Gili Stolarski

Doctorate Scholarship at the field of Language development and learning disabilities in Hebrew

The relationship between language minority status, teacher-student relationship, reading skills and reading self-concept over time

By: Gili Stolarski

Supervisors: Prof. Tami Katzir and Prof. Anat Prior

The propose of the present study is to deepen and expand the knowledge about the trajectories that influence reading and reading related emotions over time in language minority children. In this global world, where there are many multilingual families, it is essential to address and educational and emotional needs of minority-language speaking children, who study in a different language than the one they speak in their home. One main focus of this study is the impact of teacher-student relationship on vocabulary and consequently on reading comprehension and word problem solving in this population. This study is part of the Safra a longitudinal study and will build on the measures collected in the Hebrew speaking sample in K-fourth grade.

Based on the literature (Shahar-Yames & Prior, 2017; Bialystok et al., 2010; Pierce et al., 2013), minority-language speaking children tend to suffer from lower vocabulary knowledge than native Hebrew children. This different was found that affect on the emotional factors who relate to reading, like reading anxiety and reading self-concept (Segerer et al., 2021; Stolarski et al., 2021).

This study may advance theoretical knowledge in the field of minority language children and the relationship to the emotional, literacy, and cognitive aspects of reading. In addition, the theoretical understanding of children who speak a minority language and the teacher-student relationship, may improve educational programs and thus their well-being and academic abilities.