Background: The present study examined patterns and predictors of reading comprehension growth in first language (L1) and second language (L2) readers in the upper grades of primary school. Previous research suggests that L1 and L2 readers differ in their growth trajectories and that differences in language proficiency play a role in this.…

In English, a sentence like "The cat didn't eat the carrot or the pepper" typically receives a "neither" interpretation; in Japanese it receives a "not this or not that" interpretation. These two interpretations are in a subset/superset relation, such that the "neither" interpretation (strong reading)…

The present study investigated the contribution of executive functions to narrative writing in fourth grade children, and evaluated to what extent executive functions contribute differentially to different levels of narrative composition. The written skills of 102 Dutch children in fourth grade were assessed using a narrative picture-elicitation…

Text reading fluency--the ability to read quickly, accurately and with a natural intonation--has been proposed as a predictor of reading comprehension. In the current study, we examined the role of oral text reading fluency, defined as text reading rate and text reading prosody, as a contributor to reading comprehension outcomes in addition to…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the development of morphosyntactic accuracy and grammatical complexity in Dutch school-age children with specific language impairment (SLI). Method: Morphosyntactic accuracy, the use of dummy auxiliaries, and complex syntax were assessed using a narrative task that was administered at three points…

The aim of this study was to examine the contribution of transcription skills, oral language skills, and executive functions to growth in narrative writing between fourth and sixth grade. While text length and story content of narratives did not increase with age, syntactic complexity of narratives showed a clear developmental progression. Results…

Background: Text reading prosody has been associated with reading comprehension. However, text reading prosody is a reading-dependent measure that relies heavily on decoding skills. Investigation of the contribution of speech prosody--which is independent from reading skills--in addition to text reading prosody, to reading comprehension could…

This article reports on a number of projects on early English teaching in the Netherlands. The focus of these projects has been on the impact of English on the development of the mother tongue and the development of skills in the foreign language. Overall the results show that there is no negative effect on the mother tongue and that the gains in…