Predictors of reading and comprehension abilities in bilingual and monolingual children: a longitudinal study on a transparent language

As with monolinguals, lexical information seems to be employed when reading Italian as a second language (Primativo et al., 2013). Furthermore, bilingual readers are sensitive to the distributional properties of the Italian language and stress assignment is affected by the L2 lexicon size of second-language learners. However, despite their poor vocabulary, late bilinguals develop a high degree of sensitivity to the systematic linguistic properties of their L2 (Bellocchi, Bonifacci & Burani, in press). That is, what are the linguistic predictors in learning to read for bilingual children learning Italian as a second language? Many studies considering French-English bilinguals have shown that learning to read in an L2 is similar, in many aspects, to learning to read in an L1, despite individual differences (e.g. Erdos et al., 2010; Geva & Farnia, 2011). However until now very few studies have focused on transparent language such Italian. We thus longitudinally explored the link between linguistic predictors (letter knowledge, non word repetition, morphological comprehension, lexical knowledge and rapid naming) and reading outcomes (fluency, accuracy and comprehension) in a group of 30 bilingual and 56 monolingual children (mean age at T0= 75,4 months; sd=4,3 months). In order to evaluate linguistic predictors for each group, separated linear regressions were run for monolinguals and bilinguals. Main results showed similarities between groups with regards to the type of linguistic predictors (e.g. letter knowledge and RAN) which are important in learning to read in Italian L1 or L2. However, some differences emerged with regard to the developmental trajectories of these predictors in predicting reading outcomes (e.g., differently from monolinguals, morphological comprehension was a long-term predictor of bilinguals’ reading outcomes).