Mondelinge En Schriftelijke Vaardigheid In Het Nederlands Als Eerste En Tweede Taal

In the present study a detailed analysis was made of the oral and written language skills of 60 native Dutch and 120 non-native third and fourth grade students at Dutch primary schools. First of all, the achievement on a variety of oral language and reading and writing tasks were examined as a function of ethnic group and grade level. In addition, a principal component analysis was conducted on the test scores in the two groups of children. Finally, the prediction of reading comprehension achievement in terms of oral language and decoding skills in the two groups was determined. The results showed that the non-native children leave behind their native Dutch peers on most language tasks administered. Especially on vocabulary measures and reading comprehension tests the second language students attain relatively poor achievements. With children's progression of grade the differences between first and second learners tend to diverge rather than converge. With respect to principal component analysis it was found that four factors underlie the language proficiency in either group: oral proficiency, reading comprehension, decoding efficiency and writing ability. To a large entent the children's achievement in reading comprehension in both groups could be explained in terms of their oral proficiency and decoding efficiency. However, for the second language learners the level of reading comprehension ability turned out to be relatively more dependent on their oral proficiency level in Dutch.