What we have learned from ‘learning to read in more than one language’

Abstract

Our goal with this special issue was to bring together a range of research on learning to read in more than one language. In this introduction, we provide an overview of clear diversity across the language pairings, learning contexts and reading-related skills examined. We also highlight some particularly noteworthy and often intriguing findings that emerged across the articles. These include the examination of transfer at the skill level, as well as of the direction of the uncovered relationships in time and between languages. They also include the examination of cases in which we do and do not see transfer, as well as the clear contributions of bilingual research to theoretical debates across both monolingual and bilingual research. We think that these point to some exciting new questions for future research.Worldwide, bilinguals are very likely in the majority (Tucker, 1998). Accordingly, it is increasingly common for children to learn to read in more than one language. Indeed, it is currently estimated that at least half of the world's children learn to read in their second language (McBride-Chang, 2004). Despite bilinguals being in the majority, we know far less about the processes by which children learn to read in more than one language than we do about monolingual reading acquisition. Our goal with this special issue was to bring together a range of research on learning to read in more than one language, to include different language pairings, learning contexts and reading-related skills. By presenting this research together in a single issue of Journal of Research in Reading, we sought to highlight the variety of theoretically interesting research questions and the range of challenges for future research in this rapidly growing field of study.When reviewing the articles included in this issue, it is clear that they reflect the diversity in the linguistic and learning contexts in which learning to read in more than one language happens. First consider the populations in this set of papers. Although there is a focus on children learning to read English, whether this is a first, second or third language, there is a wide diversity in the sociolinguistic experiences of these samples. We have studies of Chinese children learning to read English, both as a second language in China

The development of orthographic processing skills in children in early French immersion programs

“…The development of orthographic processing skills in children  .2 Orthographic processing skills across languages Deacon, Wade Woolley and Kirby (2009) recently uncovered cross-language transfer of orthographic processing skills to reading in bilingual children learning to read in English and French, two languages represented with the same Roman alphabet. Lexical orthographic processing skills in one language predicted significant variance in reading outcomes in the other language, after multiple controls, in a bidirectional manner (see also Deacon, Commissaire, Chen & Pasquarella 2013;Deacon, Chen, Luo & Ramirez 2011). These findings differ greatly from those in prior research; several prior studies of bilinguals learning to read two languages in different scripts, such as Chinese and English, have found no correlation between L1 and L2 orthographic processing skills or transfer to reading across languages (Abu Rabia 2001;Arab-Moghaddam & Sénéchal 2001;Gottardo, Yan, Siegel & Wade-Woolley 2001;Wang, Park & Lee 2006).…”

“…In contrast, these relationships were not significant in other samples of bilinguals or second language learners (i.e. older children; see Commissaire, Duncan & Casalis 2011;Deacon, Chen et al 2011). For example, in a study of French-speaking adolescents in grades 6 and 8 who learned English in secondary school, Commissaire and colleagues revealed that only the performance on the lexical measures of orthographic processing was related across languages, after controls for French reading and English vocabulary.…”

“…In this learning context, the children were learning to read two languages that use the same alphabet, a situation in which cross-language transfer of orthographic processing skills to reading has been observed in previous studies (e.g. Deacon et al 2009;Deacon, Commissaire et al 2013;Deacon, Chen et al 2011). Lexical orthographic skills were assessed by an orthographic choice task (e.g.…”

“…There are no comparable investigations with bilingual children, with substantial variability in the correlations reported to date (e.g. Commissaire et al 2011;Deacon, Chen et al 2011;Deacon, Commissaire et al 2013). The present study also offered the opportunity to test whether orthographic processing skills emerge in a manner that generalizes across a given script with a similar approach; using structural equation modeling (SEM), a powerful statistical approach to determine latent variables, we evaluated whether children's skills in French and English formed a single factor or two separate factors.…”

Phonological skills as predictor of reading success: An investigation of emergent bilingual Northern Sotho/English learners

“…The processes involved in acquiring reading skills in more than one language (or in an AL only) are not fully understood (Deacon and Cain, 2011). Scholars working in the field of bilingual literacy aim to discover whether factors that predict individual reading differences in a L1 also predict reading outcome in a L2/AL, whether metalinguistic knowledge (such as PA) transfer to and assist in the process of acquiring literacy in an AL and whether the phonological structure of a learner's L1 influences phonological development in the AL.…”