The Development of Reading in Early Bilingualism: Evidence from Turkish-Child L2 Learners of English

Year 2012, Volume: 29 Issue: 1, 1 - 26, 03.09.2015

Feride Özdemir Belma Haznedar , Nalan Babür

Abstract

This study investigated the role of phonological awareness in the reading acquisition of Turkish-English successive bilingual children. Cross-language transfer, the relationship between phonological awareness and phonological memory and the effect of grade level on phonological awareness were also explored. The results confirmed the previous research which demonstrated that there is a strong relationship between phonological awareness and reading in monolingual children. Bilingual data, on the other hand, did not present a significant relationship between phonological awareness and reading. Error analyses of nonword reading task revealed that Turkish-English bilingual children transfer phonological awareness skills from Turkish in order to decode English pseudowords, which was evident from their use of Turkish grapheme-phoneme correspondences and Turkish phonological rules. Compatible with the previous research, the present study indicated a significant relationship between phonological awareness and phonological memory of monolingual children. However, bilingual phonological memory did not appear to explain phonological awareness. The results also pointed out that neither bilingual nor monolingual phonological awareness significantly differ across grades.

Keywords

Bilingual reading acquisition, Phonological awareness, L1 influence

The Development of Reading in Early Bilingualism: Evidence from Turkish-Child L2 Learners of English

Abstract

This study investigated the role of phonological awareness in the reading acquisition of Turkish-English
successive bilingual children. Cross-language transfer, the relationship between phonological awareness and
phonological memory and the effect of grade level on phonological awareness were also explored. The results
confirmed the previous research which demonstrated that there is a strong relationship between phonological
awareness and reading in monolingual children. Bilingual data, on the other hand, did not present a
significant relationship between phonological awareness and reading. Error analyses of nonword reading
task revealed that Turkish-English bilingual children transfer phonological awareness skills from Turkish in
order to decode English pseudowords, which was evident from their use of Turkish grapheme-phoneme
correspondences and Turkish phonological rules. Compatible with the previous research, the present study
indicated a significant relationship between phonological awareness and phonological memory of
monolingual children. However, bilingual phonological memory did not appear to explain phonological
awareness. The results also pointed out that neither bilingual nor monolingual phonological awareness
significantly differ across grades.

Keywords

Bilingual reading acquisition, Phonological awareness, L1 influence

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