The effect of amount of educational time on foundation literacy in a second language: A comparative study

Abstract

A recent pilot has started which enables Dutch primary schools to teach in English for 30 to 50% of the time from group 1 onwards, instead of the common 0-15%. Studies show that this can have a positive influence on the reading proficiency of pupils. This thesis investigates the influence this increase in amount of educational time in English has on the English reading proficiency, and in particular foundation literacy, of the pupils. A test was conducted in which participants had to read a list of English words for one minute. The results confirm that the amount of time taught in English influences the reading performance of pupils and show that children that receive more educational time in English outperform their peers that receive less foundation literacy. No clear difference was found between pupils that receive instruction English for either 30% or 45% of the educational time. The external factors of SES and home language did not play a role in the performance of the participants.