Abstract
Many children struggle to comprehend grade-level texts in their first and additional languages despite having adequate decoding and good additional language proficiency. Recent studies often attribute monolingual's poor comprehension to weak executive functions. However, little research has investigated this association in children speaking more than one language. In this small-scale study, eight 9-to -10-year-old (Mage=9.99 years, SD= 0.40 years) learners of English as an Additional Language completed executive functions (indexed by measures of working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility), reading comprehension and decoding (words and non-words) in Arabic and in English, and additional language proficiency tasks. Results indicated a positive correlation between Arabic nonword decoding and inhibition efficiency as well as cognitive flexibility efficiency and English language proficiency. Further, findings showed a positive significant association between children’s ability to decode words and non-words in both languages as well as a strong correlation between English words and non-words with English comprehension.
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Abstract and Extended Summary of the Poster
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Title
The Links between Functions, Reading Comprehension and Second Language Proficiency in Learners of English as an Additional Language : Pilot Study
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