Abstracts - Earli

2000). The present study investigates whether and how the development of text comprehensionand central prerequisites of reading literacy (vocabulary, decoding skills, metacognition, andreading motivation) differs between bilingual and monolingual children in Germany. It furtherexamines whether the individual prerequisites have differential effects on the development ofreading literacy in the two groups. The longitudinal study followed the development of 700elementary students from the end of grade 3 (June 2003) to grade 6 (May 2006). Students’immigration status was defined in terms of the language spoken at home. Latent growth curvemodels were specified, and preliminary results of chi-squared difference tests between modelsspecifying the same vs. different initial and change scores for the two student groups indicate thatthe groups differed in their initial levels of text comprehension, vocabulary, and decoding speed,with substantial effect sizes favoring the nonimmigrant group, and that they subsequentlydeveloped parallel to each other. Analyses of the potentially differential influences of vocabulary,decoding speed, and motivation provide further insights into the development of reading literacy inbilingual children. The study has important theoretical and practical implications. The resultsindicate that German schools currently do not succeed in redressing immigrant students’considerable deficits in reading literacy and its prerequisites. Findings will contribute to thedevelopment of valid models of reading literacy in bilingual children.Lexical and syntactical aspects as barriers to proficiency in school-related language amongsecond language learnersAndrea G. Müller, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, GermanyThe differentiation between everyday and school-related language proficiency is seen as central tounderstanding the attainment differences observed between immigrant and non-immigrantstudents. For example, Cummins (1979, 1981, 2000) differentiates between the linguistic demandsof everyday conversation skills and academic language proficiency, and Gogolin (2003) arguesthat the language used at school becomes increasingly complex. It is assumed that it is moredifficult to reach proficiency in school-related language than it is to become competent ineveryday communication skills. Empirical evidence for the validity of this differentiation remainsscarce, however. Specifically, little is known about aspects of language that might contribute to thelower performance of second language learners in situations where proficiency in school-relatedlanguage is required. Drawing on this framework, we investigated the language proficiency ofprimary school children in Germany. First, immigrant and non-immigrant students’ writtenlanguage production skills on tasks with everyday and school-related content were examined andcompared. Findings indicate performance differences between tasks with everyday and schoolrelatedcontent. More importantly, the performance gap between immigrant and non-immigrantstudents was more pronounced on tasks with school-related content than on tasks with everydaycontent. Second, we analysed linguistic factors potentially contributing to lower proficiency inschool-related language. Specifically, we investigated the influence of lexical and syntacticalaspects of language on listening comprehension. Immigrant students were expected to be at anadditional disadvantage to non-immigrant students in listening comprehension texts with difficultvocabulary and/or complex grammar relative to texts with easy vocabulary and/or simplegrammar. However, no such difference was found. In sum, findings indicate an additionaldisadvantage for second language learners only when written language production tasks coverschool-related content. It is therefore argued that improving school-related language proficiency,especially in writing, is crucial for immigrant students’ educational success.– 389 –