Prepare for the Reading Specialist 221 Exam. Use flashcards and multiple-choice questions with hints and explanations to enhance your readiness. Ace your test!

Multiple Choice

Which situation illustrates how negative transfer can affect the transfer of literacy competency from one language to another?

Negative transfer happens when habits or knowledge from a learner’s first language get in the way of learning a new language. In this case, the student applies L1 phonics rules to English reading, decoding English words using sounds and letter relationships from their native language. Because English phonics often differ from other languages and include many irregular spellings, those L1 rules lead to wrong pronunciations and misreading. This demonstrates interference from the first language rather than a helpful strategy for English literacy. Using a bilingual dictionary, context clues, or morphological analysis represents supportive strategies or general reading skills that don’t show this kind of cross-language interference in decoding, so they don’t illustrate negative transfer.

Negative transfer happens when habits or knowledge from a learner’s first language get in the way of learning a new language. In this case, the student applies L1 phonics rules to English reading, decoding English words using sounds and letter relationships from their native language. Because English phonics often differ from other languages and include many irregular spellings, those L1 rules lead to wrong pronunciations and misreading. This demonstrates interference from the first language rather than a helpful strategy for English literacy.

Using a bilingual dictionary, context clues, or morphological analysis represents supportive strategies or general reading skills that don’t show this kind of cross-language interference in decoding, so they don’t illustrate negative transfer.