Peets Kathleen F, Yim Odilia, Bialystok Ellen
Ryerson University.
University of Ottawa.
Int J Biling Educ Biling. 2022;25(1):226-240. doi: 10.1080/13670050.2019.1677551. Epub 2019 Nov 7.
Numerous studies on reading comprehension with monolingual children have shown that oral language, such as vocabulary, is an important factor in predicting reading comprehension success. However, few studies have looked at the reading comprehension performance of bilinguals, and less is known about the contributors to its success, linguistic or otherwise. Based on previous research showing weaker oral language among bilingual children, the goals of the present study are to examine how bilinguals perform in reading comprehension, along with possible contributors such as oral language and home literacy practices, in comparison with their monolingual peers. Participants were 82 children in the third grade who completed standardized language measures assessing vocabulary, grammar, and reading comprehension and whose parents completed a home literacy questionnaire. Bilingual children's reading comprehension was comparable to monolinguals having lower language, and bilingual parents reported reading rate was higher than that of the monolinguals. Moreover, the contributors to this success in reading comprehension were different for the bilingual group, with oral language and home literacy playing a role. Overall, this suggests bilinguals are unique from monolinguals in the manner in which they make use of the resources available to them, linguistic and otherwise, to achieve reading comprehension success.
众多针对单语儿童阅读理解的研究表明，口语能力，比如词汇量，是预测阅读理解成功与否的一个重要因素。然而，很少有研究关注双语儿童的阅读理解表现，对于其成功的促成因素，无论是语言方面还是其他方面，了解都更少。基于之前显示双语儿童口语能力较弱的研究，本研究的目标是，与单语同龄人相比，考察双语儿童在阅读理解方面的表现，以及诸如口语能力和家庭读写习惯等可能的促成因素。参与者是82名三年级儿童，他们完成了评估词汇、语法和阅读理解的标准化语言测试，其父母完成了一份家庭读写问卷。双语儿童的阅读理解能力与语言能力较低的单语儿童相当，双语儿童的家长报告称他们的阅读速度比单语儿童更快。此外，双语群体在阅读理解方面取得成功的促成因素有所不同，口语能力和家庭读写习惯都发挥了作用。总体而言，这表明双语儿童在利用自身可获取的资源（包括语言资源和其他资源）来实现阅读理解成功的方式上，与单语儿童有所不同。
