Emerging literacy in adult second-language learners: A synthesis of research findings in the Netherlands

Abstract

This article synthesises the findings of research on the acquisition of literacy by unschooled adult immigrants in the Netherlands. It addresses studies on three main topics: the metalinguistic skills of these adults, their development of word recognition and predictors of success in reading. The first study compared the conceptions of spoken and written language of 25 unschooled adults with those of young pre-reading children and low-educated adult readers. The study revealed that the metalinguistic skills of unschooled adults differed more from those of low-educated adult readers than from pre-reading children. The second was a case study which focused on the reading development of adult L2 beginners and revealed that their development of word-recognition skills confirms stage models of beginning reading in which acquiring the alphabetical principle is a key step. In the third study, the literacy skills of roughly 300 adult L2 literacy students were assessed and related to their background characteristics and to instructional practices. The study revealed considerable variation in success and time needed to develop reading. Success was related to student characteristics (age, prior education, attendance and contact with speakers of Dutch) and to instructional practices (time spent on small-group or individual work, use of multimedia and portfolio, and use of students’ first language as a resource).