ABSTRACTHow does national culture interact with second‐language reading comprehension? This study investigated the effect of cultural medium of presentation, language, and sequence of cultural/foreign and first‐language/second‐language presentation on the literal and interpretative comprehension of Form I (seventh grade) bilingual Nigerian students. Data were analysed using ANOVA. Previous studies concerning schema theories were upheld in that the present results for Experiment 1 revealed significantly superior scores for culturally related English language text when compared with scores for foreign‐based passages written in English. The data from Experiment 2 also revealed similar results when the subjects were presented with the same Experiment 1 foreign‐based passages written in English and with translations of these English passages to the mother tongue. In spite of sequencing, scores were higher for the first‐language passages. For both experiments, scores were higher at the literal level and sequencing was found to have little effect in enhancing comprehension of culturally unfamili