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Metalinguistic awareness in bilingual children's word reading: A cross-lagged panel study on cross-linguistic transfer facilitation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2016

DONGBO ZHANG ,
CHERN-FAR CHIN  and
LI LI
DONGBO ZHANG*
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
CHERN-FAR CHIN
Affiliation:
Nanyang Technological University
LI LI
Affiliation:
Singapore Centre for Chinese Language
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Dongbo Zhang, Department of Teacher Education, Michigan State University, 620 Farm Lane, East Lansing, MI 48824. E-mail: zhangdo6@msu.edu
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Abstract

This longitudinal study examined metalinguistic awareness in bilingual word reading development among Malay–English bilingual children in Singapore. Participants were assessed with the same tasks twice with a 1-year interval from Grade 3 to Grade 4 in phonological and morphological awareness and derived word decoding in both English and Malay. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that both types of metalinguistic awareness significantly predicted derived word reading in both languages. Subsequent cross-lagged panel modeling found construct-level transfer facilitation effect from Malay on English for phonological awareness but conversely from English on Malay for morphological awareness. Neither type of metalinguistic awareness exerted a transfer facilitation effect on word reading. These findings shed light on the developmental mechanism of cross-linguistic transfer in biliteracy acquisition.

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Articles
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Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , March 2017 , pp. 395 - 426
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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