Cross-linguistic transfer in bilingual children's phonological and morphological awareness skills: a longitudinal perspective

Cross-linguistic interactions are the hallmark of bilingual development. Theoretical perspectives highlight the key role of cross-linguistic distances and language structure in literacy development. Despite the strong theoretical assumptions, the impact of such bilingualism factors in heritage-language speakers remains elusive given high variability in children's heritage-language experiences. A longitudinal inquiry of heritage-language learners of structurally distinct languages – Spanish–English and Chinese–English bilinguals (N = 181, Mage = 7.57, measured 1.5 years apart) aimed to fill this gap. Spanish–English bilinguals showed stronger associations between morphological awareness skills across their two languages, across time, likely reflecting cross-linguistic similarities in vocabulary and lexical morphology between Spanish and English. Chinese–English bilinguals, however, showed stronger associations between morphological and word reading skills in English, likely reflecting the critical role of morphology in spoken and written Chinese word structure. The findings inform theories of literacy by uncovering the mechanisms by which bilingualism factors influence child literacy development.