Language‐specific phonological skills and the relationship with reading accuracy in Sylheti‐English sequential bilinguals

Abstract

This study investigated the influence of first language (L1) phonology on second language (L2) early reading skills in Sylheti-English bilinguals (N = 58; 48% girls; British Bangladeshi) and their monolingual-English peers (N = 43; 45% girls; 96% White British, 4% multiethnic British) in a diaspora context. Language-specific phonological awareness and nonword repetition were tested at two time points (6;2-7;8 years-old). At Time 1, the bilinguals had lower productive accuracy for phonological sequences that violated their L1 phonology (d = .56; .84), and these skills accounted for a significant amount of variance in their reading accuracy. At Time 2, the language-specific effects were no longer present. These findings highlight the importance of considering language structure in multilingual early literacy development.

Digital Intervention in Children with Developmental Language Disorder: A Systematic Review (Preprint)

“…Training of these skills requires lots of repetition and hierarchical audiovisual input, which can be easily achieved by digital techniques [36]. Phonological skills and vocabulary skills are also the prerequisites for learning higher language skills such as grammar and reading [56,57]. However, digital interventions targeting higher language functions such as grammar and spelling, which might involve more cognitive functions [58], were required to be more diversified and more interesting.…”