Promoting German reading skills of bilingual primary school students using peer learning (BiPeer)

Project management:

Prof. Dr. Jasmin Decristan (University of Wuppertal)

Prof. Dr. Dominique Rauch (Ludwigsburg University of Education)

 

Staff members:

Dr. Valentina Reitenbach (University of Wuppertal)

Dr. Martin Schastak (DIPF| Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Frankfurt a.M.)

 

About the Project:

Even in primary school, students with a Turkish immigrant background show lower reading skills compared to their non-immigrant peers. The BiPeer project is investigating how the comprehension of written German texts can best be promoted in bilingual Turkish-German primary school students using peer learning methods. Studies have shown that students from immigrant backgrounds benefit particularly from reading skills development programs that use peer learning. In such peer-learning programs, students read to each other and work on text-related tasks together. Programs that promote both reading fluency and the knowledge and application of reading strategies are particularly effective for primary school students.

In BiPeer, the students support each other in reading German by also using Turkish language.The BiPeer project used an intervention study to investigate  the effectiveness of this approach. In view of the frequently voiced demand to integrate the family languages of immigrant students into German lessons, BiPeer thus investigated approaches to address the students’ family languages in classroom learning and instruction.

 

Duration:

08/2014 - 03/2018

Funded by:

Federal Ministry of Education and Research