The relationship between reading literacy in L1 and L2

It has long been believed that how well one reads and writes in his/her first language will help a learner when trying to read and write in a second language. In an attempt to explore this issue more thoroughly, the researcher investigated the relationship between Iranian students reading literacy in first and second language in the fourth grade. The participants of this research were 180 elementary school students in private school in Tehran (100 girls and 80 boys).Four tests were administrated. First, the researcher wanted to determine students comments on English. To this end, YLE (Young Learners English Tests) was administrated. The Second set of test was PIRLS (the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) test in Persian. The third set of test was PIRLS in English. Finally, the participants took PIRLS, in English. The findings showed that the boys groups outperformed in reading literacy in second language on the reading comprehension test. Also, the results from data analysis indicated that the relationship between first language and second language was statistically significant.