2022

Huhta, Ari

The study investigated young learners of Finnish as L2 from Russian-speaking families mostly in grades 3–6 in Finnish-medium schools. 169 pupils completed language tests in Finnish and Russian, and psycholinguistic measures of basic linguistic processes related to phonological awareness, retrieval of words from memory, and working memory. The study examined to what extent linguistic and psycholinguistic skills predict learners’ Finnish L2 reading and writing. Regression analyses indicated that psycholinguistic factors (particularly processing Finnish phonemes) accounted for about 34% of variance in L2 reading and 38% in writing, whereas measures of language skills, mostly L2 skills (e.g., dictation, vocabulary) explained 45% of the variance in L2 reading and 51% in writing. Even when both types of measures were combined in the analyses, psycholinguistic factors explained a proportion of variance in L2 reading and writing. The study contributes to developing research-based diagnostic measures for Finnish L2 reading and writing.