Musical aptitude and silent reading fluency in adult multilingual learners of Spanish: an exploratory study

Abstract

Skilled adult readers are those who read fluently, but multilingual learners do not always exhibit the same reading proficiency in the different languages they know. Among the variables that influence learners’ silent reading fluency, a research trend points to musical aptitude as an individual ability that affects language learners’ reading competency. Common auditory features of reading and musical skills have been observed in studies with children and adolescents, but studies involving multilingual adults learning an additional language are scarce.

This study aims to observe the potential relationship of multilingual learners’ musical aptitude and their silent reading fluency in all the languages the learners know and in Spanish, an additional language they are learning as adults. 157 Flemish university students were tested in Dutch, French, English, and Spanish. Learners’ sociocultural data , their musical aptitude and their silent contextual word reading fluency in all languages were tested. In addition, a reading comprehension test in L4 (Spanish) was administered. The statistical results indicate a significant correlation between their musical aptitude and their L1, L2, L3 silent reading fluency, but not with L4 (Spanish).