ERIC Number: EJ1174679
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-May
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0922-4777
EISSN: N/A
The Challenge and the Opportunity of Lexical Inferencing in Language Minority Students
Shahar-Yames, Daphna; Prior, Anat
Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, v31 n5 p1109-1132 May 2018
Lexical inferencing from text is a powerful tool for vocabulary and reading comprehension enhancement. Lexical inferencing relies on the pre-requisite skills of reading and existing vocabulary, and is also linked to non-verbal inferencing abilities and reading comprehension. In this study, we examined whether Fifth-grade Russian-speaking language minority (LM) students might exhibit reduced lexical inferencing abilities in comparison to their native Hebrew-speaking (NH) peers, due to their reduced proficiency in the societal language. Participants completed a measure of lexical inferencing during text reading, and measures of underlying skills, including vocabulary, word reading accuracy, reading comprehension and non-verbal inferencing. As a group, LM students demonstrated comparable lexical inferencing abilities to those of their NH peers despite significantly lower vocabulary knowledge in vocabulary. Two explanations are suggested; first, although LM students had reduced vocabulary, they were nonetheless above the vocabulary threshold required for text comprehension. Second, the regression analyses revealed that non-verbal inferencing explained unique variance only in the LM group, demonstrating that they recruited language-external resources to support lexical inferencing. The current results show that lexical inferencing can serve as a powerful tool for promoting reading comprehension and vocabulary, domains that are points of weakness for language minority students.
Descriptors: Language Minorities, Second Language Learning, Vocabulary Development, Accuracy, Inferences, Reading Processes, Reading Comprehension, Nonverbal Ability, Native Language, Semitic Languages, Russian, Grade 5, Elementary School Students, Comparative Analysis, Language Proficiency, Reading Tests, Regression (Statistics)
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Grade 5
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A