ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to determine whether 11‐year‐old children in Singapore, from English Dominant or English Non‐Dominant backgrounds, read better orally when words were presented in list or text. The children read words in passage and in list form presented in counterbalanced order. In a study of good, average and poor readers, Nicholson (1991) found that context was of more benefit to poorer readers and to younger readers. With the English Non‐Dominant readers in the present study regarded as less proficient readers of English, these children should be expected to show the greatest gains from passage presentations. Error analyses showed that English Non‐Dominant readers performed less well in list readings relative to text readings, while the English Dominant readers produced no difference in performance for these conditions. This indicates that readers with less exposure to English relied more on contextual information than the more experienced readers. Thus, Goodman's (1965) idea of enlightened guessing was again questioned in this study for the case of bilingual readers. Additionally, reading miscues were found to vary in type according to whether the same words were being read in list or i