What’s in a word? Cross-linguistic influences on Spanish–English and Chinese–English bilingual children’s word reading development
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This study investigates the cross-linguistic transfer of literacy skills in Spanish–English, Chinese–English bilingual, and English monolingual children (N = 283, 5–10 years). Research question 1 examines English literacy and asks how phonological and morpho-semantic skills contribute to word reading as a function of children's language background. Structural equation modeling revealed contrasting bilingual effects: compared to English monolinguals, Spanish–English bilinguals relied more on phonological awareness in word reading, whereas Chinese–English bilinguals relied more on lexical knowledge. Research question 2 examines relations between bilinguals’ heritage language proficiency and English literacy. Results revealed direct and indirect effects of heritage language meta-linguistic skills on English word reading. The study yields implications for reading theories and instructional practices in optimizing literacy in linguistically diverse children.
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Sun et al. (2022) did not show that morphological awareness in the heritage languages (Spanish and Chinese) directly or indirectly predict English word reading through English morphological awareness.
“On the contrary, a study by Sun et al. (2022) on Spanish-English and Chinese-English bilingual children did not show that morphological awareness in the heritage languages (Spanish and Chinese) directly or indirectly predict English word reading through English morphological awareness.”
From Do word-level skills show cross-linguistic transfer and predict bilingual reading? (2026) · cites this paper as Sun et al., 2022
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Wagley, N., Marks, R. A., Bedore, L. M., & Kovelman, I. (2022) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/cdev.13748 · Cited by 22 · see citing works
Self-citationDo word-level skills show cross-linguistic transfer and predict bilingual reading?
Xie, Q., & Yeung, S. S.-S. (2026) · Reading and Writing · doi:10.1007/s11145-026-10767-8
- Authors
- Sun, X., Zhang, K., Marks, R. A., Nickerson, N., Eggleston, R. L., Yu, C.-L., Chou, T.-L., Tardif, T., & Kovelman, I.
- Affiliations
- University of Michigan (US)
- National Taiwan University (TW)
- Corresponding author
- Sun, Xin
- ORCID
- Venue
- Child Development
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2022-01-01
- Volume
- 93
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 84-100
- ISSN
- 0009-3920 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8624
- PMC
- PMC8766884
- OpenAlex
- W3203370243
- Cited by
- 49
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 6 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 9.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Child Development (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (R01 HD092498)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
- Keywords
- language transfer, bilingual children, Spanish-English bilinguals, Chinese-English bilinguals, phonological awareness, vocabulary knowledge, heritage language proficiency, English literacy, bilingual literacy
- MeSH terms
- Child, China, Humans, Language, Linguistics, Reading, Multilingualism
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