Oral Language, Phonological Awareness, Word Reading, and Passage Reading Comprehension in Grade 2

Abstract

This chapter describes a study that examined the cross-linguistic relationships among earlier oral language, phonological awareness, word reading and later passage reading comprehension. The participants were assessed with standardized and researcher-designed, parallel tasks in the two languages, including aspects of oral vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, word level reading tasks at the beginning of second grade; passage reading was measured at the end of second grade. The results revealed a distinct language-specific pattern of contribution from orally based competence to word and passage reading; concurrent cross-linguistic contribution from English phonological awareness to Chinese character and word reading was identified. The discussion highlights the importance of oral language experiences in biliteracy learning and suggests that biliteracy learning is dictated largely by the language-specific demands stemming from the properties of the language in which reading tasks are performed.