A cross-sectional study on reading among young L1 and L2 students in Sweden

Figures & data

Table 1. Comparison of test scores between students with Swedish as L1 and L2 in grade 1 to 3.

Test	Grade 1n = 9219				Grade 2n = 18,975				Grade 3n = 18,521
	L1	L2			L1	L2			L1	L2
	M (SD)	M (SD)	F	eta^2	M (SD)	M (SD)	F	eta^2	M (SD)	M (SD)	F	eta^2
Vocabulary	14.0 (3.6)	9.2 (3.3)	2136.7*	0.19	16.2 (3.7)	11.2 (3.5)	4461.6*	0.19	17.8 (3.2)	12.6 (3.6)	6358.6*	0.26
Word decoding	26.0 (21.3)	17.3 (17.9)	208.9*	0.02	56.9 (23.6)	45.2 (24.3)	576.6*	0.03	76.3 (23.1)	64.9 (25.5)	586.4*	0.03
Reading comprehension, short text	4.1 (3.1)	2.6 (2.3)	296.8*	0.03	8.3 (3.1)	5.7 (3.2)	1714.4*	0.08	10.1 (2.2)	7.9 (3.1)	2222.0*	0.11
Reading comprehension, long text	-	-	-	-	8.19 (4.0)	5.6 (3.2)	1079.8*	0.05	11.5 (3.9)	8.1 (3.7)	1935.3*	0.10

*significant at <.001. Effect sizes with eta² and 0.01 is considered as a small effect, 0.06 as a medium effect, an 0.14 as a large effect.

Table 2. Relationships between test measuring reading comprehension, vocabulary and decoding skills among students with Swedish as L1 and L2 in grade 1 to 3 calculated with Pearson’s r.

	Grade 1		Grade 2		Grade 3
	L1	L2	L1	L2	L1	L2
	n = 7822	n = 1398	n = 16,178	n = 2798	n = 15,556	n = 2966
	Reading comprehension, short text		Reading comprehension, long text		Reading comprehension, long text
Vocabulary	.328*	.269*	.314*	.348*	.410*	.459*
Word decoding	.716*	.590*	.680*	.577*	.637*	.620*

*significant at <.001. The correlation coefficient calculated with Pearson’s r is also represent the effect size. A value of .1 is considered as a small effect, whereas a medium effect is around .3 and a large effect is larger than .5.

Table 3. Number of students with and without Swedish as a second language scoring below, average, and above average in tests measuring vocabulary, decoding and reading comprehension in grade 1 to 3.

	Grade 1n = 9219				Grade 2n = 18,975				Grade 3n = 18,521
Tests	L1%	L2%	chi^2	phi	L1%	L2%	chi^2	phi	L1%	L2%	chi^2	phi
Vocabulary
Below average	14.2	66.8	2049.6*	0.46	11.7	67.4	6082.9*	0.51	13.0	70.8	5867.4*	0.51
Average	48.5	29.8			51.5	29.3			57.7	27.0
Above average	37.3	3.4			36.8	3.3			29.2	2.1
Decoding
Below average	19.2	36.8	259.3*	0.16	20.6	40.9	693.4*	0.18	20.5	37.8	504.2*	0.16
Average	55.0	50.1			54.7	47.1			54.3	48.0
Above average	25.8	13.1			24.6	12.0			25.2	14.2
Reading comprehension
Below average	10.3	18.7	265.6*	0.17	18.2	36.6	1005.7*	0.22	13.6	37.5	1736.1*	0.28
Average	58.0	69.5			51.5	56.4			22.3	34.8
Above average	31.6	11.9			30.4	7.1			64.1	27.7
Below average in vocabulary and decoding	5.6	28.8	773.6*	0.29	3.7	29.2	2258.8*	0.35	4.2	29.6	2134.0*	0.34
Below average in all three tests	1.8	8.3	190.4*	0.14	2.0	17.0	1352.5*	0.27	2.5	20.9	1633.4*	0.30

* p < .001. Percentiles are calculated and presented for each grade. Below average correspond to percentile ranks between 0 and 22, average 23 and 76, and above-average 77 and 100. Effect sizes with phi, and 0.1 is considered as a small effect, 0.3 as a medium effect, and 0.5 as a large effect.