
available data for each participant (Tomarken & Waller, 2005).
However, the effectiveness of full information maximum likelihood is based on assumptions of appropriate sample size and data
missing at random (Schafer & Graham, 2002). Our sample size is
appropriate using calculations based on the number of free parameters (Arbuckle & Wothke, 1999). The analyses reported in the
Participants section show that the missing data in the current
sample were missing at random.
We used a two-step approach to structural equation modeling.
First, we tested the measurement model using a confirmatory
factor analysis to determine whether the observed variables served
as adequate indicators of the latent variables. Following confirmation of an adequate measurement model, we tested the structural
model to examine the predictive relationships among oral language
proficiency, English word reading, and English reading comprehension. The structural model included the latent constructs of
phonological awareness, oral language proficiency in Grade 1, and
word reading in Grade 2. These variables were included in a model
to predict Grade 2 reading comprehension, a single observed
variable as measured by the passage comprehension task. We
excluded Grade 1 word reading from the model for reasons discussed above.
Measurement model. Initially, we tested the measurement
model using a three-factor confirmatory factor analysis based on
the assumption that phonological awareness, oral language, and
word reading are three unique, yet correlated, latent constructs.
This measurement model tests the hypothesis that tasks in both
English and Spanish are measuring the same construct, that is, that
English phonological awareness tasks and Spanish phonological
awareness tasks both measure the same construct of phonological
awareness. We used three indices of goodness of fit in analysis of
the model: the chi-square statistic, the comparative fit index (CFI),
and the root mean square of approximation (RMSEA). These
indices are widely used as fit indicators (McDonald & Ho, 2002).
The fit of the three-factor model was not good, with all of the fit
indices falling outside the acceptable range, a chi-square with p ⬎
Table 4
Fit Statistics for Measurement Models and Structural Model
Model
Measurement models
Model A: 3 factor
Model B: 4 factor
Model C: 5 factor
Structural models
Model D: Full SVR
Model E: OLP
Model F: Word read
␹2
df
p
␹2/df
CFI
RMSEA
148.98
111.64
67.73
62
59
55
.001
.001
.116
2.40
1.77
1.23
.81
.89
.97
.10
.08
.04
77.24
110.77
84.65
65
67
66
.142
.001
.071
1.19
1.68
1.26
.98
.92
.97
.04
.07
.04
Note. N ⫽ 131 for all chi-square equations. CFI ⫽ comparative fit index;
RMSEA ⫽ root-mean-square error of approximation; SVR ⫽ simple view
of reading; OLP ⫽ oral language proficiency.
.05, CFI ⬍ .95, and RMSEA ⬎ .05 (see Table 4 for Model A fit
indices). Additionally, although only one observed variable had a
nonsignificant factor loading, Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes
Peabody on oral language proficiency, several factor loadings
were lower than .60 (see Table 5). The lack of fit and the low factor
loadings suggest that the observed variables were not strong indicators of the latent constructs. The lower factor loadings for the
Spanish measures suggest that the constructs might be split according to language. The many nonsignificant intercorrelations
between Spanish and English measures (see Table 3) also lend
support to a measurement model that splits constructs according to
language.
We then conducted a second confirmatory factor analysis in
which the latent construct of oral language proficiency was split
according to language (i.e., English oral language proficiency and
Spanish oral language proficiency), and phonological awareness
was characterized as one cross-language construct. English wordlevel reading remained the same (see Table 4 for Model B). The fit
for this model was not good, with all of the fit indices falling
outside the acceptable range. The factor loadings from the observed variables to the latent constructs were significant, although
three of the seven variables for the combined phonological awareness construct were low, below .60 (see Table 5).
We then conducted a third confirmatory factor analysis in which
the latent constructs of phonological awareness and oral language
proficiency were split according to language—that is, English
phonological awareness, Spanish phonological awareness, English
oral language proficiency, and Spanish oral language proficiency—with English word-level reading remaining the same (see
Figure 1). Although the constructs, phonological awareness and
oral language proficiency, were separated by language, they were
still assumed to be correlated in this model. The fit for this model,
Model C, was much better than the other two measurement models. All three fit indices were within the desired range, ␹2(55, N ⫽
131) ⫽ 67.73, p ⫽ .116, CFI ⫽ .97, RMSEA ⫽ .04. All of the
factor loadings from the observed variables to the latent constructs
were significant (see Table 5), although some remained relatively
low (Spanish rhyming task on Spanish phonological awareness ⫽
.45; Spanish picture vocabulary on Spanish oral language proficiency ⫽ .57). Phonological awareness across languages showed a
moderate, significant correlation (.65), and the correlation between
the oral language proficiency constructs across languages was
lower (.24).
PREDICTING SECOND LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION
339
Table 5
Factor Loadings for Observed Variables on Latent Variables in Measurement Models
Model A
Model B
Observed variable
Latent
variable
Factor
loading
Latent
variable
Factor
loading
Latent
variable
Model C
factor loading
EPHDT
EPHDL
ESBL
SILPH
SRHYM
SFLPH
SPHDT
EPPVT
EOCLZ
STVIP
SOCLZ
EWDID
EPWID
PA
PA
PA
PA
PA
PA
PA
OLP
OLP
OLP
OLP
WR
WR
.63
.54
.60
.62
.48
.62
.78
.80
.78
.13 (ns)
.29
.94
.80
PA
PA
PA
PA
PA
PA
PA
OLP Eng
OLP Eng
OLP Sp
OLP Sp
WR
WR
.63
.54
.60
.62
.48
.62
.78
.84
.76
.57
.83
.94
.80
PA Eng
PA Eng
PA Eng
PA Sp
PA Sp
PA Sp
PA Sp
OLP Eng
OLP Eng
OLP Sp
OLP Sp
WR
WR
.66
.65
.71
.63
.45
.69
.90
.79
.81
.57
.82
.90
.83
Note. ps ⬍ .01, except as noted. EPHDT ⫽ English phoneme detection task; EPHDL ⫽ English phoneme deletion task; ESBL ⫽ English Comprehensive
Test of Phonological Processing sound blending task; SILPH ⫽ Spanish Test of Phonological Awareness in Spanish (TPAS) initial phoneme matching task;
SRHYM ⫽ Spanish TPAS rhyming task; SFLPH ⫽ Spanish TPAS final phoneme matching task; SPHDT ⫽ Spanish phoneme detection task; EPPVT ⫽
English Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Third Edition picture vocabulary; EOCLZ ⫽ English oral cloze task (adapted from Siegel & Ryan, 1988);
STVIP ⫽ Spanish Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody picture vocabulary; SOCLZ ⫽ Spanish oral cloze task (adapted from Siegel & Ryan, 1988);
EWDID ⫽ English Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised Word Identification; EPWID ⫽ English pseudoword Identification; PA ⫽ phonological
awareness; OLP ⫽ oral language proficiency; WR ⫽ word reading; Eng ⫽ English; Sp ⫽ Spanish.
Structural model. The adequate measurement model, Model
C, allowed us to test the structural models under the assumption
that the observed variables were adequate indicators of the latent
constructs. Figure 2 displays the structural model (Model D).
Reading comprehension was measured with only one observed
variable (passage comprehension). Direct paths were included
from English word reading and from oral language proficiency in
Spanish and English. Model D represents the complete version of
the SVR. Indirect paths were drawn from phonological awareness
in Spanish and English and oral language proficiency in Spanish
and English through English word reading.
Table 4 indicates that all three fit indices for Model D were
within the acceptable range, ␹2(65, N ⫽ 131) ⫽ 77.24, p ⫽ .142,
CFI ⫽ .98, RMSEA ⫽ .04.1 For word reading, only the path from
English phonological awareness to English word reading was
significant, suggesting that Grade 1 Spanish measures, such as
phonological awareness and oral language proficiency, and Grade
1 English oral language proficiency were not good predictors of
Grade 2 English word reading (see Figure 2 for standardized path
coefficients). The constructs of phonological awareness and oral
language proficiency in English and Spanish, exogenous variables
predicting Grade 2 word reading in the model, accounted for 36%
of the variance. Reading comprehension was significantly predicted by Grade 2 English word reading and Grade 1 English oral
language proficiency as expected in the SVR. The Grade 1 Spanish
oral language proficiency was not a significant predictor of English reading comprehension in Grade 2 (see Figure 2 for standardized path coefficients). The model accounted for 80% of the
variance in Grade 2 reading comprehension.
We tested two additional models to determine whether each of
the components of reading comprehension posited in the SVR
were necessary but not sufficient. Model E involved deleting the
pathway between word reading and reading comprehension from
the original Model D. Alternately, Model F deleted the pathways
between oral language proficiency and reading comprehension
from the original model. For Model E, which deleted word reading, the goodness of fit was poor (see Table 4). None of the fit
indices fell within the acceptable range, and the solution was
reported to be inadmissible. For Model F, which deleted the
pathways from oral language proficiency to reading comprehension, all three fit indices were within the acceptable range, ␹2(67,
N ⫽ 131) ⫽ 84.65, p ⫽ .142, CFI ⫽ .97, RMSEA ⫽ .04. Because
the models were nested, Model D and Model F could be compared
to determine whether one model provided a significantly better fit
than the other model. By subtracting the chi-square of one model
from the other (as recommended by Kline, 1998), we were able to
determine that Model D provided a significantly better fit for the
data than Model F, ⌬␹2(2, N ⫽ 131) ⫽ 7.41, p ⬍ .05. The pathway
deleted in Model F, oral language proficiency, was significantly
greater than 0. Therefore, as shown in Model D, the oral language
proficiency and word-reading pathways to reading comprehension
were significant and important for the model (see Figure 2).
Discussion
In this study, we tested whether the SVR is a valid model of
reading comprehension in ELs. Unlike in most studies that model
L2 reading comprehension (Aarnoutse, van Leeuwe, & Verhoeven, 2005; Proctor et al., 2005; Verhoeven, 2000), we included
L1 and L2 measures as longitudinal predictors of word reading and
1
The model was also tested with a sample size of 79 including only
participants with complete data and not using full information maximum
likelihood. We found the identical results for this model with the reduced
sample size, ␹2(54, N ⫽ 79) ⫽ 77.10, p ⫽ .145, CFI ⫽ .97, RMSEA ⫽ .045.
GOTTARDO AND MUELLER
340
.66
Phonological
Awareness
English
.65
.71
.63
English Phoneme Deletion
English Sound Blend CTOPP
Spanish Initial Phoneme TPAS
.45
Phonological
Awareness
Spanish
English Phoneme Detection
Spanish Rhyming Task TPAS
.69
Spanish Final Phoneme TPAS
.90
Spanish Phoneme Detection
.79
Oral Language
Proficiency
English
English PPVT-III Picture
.81
English Oral Cloze
.57
Spanish TVIP Picture
Oral Language
Proficiency
Spanish
.82
Spanish Oral Cloze
.90
English Word
Reading Grade
Two
Woodcock Word Identification
.83
Woodcock Pseudo Word Attack
Figure 1. Model C: Measurement model with factor loadings on latent constructs of English and Spanish
phonological awareness, English and Spanish oral language proficiency, and Grade 2 English word reading.
CTOPP ⫽ Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing; TPAS ⫽ Test of Phonological Awareness in
Spanish; PPVT–III ⫽ Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—III; TVIP ⫽ Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes
Peabody; Woodcock ⫽ Woodcock Reading Mastery Test—Revised.
reading comprehension. On a theoretical level, including both L1
and L2 predictors of reading provided us with a more accurate
picture of the relationships among reading comprehension performance and other linguistic skills in ELs. For example, how are L1
and L2 language skills organized in ELs in relation to L2 reading?
This design could also inform practical aspects related to educating
ELs, including whether assessments should be conducted in the L1
or the L2.
Initially, we tested a measurement model to determine whether
phonological awareness and Spanish and English oral language
skills were single, cross-language constructs or separate but correlated constructs in relation to reading comprehension. As expected, the constructs for phonological awareness were related
across languages but were better represented by separate con-
structs for each language (Branum-Martin et al., 2006). The separation of phonological awareness across languages could be related to the linguistic properties of Spanish and English, with
English favoring onset-rime segmentation, whereas Spanish favors
syllabic segmentation (Alvarez et al., 2001). However, our tasks in
both languages tapped onset-rime and phoneme-level skills, which
are most strongly related to English reading. The results could also
be related to the fact that reading instruction was delivered in
English only. Oral language proficiency was characterized by two
separate, language-specific constructs (Cobo-Lewis et al., 2002).
Similar results have been found specifically in relation to vocabulary knowledge (Snow & Kim, 2007). The results of the measurement model suggested that to obtain an adequate picture of
predictors of reading comprehension in bilingual people, L1 and
PREDICTING SECOND LANGUAGE READING COMPREHENSION
341
Spanish Oral
Language
Proficiency
-.06
-.21
English Oral
Language
Proficiency
.21
R2 = .80
-.20
Grade 2 English
Reading Comprehension
Grade 2
English Word
Reading
.10
.81
R = .36
2
Spanish
Phonological
Awareness
.69
English
Phonological
Awareness
Figure 2. Model D: Hypothesized structural model of Grade 2 English reading comprehension predicted by
English word reading through English and Spanish phonological awareness and English and Spanish oral
language proficiency. Significant paths are printed in boldface.
L2 predictors should be included. Theoretical models that test only
L2 predictors are missing a potentially important piece of information because constructs are not identical in L1 and L2. Practical
recommendations regarding the importance and utility of L1 and
L2 testing cannot be made until models have been developed using
both L1 and L2 constructs.
The results of the structural model supported the SVR: Both
decoding and oral language ability are related to reading comprehension (Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990). In the
case of the SVR, listening comprehension was a proxy for oral
language ability, and in our model we included vocabulary and
syntactic knowledge as measures of oral language proficiency.
Consistent with the SVR and other research conducted with young
readers who are monolingual English speakers or L2 learners,
word-level reading was a strong predictor of reading comprehension (Manis et al., 2006; Proctor et al., 2005; Tannenbaum,
Torgesen, & Wagner, 2006; Verhoeven, 2000). Interestingly, oral
language proficiency was also a predictor of reading comprehension in this sample of young EL children with limited English oral
language skills. The models that deleted either the oral language
proficiency pathways or the word-reading pathway resulted in a
worse fit than the model that contained both pathways. Therefore,
the SVR, which states that both decoding skill and oral language
comprehension are necessary for reading comprehension, can be
expanded to explain English reading comprehension in young
children learning English as their second language.
However, in our study, only English measures, specifically oral
language and decoding, were significantly related to English reading comprehension. In addition, only English phonological awareness was related to English word reading in this sample. The lack
of a direct relationship between Spanish measures and English
reading comprehension is likely in part because the participants
received their reading instruction in English. Therefore, English
reading skills were taught and appear to have been learned. In
addition, it is not surprising that English oral language skills are
related to English reading comprehension, given that vocabulary
knowledge in a language is related to reading comprehension in
that language.
In a study with young children educated in Spanish and English,
Spanish measures were no longer significant predictors of English
reading comprehension when the English measures were included
in the equation (Manis et al., 2004). The similar results across the
two studies are powerful in that the two groups received different
types of English reading instruction, code emphasis versus eclectic, and had different levels of Spanish literacy experience, transitional reading instruction from Spanish to English versus
English-only reading instruction. In terms of assessment, although
L2 language skills are most strongly related to L2 reading comprehension, the addition of L1 language skills could provide a
more complete picture of language and literacy functioning in
young EL children.
Studies that have found strong connections between L1 variables and L2 reading have focused on word-level reading or have
examined early reading comprehension in children educated in
bilingual contexts (Lindsey et al., 2003). For children educated in
their L2, L2 reading comprehension, with its emphasis on oral
language proficiency, is more strongly related to L2 skills. The
differential links between L1 and L2 skills and word reading
versus reading comprehension have theoretical and practical implications. For example, as with young monolingual readers, reading comprehension is more strongly related to word reading than to
oral language proficiency in our sample. In contrast, for monolingual speakers oral language proficiency is not strongly related to
early reading comprehension, in part because the passages in most
tests of early reading comprehension require a very basic level of
vocabulary (Keenan, Betjemann, & Olson, 2006). Therefore, the
relatively low language demands required for comprehending the
text in the early elementary grades result in a threshold of oral
language proficiency achieved by almost every monolingual child.
For EL children, the oral language proficiency demands necessary
GOTTARDO AND MUELLER
342
to comprehend even simple text might be sufficiently large to
allow for interindividual variability in oral language proficiency to
be related to reading comprehension. On a practical level, both oral
language proficiency and word-level skills are required by young
ELs to understand even basic text. Therefore, a curriculum focusing
solely on word decoding will not allow all young ELs to succeed on
reading comprehension tasks, even if the same curriculum produces
the desired results for young native English speakers.
In conclusion, the results of this study suggest that in relation to
reading comprehension, L1 and L2 phonological awareness should be
viewed as separate but related constructs (Branum-Martin et al.,
2006). L1 and L2 oral language proficiency should be viewed as
separate constructs with the possibility of slight overlap on the basis
of general language learning ability (Cobo-Lewis et al., 2002). Therefore, the use of L1 and L2 phonological measures would provide a
more complete picture of phonological processing skills. However,
L2 measures might be sufficient to predict L2 reading comprehension.
In contrast, although the assessment of L2 oral language skills is
useful for predicting L2 reading comprehension, it will not provide an
adequate picture of L1 oral language proficiency.
This study’s findings are also important theoretically for developing models of reading comprehension in bilingual people. The
results support the SVR model for young EL children. English oral
language proficiency and word reading are both necessary for
predicting English reading comprehension in young ELs. The
current study tested these relationships and models across English
and Spanish. However, additional studies should be conducted
with learners of other L1s and L2s.
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Appendix
Measures Administered in Each Language by Grade and Construct
Construct/variable
English
Spanish
x
pseudowords
x
words
Grade 1
Phonological awareness
Nonword blending (CTOPP)
Phoneme detection
Pseudoword phoneme deletion
Rhyme matching (TPAS)
Initial phoneme matching
(TPAS)
Final phoneme matching
(TPAS)
Oral language proficiency
Oral cloze
Peabody vocabulary
Reading
Word reading
Pseudoword reading
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
x
Grade 2
Reading
Word reading
Pseudoword reading
Reading comprehension
x
x
x
Note. Measures administered in each language by grade and construct. CTOPP ⫽ Comprehensive Test of Phonological
Processing; TPAS ⫽ Test of Phonological Awareness in Spanish.
Received April 12, 2007
Revision received May 28, 2008
Accepted June 3, 2008 䡲