Sociocultural Predictors of Children’s Papiamento and Dutch Reading Literacy in the Dutch Caribbean

This study examined how Papiamento and Dutch attitude and home literacy environment of 168 children in fourth grade of the post-colonial Dutch Caribbean, predicted L1 and L2 reading literacy in sixth grade. Overall, children had higher scores for reading literacy in L1 Papiamento as compared with L2 Dutch. They showed more positive attitudes towards their mother tongue, regarding language use, reading, and media use. Furthermore, literacy activities at home were more frequent in L1 than in L2, although they reported having more books at home in L2 than in L1. Finally, L1 home literacy activities were negatively related to L1 reading literacy, while L2 language and reading attitude and the number of books at home in L2, were positively related to L2 reading literacy. However, the relationship between L1 home literacy activities and L1 reading literacy, disappeared after controlling for socioeconomic status (SES). It is concluded that sociocultural predictors are of importance for reading literacy, but that they influence L1 and L2 reading literacy differently.