Log10 of frequency per million
4.5 Good and Poor Readers
In order to assess differences between the really good and the really poor readers within each country, a new variable called reader was created. Both fluency, and accuracy could have been used to determine who the really good and poor readers were, but as there was a ceiling effect on correct reading of L1 words, accuracy was not used. Instead, the variable was based on the participants fluency score for L1 reading; that is their log 10 reaction time for all L1 words. Only participants scoring more or less than one standard deviation above or below the national mean for their age-band were scored either 1, good L1 fluency, or 0, poor L1 fluency on this variable.
A total of 35 participants got the label “Poor L1 fluency”, whereas 28 got the label
“Good L1 fluency”. Within the Danish sample there were 11 readers with poor L1 fluency, 5 of these were in age-band 1, 3 in age-band 2, and 3 in age-band 3. Eight Danish readers got the label “Good L1 fluency”, 3 in age-band 1, 2 in age-band 2, and 3 in age-band 3. In the Norwegian sample, 13 participants got the label “Poor L1 fluency” and 13 the label “Good L1 fluency”. Seven readers in age-band 1, 3 in age-band 2, and 3 in age-band 3 scored more than or same as one standard deviation below the Norwegian mean for their age-band. Out of the 13 good Norwegian readers, 5 were in age-band 1, 4 in age-band 2, and 4 in age-band 3. For the Swedish participants, the distribution was; 11 readers with “Poor L1 fluency”, and 7 readers with “Good L1 fluency”. Four participants in age-band 1, 4 in age-band 2, and 3 in age-band 3 had “Poor L1 fluency”. Out of the 7 readers with “Good L1 fluency”, 2 were in age-band 1, 2 in age-band 2, and 3 in age-band 3. As there are very few participants within each country in the different age-bands, age-band will not be considered in what follows, that is; within each country, two groups will be compared the readers with “Good L1 fluency”, and the readers with “Poor L1 fluency”.
4.5.1 L1 Spelling
When looking at how well the very good and bad readers performed on the L1 spelling task, there are great national differences. The result for the poor Danish readers is a mean of 20.36 words. The poor Norwegian and Swedish readers spell in average almost 10 words more correct. The Norwegian mean is 29.54, and the Swedish is 30.91. Results show that the difference is less for the good readers. The Danish mean for good readers is 33.75, 35.60 for Norwegians, and 31.71 for Swedes. Figure 12 shows differences in spelling performances
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between good and poor readers. Figure 12 shows that differences in spelling between good and poor readers is more prominent in Denmark, where the difference is a mean of 13.36 words. In Sweden there are hardly any difference in spelling performance between god and bad readers, the difference is a mean of 0.80 words. In Norway the difference in spelling performance between good and poor readers is 5.92 words.
Figure 12. L1 Spelling – poor vs. good readers
When running a Manova with a stepdown with L1 vocabulary as a covariate and L1 spelling as a dependent variable, there is a significant effect from orthography (Stepdown F (1, 32) = 11.89, p = .002) on L1 spelling. There is also an effect of reader (Stepdown F (1, 32) = 21.81, p < .000). There is a significant interaction between country and reader (Stepdown F (1, 32)
=4.82, p = .035).
4.5.2 L2 Spelling
The means for how many L2 words the good and bad readers spelled correct was a total of 4.97 words for the poor readers and 9.46 for the good readers. The Danish poor readers got a mean of 3.00, with a standard deviation of 2.37, while the good Danish readers got a mean of 8.25, with a standard deviation of 4.06. The poor Norwegian readers scored a mean of 5.31, with a standard deviation of 2.75, and the good Norwegian readers scored 10.77, with a standard deviation of 3.19. The results from the Swedes showed that the poor readers got a
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Poor readers Good readers
Denmark Norway Sweden
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mean of 6.55, with a standard deviation of 4.37, while the good Swedish readers got a mean of 8.42, with a standard deviation of 3.95.
A Manova with a stepdown with the variables L1 vocabulary, and L2 Spelling was run. The results showed that the effect of reader was significant L2 spelling (Stepdown F (1, 40) = 20.91, p < .000). The effect of country was significant (Stepdown F (1, 40) = 7.03, p = .011).
Figure 13 shows that there is little difference between the poor and good L1 readers in Sweden as to how well they perform on L2 spelling. For Denmark and Norway, on the other hand, the good L1 readers are better spellers in L2. The good Danish readers perform equally good as the good Swedish readers. The good Norwegian readers perform better than the good readers from both the other countries.
Figure 13. L2 spelling – poor vs. good readers
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Poor readers Good readers
Denmark Norway Sweden
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L1 accuracy
A univariate analysis showed that the poor Danes read a mean of 33.73 words correct, the poor Norwegians read 37.69 words correct, and the poor Swedes read 37.45 words correct.
For the good readers the mean number of words read correct was 39.63 for the Danes, 39.31 for the Norwegians and 39.39 for the Swedes. A Manova with the variables L1 vocabulary and correct word reading with a step down showed that country has a significant effect (Stepdown 1, 40) = 6.42, p= .015). Helmert contrast reveals that the difference between countries only is significant, p= .006, between Denmark and the other two. Reader is
significant (Stepdown F (1, 40) = 15.65, p < .000. Moreover, there is a significant interaction between country and reader, (Stepdown F (1, 40) = 8.65, p = .005). For the good readers no difference is found between the countries. The average for all countries is more than 39 items read correct. However, the poor Danish readers read fewer items correct than the poor
Norwegian and Swedish readers. Figure 14 illustrated that in average the poor Norwegian and Swedish readers read more than 3 more words correct than the poor Danes.
Figure 14. L1 reading accuracy – poor vs. good readers L2 reading
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Poor readers Good readers
Denmark Norway Sweden
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A univariate analysis of how many L2 words the poor and the good readers read correctly showed great differences between the poor readers. In average, the poor Danes read 17.55 L2 words correctly, the poor Norwegians read 26.54, and the poor Swedes read 24.00 L2 words correctly. For the good readers the average for the Danes was 33.13, 34.00 for the
Norwegians, and 27.43 for the Swedes. Figure 14 illustrated that the poor Danish readers are worse readers of L2 than the poor Norwegian and Swedish readers. The good Danish readers on the other hand are better than the Swedes and equally good as the good Norwegian readers.
A Manova with a step down, with the variables L1 vocabulary and L2 words read correct, showed that there is a significant interaction between country and reader (Stepdown F (1, 40) = 4.54, p = .039). This is due to the poor Danes performing worse than the poor
Norwegians and Swedes, but the good Danes perform equally good as the good Norwegians, and better than the good Swedes. Reader also has a significant effect (Stepdown F (1, 40) = 24.97, p = .007). Finally, country has a significant effect (Stepdown F (1, 40) = 7.03, p = .011).
Figure 15. L2 reading –poor vs. good readers
4.5.4 Orthographic learning
The mean for the poor Danes was 11.09, with a standard deviation of 5.52. For the poor Norwegian readers, the score was 12.85, and the standard deviation was 3.31. The Swedish
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poor readers scored a mean of 14.36, and the standard deviation was 4.93. The means for the good readers was 18.38 for the Danes, the standard deviation was 3.02, for the Norwegians the mean was 17.54, the standard deviation was 4.14, and for the Swedes, the mean was 19.29, with a standard deviation of 5.63.
A Manova with the dependent variables Dprime L1 vocabulary, and orthographic learning showed that the effect of reader was significant for orthographic learning (Stepdown F (1, 56) = 13,02, p < .000). The effect of country was not significant (Stepdown F (2, 56) = .55, p = .578) Still, figure 16 shows that there is a difference between the poor Danish readers and the poor Norwegian and Swedish readers. Figure 16 also illustrates the connection
between bad reading fluency and performance on orthographic learning tasks, the readers with good L1 fluency scored significantly better than the readers with bad L1 fluency, for all countries.
Figure 16. Orthographic learning – poor vs. Good readers
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Poor readers Good readers
Denmark Norway Sweden
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5.0 Discussion
In this chapter the results from the previous chapter will be discussed. The research questions will be discussed in the following order: 1) Differences in L1 decoding strategies between shallow Norwegian and Swedish, and deep Danish, and evidence that these strategies are reflected in L2 decoding strategies. 2) Evidence that the Norwegian and Swedish participants are better orthographic learners than the Danish participants, and comment on which skills support orthographic learning. 3) The age factor in second language learning, does it make a difference for reading, spelling and vocabulary sensitivity when you start learning L2. 4) Discuss whether orthography affects L1 and L1 spelling, reading and vocabulary. Are the Danish learners of English more efficient, and do they make fewer mistakes in word recognition and spelling than Swedish and Norwegian learners because of their experience with a deep orthography, or is it the other way around, that is, are Norwegian and Swedish learners more efficient in acquiring English word recognition and spelling? 5) A discussion of what skills good readers are good at, and find out whether these are the same across
languages. And look into how poor readers of different orthographies are impaired.