These figures and information for where English is spoken provide the context for why it is so very important that we teach reading in the English language very well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-speaking_world
Approximately 330 to 360 million people speak English as their first language.[1] The United States has the most native speakers at 258 million. Additionally, there are 60 million native English speakers in the United Kingdom, 19 million in Canada, 16.5 million in Australia, 4.5 million in Ireland, and 3.8 million in New Zealand. Other countries also use English as their primary and official languages.
English is the third largest language by number of native speakers, after Mandarin and Spanish.[2]
Estimates that include second language speakers vary greatly, from 470 million to more than 1 billion. David Crystal calculates that, as of 2003, non-native speakers outnumbered native speakers by a ratio of 3 to 1.[3] When combining native and non-native speakers, English is the most widely spoken language worldwide.
Besides the major varieties of English, such as American English, British English, Canadian English, Australian English, Irish English, New Zealand English and their sub-varieties, countries such as South Africa, India, the Philippines, Jamaica and Nigeria also have millions of native speakers of dialect continua ranging from English-based creole languages to Standard English.