Levels of Difficulty of English Texts Used by Second Language English Speaking Children

The purpose of this study was to assess the level of difficulty of English texts used by grade two primary school pupils whose first language is not English. The study targeted 98 government high density primary schools in Harare, from which eight were randomly sampled. From a total of 1440 grade two pupils, 320 (22,2%) participated in this study. The study's main question was: What is the level, of difficulty of grade two English texts used by second language English speaking children? Out of the four locally produced reading schemes, two of them - the New Zimbabwe Primary English (NZPE) and the Ventures English Alive (VEA) were used because they are the most commonly utilized. Two readability (text difficulty assessment) measures, the Fry Graph and Cloze Procedure, were used to assess the level of difficulty of the NZPE and the VEA reading schemes. Results from the study showed that both the NZPE and the VEA texts were difficult for grade two second language English speaking children.

A ZBTE article on assessing the level of difficulty of English texts used by grade two primary school pupils whose first language is not English.