344

The
British
Psychological
British Journal of Educational Psychology (2011), 81, 344–354
C 2010 The British Psychological Society
Society

www.wileyonlinelibrary.com

The development of comprehension and

reading-related skills in children learning English
as an additional language and their monolingual,
English-speaking peers

K. Burgoyne1 , H. E. Whiteley2∗ and J. M. Hutchinson3

1
Down Syndrome Education International, Portsmouth, UK
2
Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, UK
3
University of Central Lancashire, Preston, UK

Background. 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.
Aims. 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.
Sample. 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.
Method. Children completed standardized measures of comprehension, vocabulary,
reading accuracy, and reading fluency in school Year 3 and again in Year 4.
Results. 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.
Conclusions. 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.

Over 15% of primary school pupils in UK schools are learning English as their second
language (DCSF SFR 08/2009). Evidence indicates that this group of learners experience
academic underachievement relative to their monolingual, English-speaking peers (DCSF
SFR 31/2009; DCSF SFR 33/2009) and the attainment gap between these groups of
children is a continuing cause for concern (NALDIC, 2004). Investigations into English

∗ Correspondence should be addressed to Professor H. E. Whiteley, Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, Lancashire L39 4QP, UK
(e-mail: whiteleh@edgehill.ac.uk).

DOI:10.1348/000709910X504122
 Reading skills in children learning EAL 345

as an additional language (EAL) learners’ literacy skills have identified comprehension

as a key area of difficulty for this group (e.g., Burgoyne, Kelly, Whiteley, & Spooner,
2009; Hutchinson, Whiteley, Smith, & Connors, 2003). This study adopts a longitudinal
approach to examining the progression of reading and listening comprehension skills
in EAL learners and their monolingual peers across school Years 3 and 4. At this point,
literacy instruction in UK schools begins to make heavier demands on the ability to
comprehend text. This reflects a significant change in the focus of literacy instruction
(DCSF, 2006) as, prior to Year 3, the focus is on the development of phonic skills and
decoding in order for children to acquire the necessary skills to read text with accuracy
and efficiency. Accurate and fluent text reading is necessary in order for children to be
able to access the meaning of text (Perfetti, 1985). It is expected that the majority of
children will have made significant progress in these skills by school Year 3 and, that by
Year 4, the balance of attention in reading will have fully shifted from decoding words to
comprehension (DCSF, 2006). Consequently, when classroom instruction and national
tests begin to tap into the understanding of texts and spoken language in Year 3 and
beyond, comprehension difficulties are likely to have a significant impact on the ability
to achieve in school.
Whilst strong reading accuracy skills are an important foundation for reading
comprehension for both monolingual children (e.g., Ehrlich, Kurtz-Costes, & Loridant,
1993) and children learning EAL (e.g., Sen & Blatchford, 2001), being able to decode the
text is no guarantee of understanding. Research suggests that many children learning
EAL experience difficulties with reading comprehension despite demonstrating good
decoding skills (e.g., Burgoyne et al., 2009; Hutchinson et al., 2003, 2004; Rosowsky,
2001; Sen & Blatchford, 2001; Verhoeven, 1990; Verhoeven & Vermeer, 2006). Reading
comprehension is a multidimensional skill that requires knowledge and processing
skills at a number of levels; components identified as important for comprehension
include vocabulary, working memory, background knowledge, and processes including
inferential processing and comprehension monitoring (Cain & Oakhill, 2006; Perfetti,
Marron, & Foltz, 1996; Stanovich, 2000). With regard to EAL learners, vocabulary has
been demonstrated to be strongly related to reading comprehension (Burgoyne et al.,
2009; Stuart, 2004).
Whilst the emphasis of early literacy instruction clearly reflects the need to develop
decoding skills, there is little attention paid to the development of spoken language
skills in the classroom. This is based on the assumption that children begin school
with significant oral language experience, which then continues to develop through
experience with spoken language and later through experience with print. However,
this assumption is less likely to be correct for children learning EAL. For minority
language learners, majority language experiences are likely to be restricted prior to
school entry (Verhallen & Schoonen, 1993). Consequently, many minority language
children start primary school with significantly poorer English language skills than
their monolingual peers (Sammons et al., 2004). As there is little targeted support for
vocabulary development within the classroom (Cameron, 2002), school experience
often does little to remediate language difficulties, with differences between minority
and native language learners remaining, if not increasing, with age (Burgoyne et al.,
2009; Cameron, 2002; Hutchinson et al., 2003, 2004).
For children learning EAL, weaker vocabulary skills are likely to place significant
constraints on the development of both reading and listening comprehension (Burgoyne
et al., 2009; Hutchinson et al., 2003; Stuart, 2004). Burgoyne et al. (2009) report
significantly lower levels of reading and listening comprehension and expressive and
346 K. Burgoyne et al.

receptive vocabulary for EAL learners relative to their monolingual, English-speaking

peers. Reading comprehension difficulties were not a consequence of poor decoding
skills as the pupils learning EAL obtained higher scores than the monolingual children on
measures of single-word reading and text reading accuracy. Vocabulary was a significant
predictor of comprehension for both groups of children, suggesting that weaker
vocabulary skills limit the extent to which children learning EAL are able to comprehend
spoken and written text. Stuart (2004) found that vocabulary played a greater role in
explaining comprehension skill for children learning EAL than for monolingual learners.
In this study, both accuracy and vocabulary were highly significant predictors of reading
comprehension for 7-year-old children learning EAL. For monolingual learners, only
accuracy made a significant contribution to the prediction of reading comprehension
skill. Weaker language skills, therefore, place significant constraints on EAL learners’
ability to comprehend text.
This paper traces progress in reading and listening comprehension, expressive and
receptive vocabulary, single-word reading accuracy, text reading accuracy, and reading
rate in pupils who are learning EAL and their monolingual, English-speaking peers
between school Years 3 and 4. Group performances are compared at each point in time
and across the school years. In addition, this study explores which factors contribute to
reading comprehension skill for both groups of children.

Method
Design
The children were assessed on a range of measures at two points in time between January
and April 2005 and between January and April 2006.

Participants
In this study, 39 monolingual, English-speaking children and 39 children learning EAL
from four schools in the north-west of England participated. The schools are located in
areas of economic and social deprivation and typically serve families that are low socio-
economic status. Consistent with this, the proportion of pupils within participating
schools that are eligible to receive free school meals was typically higher than the
national average of 15.9% (DCSF SFR 08/2009). A significant proportion of children
(approximately one-third to 85% of all pupils on roll) within each school come from an
ethnic minority background, mainly of Pakistani and Indian heritage.
Of the monolingual children, 15 were boys and 24 girls; the EAL group included
19 boys and 20 girls. At Time 1, the children were aged between 7 and 8 years (mean age:
7 years 11 months). EAL learners were identified as speaking a mother tongue language
to some extent in the home environment; this was verified by using the Language
Preference Questionnaire (Beech & Keys, 1997) which examines children’s use and
experience of language across different contexts. Mother tongue languages spoken by
the EAL pupils included Punjabi (15 EAL pupils), Urdu (11), Gujarati (6), Pushto (5), and
Bengali (2). Most of these pupils (95%) reported attending Mosque at least 5 days a week.

Materials and procedure

Form 1 of the Neale Analysis of Reading Ability – Revised (NARA-R; Neale, 1997) was
used to assess text reading accuracy, comprehension, and fluency. This test is widely
 Reading skills in children learning EAL 347

used to measure reading ability in the UK (Cain & Oakhill, 2006). Children progress
through a series of six graded reading passages. The child reads the passages aloud
and reading accuracy errors are corrected. Open-ended questions which tap both literal
and inferential understanding are asked after each story and children are permitted to
look back at the text. Test administration ends when a prescribed number of reading
accuracy errors have been made. Form 2 of the NARA-R is a parallel assessment to Form
1; passages 1–4 of Form 2 were audiotaped and presented as a test of spoken language
comprehension.
The Wide Range Achievement Test 3 (WRAT3; Wilkinson, 1993) was employed as a
measure of single-word reading. In this test, children read a list of 42 words of increasing
difficulty presented out of context.
Expressive and receptive vocabulary skills were measured by the expressive and
receptive one-word picture vocabulary tests (Brownell, 2000). To measure receptive
vocabulary, children select one of four pictures that most accurately represents a given
word. The expressive test requires children to name a series of pictures depicting an
object, action, or concept. These tests were developed in the USA and a small number
of items may be considered less familiar to British children; these were anglicized for
the purpose of this study (e.g., an outline of the USA was replaced with a comparable
representation of the UK).
All assessments took place in English and all measures were completed at both Time
1 and Time 2.

Results
Data were analysed using a series of mixed design 2 × 2 ANOVAs, with language as a
between-groups variable (monolingual and EAL) and school Year (Years 3 and 4) as a
repeated measures variable.

Expressive and receptive vocabulary

Table 1 displays the mean scores obtained on the expressive and receptive vocabulary
measure in each school year.
Table 1. Mean raw scores (and SD) for expressive and receptive vocabulary measured in Years 3 and
4 as a function of language group

A main effect of school year confirmed that vocabulary scores were significantly
higher in Year 4 than in Year 3 (Expressive: F(1, 76) = 109.973, p < .001, ␩2 = .591;
Receptive: F(1, 76) = 72.959, p < .001, ␩2 = .490). There was a significant main effect
of language in favour of the monolingual children (Expressive: F(1, 76) = 15.774, p <
.001, ␩2 = .172; Receptive: F(1, 76) = 17.959, p < .001, ␩2 = .191) but no significant
interactions.
348 K. Burgoyne et al.

Reading accuracy (WRAT3 and NARA-R)

WRAT3 scores and NARA-R scores for reading accuracy recorded at both time points are
reported in Table 2.

Table 2. Mean raw scores (and SD) obtained on reading accuracy measures (WRAT3 and NARA-R) in
school Years 3 and 4 by language group

A main effect of school year confirmed that significant progress was made on the
WRAT3 measure and the NARA-R measure between school Years 3 and 4 (WRAT3: F(1,
76) = 36.904, p < .001, ␩2 = .327; NARA-R: F(1, 76) = 254.211, p < .001, ␩2 = .770). The
main effect of language was also significant in favour of children learning EAL (WRAT3:
F(1, 76) = 8.135, p = .006, ␩2 = .097; NARA-R: F(1, 76) = 6.370, p = .014, ␩2 = .077).
There were no significant interactions.

Reading rate (NARA-R)

Years 3 and 4 scores for reading rate are reported in Table 3.

Table 3. Mean scores for reading rate in words per minute (and SD) dependent on school Year and
language group

Levene’s test of equality of error variances suggested unequal variance in Year 3

reading rate raw scores; however, the variance ratio was less than 1:4 and there was
no evidence of skew or kurtosis. Consequently, analysis was conducted with an alpha
level of .05. Children made significant progression between Years 3 and 4 as illustrated
by a main effect of school Year (F(1, 76) = 63.841, p < .001, ␩2 = .457). Although the
means suggest that children learning EAL are faster readers than monolingual children,
the main effect of language failed to reach significance (F(1, 76) = 3.747, p = .057,
␩2 = .047). There was no significant interaction.

Reading and listening comprehension (NARA-R forms 1 and 2)

Reading and listening comprehension scores attained in Years 3 and 4 are displayed in
Table 4.
Analysis suggested that there was unequal variance in reading comprehension raw
scores in Year 4. However, as the variance ratio was less than 1:4, and there was no
evidence of skew or kurtosis, the conventional alpha level of .05 was maintained.
A main effect of school year confirmed that both groups of children made significant
progress in reading comprehension between Years 3 and 4 (F(1, 76) = 43.433, p < .001,
 Reading skills in children learning EAL 349

Table 4. Mean raw scores (and SD) for reading and listening comprehension assessed in Years 3 and 4
by language group

␩2 = .364). There was no main effect of language (F(1, 76) = 0.985, p = .324, ␩2 =
.013). A significant interaction between school year and language (F(1, 76) = 9.031,
p = .004, ␩2 = .106) was explored further using a series of t-tests. The monolingual
children and children learning EAL obtained similar comprehension scores in Year
3 (t(76) = 0.047, p = .962). The group difference in reading comprehension was
greater in Year 4, with higher scores obtained by the monolingual children, though
the difference failed to reach significance (t(76) = 1.849, p = .068). Both groups of
children made significant progress between Years 3 and 4 (monolingual children: t(38)
= 6.196, p < .001; children learning EAL: t(38) = 2.833, p = .007). The progress
made by monolingual children was, however, greater than that made by children
learning EAL.
In the NARA-R, comprehension is influenced by reading accuracy: testing ends on the
basis of reading accuracy errors, therefore, more accurate readers can progress further
through the passages and may consequently attempt more comprehension questions,
than weaker readers. As reported above, significant group differences in reading accuracy
were obtained in this study in favour of the children learning EAL. In order to control for
these differences, comprehension scores at Year 3 and at Year 4 were further analysed
in separate ANCOVAs with concurrent reading accuracy scores included as a covariate.
Significant main effects of language in favour of the monolingual children were found
for both Year 3 (adjusted means: monolingual = 17.30; EAL = 13.80; F(1, 75) = 11.201,
p = .001, ␩2 = .130) and Year 4 scores (adjusted means: monolingual = 21.73; EAL =
15.79; F(1, 75) = 33.220, p < .001, ␩2 = .307).
For listening comprehension, there was a main effect of school year as children made
significant progress between Years 3 and 4 (F(1, 76) = 19.144, p < .001, ␩2 = .201).
There was also a significant main effect of language in favour of the monolingual children
(F(1, 76) = 4.742, p = .033, ␩2 = .059). There was no significant interaction.

Regression analysis
The longitudinal nature of this study allows the use of hierarchical multiple regressions
to examine both concurrent and predictive contributions of underlying reading and
language measures to reading comprehension. As a consequence of limited sample size,
the number of predictor variables was limited to four: text reading accuracy, listening
comprehension, expressive vocabulary, and receptive vocabulary. Predictor variables
measured in Year 3 were entered with Year 3 reading comprehension as criterion
variable, Year 3 predictor variables were entered with Year 4 reading comprehension
as criterion variable and, finally, Year 4 predictors were entered with Year 4 reading
comprehension as criterion. Given that the importance of text reading accuracy for
comprehension is well established, hierarchical regression was used to explore the
350 K. Burgoyne et al.

contributions of listening comprehension and vocabulary to the prediction of reading

comprehension beyond the variance explained by reading accuracy. The method of
hierarchical regression allows this question to be addressed; however, it must be noted
that this method should ideally be performed with larger group sizes than those involved
here. Support for the use of this method is evident in previous research (e.g., Stuart,
2004). Nevertheless, the results of the regression equations reported in Tables 5 and 6
should be interpreted with caution.

Table 5. Hierarchical multiple regressions of Years 3 and 4 reading comprehension on concurrent and
predictive measures of reading accuracy, listening comprehension, expressive and receptive vocabulary
for monolingual children

Entered at the first step, reading accuracy was a highly significant predictor of reading
comprehension for both groups of children. Furthermore, for both monolingual children
and children learning EAL, listening comprehension contributed significant variance
to reading comprehension when entered after reading accuracy at step 2. For the
monolingual children, the contribution of listening comprehension increased over time,
making a stronger contribution in Year 4. For this group, Year 4 listening comprehension
was a highly significant predictor of Year 4 reading comprehension when entered on the
third step after vocabulary. As shown in Table 5, vocabulary did not make a significant
contribution to reading comprehension for the monolingual children, regardless of order
of entry. For the children learning EAL, listening comprehension was significant only
when entered at the second step, making no additional significant contribution beyond
that explained by reading accuracy and vocabulary. For this group, vocabulary emerged
as a significant predictor of Year 4 reading comprehension when entered after reading
accuracy.
 Reading skills in children learning EAL 351

Table 6. Hierarchical multiple regressions of Years 3 and 4 reading comprehension on concurrent and
predictive measures of reading accuracy, listening comprehension, expressive and receptive vocabulary
for children learning EAL

Discussion
This study examined the progress made by children learning EAL and their monolingual,
English-speaking peers on a range of reading-related measures between school Years
3 and 4. Though no significant between-group differences in reading comprehension
were found, further analysis suggested that this finding may be related to the testing
procedures used. Children learning EAL attained significantly higher text reading
scores and so progressed further through the NARA-R passages and questions than the
monolingual children. When accuracy scores were controlled statistically, differences
in comprehension became significant, with higher scores obtained by the monolingual
children at each time point. Other research suggests that when children learning EAL
and their monolingual peers are matched for reading accuracy, reading comprehension
scores are significantly higher for the latter group (Burgoyne, Whiteley, & Hutchinson,
2010). Furthermore, significant differences in favour of the monolingual children were
found on the measure of listening comprehension. Accurate and fluent text reading
skills may mask underlying reading comprehension difficulties; these difficulties will only
become apparent upon closer examination of children’s understanding of text. Clearly,
this has significant implications for the identification of, and support for, comprehension
difficulties in the classroom. Typically, children are identified as having problems
with reading when they demonstrate difficulties with word decoding (Nation, Clarke,
Marshall, & Durand, 2004). Consequently, children with comprehension difficulties often
go unnoticed and rarely receive specialist support (Nation & Angell, 2006; Nation et al.,
2004; Oakhill, 1993).
352 K. Burgoyne et al.

The results show that both groups of children made significant progress in expressive
and receptive vocabulary knowledge. However, the children learning EAL scored
significantly lower than the monolingual learners on each measure at both time points.
Thus, whilst this group made significant gains in vocabulary skills, the same rate of
progress was made by monolingual learners and consequently they were unable to
close the gap in vocabulary knowledge. School experience alone, therefore, does little
to remediate the vocabulary differences between monolingual children and children
learning EAL. Previous research (e.g., Cameron, 2002) suggests that gaps will remain
well into secondary education. This suggests there is a need for direct, targeted language
support for EAL learners in the classroom and that support for language skills should be
incorporated into the early years’ curriculum.
Weaker vocabulary skills are likely to impact significantly on the development of
comprehension skills for EAL learners (Burgoyne et al., 2009; Hutchinson et al., 2003;
Stuart, 2004). While sample size means that results of the regression analysis must be
interpreted with caution, they confirm the importance of text reading accuracy skills,
which explained significant concurrent and predictive variance in reading comprehen-
sion for monolingual children and for children learning EAL at both time points. This
highlights the importance of fast, accurate decoding for all children and supports current
teaching practice (e.g., Rose, 2009).
For listening comprehension, significant differences were found in favour of the
monolingual children. In addition, listening comprehension emerged as a predictor of
reading comprehension for both groups of children, explaining significant variance
beyond the effect of reading accuracy.
For the monolingual children, the contribution of listening comprehension increased
over time to predict a greater proportion of the variance in reading comprehension
in Year 4. In this analysis, listening comprehension explained significant variance in
Year 4 reading comprehension, beyond the contributions of both reading accuracy and
vocabulary. The developmental change in relationships between the measures may, at
least partially, reflect the changes in instructional emphasis seen in school Year 3. Thus,
the greater focus on developing comprehension skills in this year may increase children’s
attention to making meaning from text and impact on the relationship between reading
and listening in Year 4.
For children learning EAL, listening comprehension was a significant predictor only
when entered at step 2, making no further significant contribution beyond the effects
of accuracy and vocabulary. For this group, vocabulary made a unique concurrent and
predictive contribution to Year 4 comprehension skill, explaining significant variance
beyond that explained by accuracy. This finding is in contrast to the monolingual
children, for whom vocabulary was not a significant predictor of comprehension.
It is clear from this that vocabulary skills play a key role in EAL learners’ reading
comprehension; this finding is consistent with previous research (Burgoyne et al., 2009;
Hutchinson et al., 2003; Stuart, 2004) in suggesting that the weaker vocabulary skills of
many EAL learners place significant constraints on comprehension for this group.
The research reported here reinforces the need for direct and targeted support
to address the vocabulary weaknesses displayed by many children learning EAL and
the potential impact of these weaknesses on comprehension. At present, there is
an assumption that at school entry children have already developed significant oral
language skills such that, to enable children to comprehend written text, it is sufficient
to teach accurate and efficient word reading skills. This study demonstrates that some
children have lower levels of vocabulary that impact on their ability to comprehend.
 Reading skills in children learning EAL 353

These difficulties need to be identified and addressed. Without support for vocabulary
development children learning EAL are unlikely to bridge the gap in vocabulary
knowledge; consequently they are likely to experience continuing comprehension
difficulties that may impact on educational attainment. Well-developed oral language
skills are necessary to support the higher-order skills of reflection, understanding, and
reasoning that are essential for comprehension (Riley, Burrell, & McCallum, 2004). Given
that comprehension becomes a key component of literacy instruction in Year 3, language
intervention needs to begin at an earlier stage than this in order to establish a level of
language skill that may support the development of comprehension. Thus, support for
oral language development should ideally begin in early years’ classrooms.
Two specific limitations of the present study are a focus solely on comprehension
at the global level and the use of a measure of listening comprehension which places
significant demands on verbal memory. A greater understanding of the comprehension
difficulties experienced by EAL learners may be gained by exploring the types of
questions that children have difficulty with, for example, comparing performance
on questions that demand inferencing skills with those that require only a literal
understanding. This is the focus of more recent work by the authors. Ideally, future
research would also aim to reduce the memory load associated with any measure of
listening comprehension or control for possible differences in memory capacity between
the groups. Finally, it is clear that while reading accuracy, listening comprehension, and
vocabulary account for a large proportion of the variance in concurrent and subsequent
reading comprehension ability in EAL learners, there is still further variance to be
explained. This suggests that other factors need to be considered in developing a deeper
understanding of reading comprehension difficulties in EAL learners. Future work will
explore inferencing skills, comprehension monitoring, and text structure knowledge.

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Received 20 July 2009; revised version received 18 March 2010