Error Patterns of Bilingual Readers

Abstract

A study of the developmental reading behaviors of 75 second to ninth grade Spanish-English bilingual students was conducted to ascertain a pattern of language difficulties encountered. A 'cloze' procedure called the GAP Comprehension Test developed by McLeod was used. The incorrect responses were categorized into the following classes of errors: 1) Illogical errors; 2) Logical errors; 3) Interference errors; 4) Other errors.A shift in type of error was evidenced between the third and fourth grade levels of reading. Illogical errors, most common in the lower primary reading levels, were replaced in number and percent age by errors in the logical category. The interference error category remained constant. Relatively few of the errors were of an inter ference type, suggesting that commonly held assumptions regarding the influence of L\ and L2 reading are incorrect. The percentage of interference errors seems unrelated to the reader's increased ability to utilize psycholinguistic cues which improve as a function of reading level.