It has been more than a decade since the trilingual policy was established in Kazakhstan for the nation's future prosperity and economic development. Russian and English languages for many students have become their second (L2) and third foreign (L3) languages along with the state Kazakh language taught in secondary schools. In adherence to legal requirements students are obliged to certify their level of language proficiency. The research on difficulties encountered by Russian and English language students in compulsory school settings, particularly in relation to reading, is limited and requires further exploration. Reading is a fundamental in four language skills in developing foreign language that helps to enhance vocabulary and grammar, ultimately playing a significant role in achieving language proficiency (Renandya et.al, 2009). According to recent PISA 2022 results by OECD (2023) Kazakhstani students demonstrated a minimum level of reading proficiency slightly similar to the previous results which is below the OECD average. Moreover, it widened the gap between the weakest and highest scoring students  in comparison with 2018. It means that students mainly can define the main idea, purpose and form of the texts, but it is generally  challenging for them to meet more complex criteria. Previous research has found that there are constructs that predict academic reading comprehension in various language learning settings (Uccelli, P. et.al., 2015, Wenjuan, Q., 2023). Moreover, there is a study on how L1 constructs have relation to L2 (Jarvis, S., & Pavlenko, A., 2008), however  there  has been limited exploration into the academic reading comprehension of students across two distinct language groups. Consequently, we employ Core Academic Language Skills (CALS) which are operational constructs designed to facilitate reading in context of language learning and teaching. Using adapted CALS as a study framework we decided to examine students' 1) understanding of complex words, 2) comprehension of complex sentences, and 3) organizing argumentative text.  It attempts to identify their reading difficulties and assess academic reading skills related constructs in both L2 and L3 aiming to uncover factors that contribute to overall reading comprehension. This study seeks to understand the interrelationship between L2 and L3 and its constituent skills, particularly for multilingual students. 

In this paper, the following research questions are addressed:

Do 11 grade students’ reading skills of academic texts vary by their second and third languages? 

What language constructs predict reading comprehension of students in L2 and L3? 

To what extent is there a correlation between L2 and L3  languages in the development of reading comprehension? 

A total of 64 students of high school aged from 15-17 participated in the study. The sample consisted of participants from four control groups of 11th grade selected based on the language instruction in the classroom. Specifically, students for those Russian served as the second and English was the third language taught as a compulsory subjects in the school with a requirement for language proficiency exam at the end of the school year. Moreover, these students are those who are admitted to school mainly by their mathematical skills rather than language skills. According to unpublished school material the majority of these students demonstrated lower language level relative to their younger age at the time of admission to specialized school due to the lack of language environment and school program difference. Considering the students’ learning background, the reading materials for testing were selected based on the school's current educational program and learning objectives of the reading tasks. Academic reading texts with argumentative nature were chosen to explore students' ability in identifying elements of arguments expecting it influences their comprehension of the texts. It contained paragraphs of 5 to 6. After reading the participants completed a test related to the complex words, sentences and to aspects of arguments with 12 items each based on the paragraphs they read. Each students’ results were monitored and analyzed by the Read Monitor tool assembled in the school to track their progress in the longitude period of two academic terms, so students also can be aware of their achievements till the next test. Each group was tested twice during the two academic terms at the beginning of grade 11 from September to December. Russian and English language reading tests were administered consecutively with a one day interval between them. Mean scores of understanding complex words and sentence structure, and arguments within the text were computed for each language (L2 and L3) group. A statistical analysis has been done to examine the relationship of academic reading comprehension in two languages.

The findings of this study revealed overall reading comprehension ability is significantly related to language constructs in both Russian and English languages. The majority of students’ difficulties in reading comprehension are mainly associated with the elements of argumentation (facts and opinion, reasoning, conclusion) of the academic texts. However, understanding the structure of complex sentences and defining words is more challenging to comprehend texts in Russian rather than in English. The analysis showed that the L2 reading comprehension was consistently correlated with L3 reading tasks. It can be explained by the transferable cross linguistic nature of language knowledge (Cummins, 2000). This study advances our understanding of interrelated operational constructs of languages that operate in students reading academic texts for developing their reading proficiency. This shed a light to consider the reading strategies and assessment practices of high school students with multilingual language.

Jarvis, S., & Pavlenko, A. (2008). Crosslinguistic influence in language and cognition. New York: Routledge OECD, (2023, December 5). PISA 2022 Results: Factsheets, OECD. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/publication/pisa-2022-results/country-notes/kazakhstan-8c403c04/ Renandya, W.A., Rajan, B.R.S., & Jacobs, G.M. (2009). Extensive Reading With Adult Learners of English as a Second Language. In T. Hedge, N. Andon, M. Dewey (Eds), English Language Teaching: Major Themes in Education, Vol IV, (pp. 182-1970). London: Routledge. Uccelli, P., Galloway, E.P., Kim, H.Y., and Barr, Christopher D. (2015). Core Academic Language Skills: Moving beyond Vocabulary Knowledge to Predict Reading Comprehension, Spring 2015 conference; Learning Curves: Creating and Sustaining Gains from Early Childhood through Adulthood, Washington. Wenjuan, Q. (2023). Chinese Core Analytic Language Skills (CH-CALS): An Innovative Construct and Assessment associated with Chinese Non-fiction Reading Comprehension, ECER 2023 Symposium paper. Glasgow.