Statistics show that English as a Second Language (ESL) children within the US education system continue to perform below their native speaking peers when it comes to local and national test scores of academic progress. Reading, as an important factor of such progress, is the main focus of this project. ESL children bring a lot to the reading table, i.e. varying experience with print, varying phonetic systems and the awareness thereof, and a variety of background knowledge.
This study investigates the impact of cultural background knowledge on reading performance as well as content comprehension for low reading level students from Somalia currently enrolled in a sheltered ESL program of a Middle School in Columbus, Ohio. For the study, the ESL children as well as a control group of native speaking first graders read two text passages. Each passage represents specific cultural elements of one of the relevant cultures. The children were asked to read both texts aloud at different times and retell the content immediately afterwards, in order to follow the procedures of Goodman and Burke's Reading Miscue Inventory. Various statistical tests were run and frequency analyses investigating comprehension, speed and accuracy were performed. The findings of the study may be consistent with previous research, suggesting an increase in comprehension when reading material corresponds with the reader's cultural background knowledge.
These results may have implications regarding the selection of reading materials for ESL assessment purposes as well as ESL students' progress in their reading development.