English is the most difficult European language to learn to read. Children learning other languages master the basic elements of literacy within a year, but British kids take two-and-a-half years to reach the same point.
In the most extensive cross-national study ever, Philip Seymour of Dundee University and his team compared the reading abilities of children in 15 European countries. They found that those learning Romance languages such as Italian and French progressed faster than those learning a Germanic language such as German and English.
1 comment(s):
Interesting, but is the difference really the language or the population learning it? They didn't mention whether they tracked literacy speed in any English-speaking country outside of Europe. I don't know how they measured literacy, but my kids learned to read in a few weeks here in the US, and were pretty good at it within a year.
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