Acquisition of Literacy under Linguistic Minority Conditions [microform] : An Example from Scandinavia / Pertti Toukomaa.
A study of the native language literacy of Finnish immigrant children in Sweden had as subjects the 81 Finnish immigrant pupils in grades 3-6 of a Swedish industrial city. At the time of the study, about 20 percent attended Finnish-medium classes, 34 percent attended Swedish-medium classes, and abou...
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| Format: | Microfilm Book |
| Language: | English |
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1985.
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| Summary: | A study of the native language literacy of Finnish immigrant children in Sweden had as subjects the 81 Finnish immigrant pupils in grades 3-6 of a Swedish industrial city. At the time of the study, about 20 percent attended Finnish-medium classes, 34 percent attended Swedish-medium classes, and about 46 percent attended bilingual classes. Native language reading ability and Swedish language skills were measured by reading speed and comprehension tests and a standardized language skills test. Subjects' primary mental abilities were measured by addition, word analogy, visual reasoning, and synonym tests. The teachers' evaluations of the students' Swedish ability were available. The results of comparisons of these factors indicate that the immigrant children generally had poor reading skills in both Finnish and Swedish. In deductive and evaluative reading, the immigrant students did not approach the standard of students in Finland, despite normal results in visual reasoning tests. The relatively best results were in reading speed, suggesting an ability to read quickly without much comprehension. Native language teaching was found to be preferable to bilingual teaching with regard to reading, at least through the third grade. However, parallel second language teaching is recommended, with the formal objective of developing the maximum ability in both languages. (MSE) |
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| Item Description: | ERIC Note: Paper presented at a regional seminar of the SEAMEO Regional Language Centre (20th, Singapore, April 22-26, 1985). ERIC Document Number: ED262622. |
| Physical Description: | 17 pages |
| Reproduction Note: | Microfiche. |
| Action Note: | committed to retain 20240101 20490101 Alliance Shared Trust https://www.coalliance.org/shared-print-archiving-policies |