Cognitive and linguistic predictors of word reading fluency in Turkish–Arabic bilingual and Turkish monolingual children

Abstract

Objectives:

The study investigated the role of linguistic and cognitive factors in Turkish word reading fluency (WREAD) among second-grade Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual and Turkish monolingual children. It specifically focused on the impact of phonological awareness (PA), phonological memory (PM), rapid automatized naming (RAN), morphological awareness (MA), morphological fluency (MF), processing speed (PS), and vocabulary knowledge (VK) on reading fluency.

Methodology:

The study used a cross-sectional design and collected data from 127 children in Hatay, Turkey. The participants completed a battery of tests measuring PA, PM, RAN, MA, PS, VK, and WREAD. The tests were administered individually, and the scores, along with the time spent on each test, were recorded.

Data and analysis:

Data from the tests were analyzed using SPSS 22.0. Independent samples t-tests were conducted to determine the differences between bilingual and monolingual children in the linguistic and cognitive measures. Pearson r correlation analyses were conducted to illustrate the relationship among the variables and stepwise regression analyses to explore the extent to which these variables explained the variance in WREAD.

Findings:

The findings highlighted significant differences between Turkish–Arabic bilingual and Turkish monolingual children in PA and PS. While MF and RAN explained WREAD in the bilingual group, MF and PA were the strongest predictors of WREAD in the monolingual children.

Originality:

This study is the first to investigate word reading development in Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual children, contributing novel insights into literacy acquisition in simultaneous bilingualism. In addition, the concept of MF has been proposed in the literature as a distinct measurement from MA.

Significance:

The study expands the existing knowledge on bilingual reading development, emphasizing the importance of timed cognitive and linguistic variables in predicting WREAD. It also sheds light on the educational needs of bilingual children in the Turkish context.

Keywords

Bilingualism reading development morphological fluency simultaneous bilingualism

Introduction

Reading acquisition entails the development of linguistic and cognitive skills to decode words accurately and fluently to access their meaning in print. Multiple factors, including language experience, characteristics of written language, and individual differences, contribute to the development of word reading abilities. In connection with this, the study aims to investigate the role of the factors in word reading fluency (WREAD) among second-grade children, as gaining these skills has long-standing effects on individuals’ academic and social lives.

To begin with, readers with different language experiences display distinct patterns of reading development. Depending on the type of bilingualism, age, task requirements, and language of testing, bilingual children exhibit differences compared to their monolingual peers. They can transfer language-independent skills such as phonological awareness (PA), syntactic awareness, functional awareness, decoding, decontextualized language, and knowledge of writing conventions across languages (Durgunoğlu, 2002; Genesee et al., 2006). Particularly, in the case of simultaneous bilingualism, the development of PA skills in one language stimulates the development of the PA skills in the other language (Bialystok, 2001a, 2001b). The positive effect of bilingualism can also be observed in cognitive tasks that require selective attention, inhibition, self-control, task switching, and monitoring (Barac & Bialystok, 2012; Bialystok, 1999; Bialystok et al., 2003). Moreover, bilingual children have superior abilities in distinguishing between form and meaning compared to monolingual participants (Barac & Bialystok, 2012; Bialystok, 1999; Bialystok & Majumder, 1998). On the other hand, vocabulary knowledge (VK) and reading comprehension have been identified as the most vulnerable skills in bilingual groups (Lesaux & Siegel, 2003; Uccelli & Páez, 2007).

Word reading achievement in typically developing readers is influenced by factors such as exposure to print, oral language abilities, and metalinguistic awareness. Metalinguistic awareness here refers to the capacity to focus on and analyze certain parts of language, which is seen as a prerequisite for the development of literacy skills (Koda & Zehler, 2008). More specifically, metalinguistic awareness involves knowledge and reflection upon the structural aspects of language such as phonology, morphology, semantics, orthography, and syntax. Therefore, studies on literacy acquisition often examine the impact or association of awareness in these structural features of languages on reading achievement. Durgunoğlu (2002) emphasized that while language-specific concepts like orthographic patterns are not transferable across languages, language-independent metalinguistic/metacognitive processes can be conveyed across languages. Moreover, general processing speed (PS; Catts et al., 2002; Kail & Hall, 1994; Nicolson & Fawcett, 1994) and vocabulary (Babayiğit & Stainthorp, 2014; Ouellette, 2006; Snow et al., 1998) have been acknowledged as influential predictors of reading abilities. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of PA, phonological memory (PM), rapid automated naming (RAN), morphological awareness (MA), VK, and PS on reading fluency of Turkish words among Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual and Turkish monolingual second graders. In other words, the study aims to examine potential differences in cognitive and linguistic tasks between bilingual and monolingual children, which could result in unique developmental trajectories in reading. Another objective of the study is to contribute to the reading development research in Turkish, which has received limited attention in the literature. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating reading development of Turkish–Arabic bilingual children. In addition, this study attempts to expand the existing knowledge on the literacy acquisition in simultaneous bilingualism.

Predictors of reading

PA, PM, RAN, MA, PS, and VK have been widely used as the primary constructs in studies examining linguistic and cognitive factors in word reading. The tasks that measure these abilities are also independent variables in this study. Therefore, a review of the predictors of reading is necessary to gain a deeper understanding of the variables responsible for reading success and to comprehend the universal and specific characteristics of reading.

PA is known as the sensitivity to distinguish and manipulate speech sounds (Anthony & Francis, 2005). The role of PA in transparent and opaque orthographies differs; in transparent orthographies, the straightforward correspondence between phonemes and graphemes allows children to read accurately by the end of the first year (Babayiğit & Stainthorp, 2007; Verhagen et al., 2008). Once children maintain accurate reading in such languages, PA becomes redundant (Babayiğit & Stainthorp, 2007). Thus, reading fluency rather than reading accuracy becomes a more significant criterion of reading skills in transparent orthographies (Wimmer et al., 1991). Bilingualism facilitates the development of PA by exposing children to two different sound systems simultaneously (Bialystok, 2001a, 2001b). In the work by Bialystok et al. (2003), Spanish–English bilinguals performed better than monolinguals and Chinese–English bilinguals due to the transparency of the Spanish language. Similarly, Durgunoğlu et al. (1993) evidenced that PA was a significant predictor of word recognition within and across languages. The development of this skill in one language is likely to foster the development of reading skills in the second language. Özata et al. (2016) further observed that Turkish–English bilingual children who had stronger PA skills transferred Turkish phonology to English as they came across unfamiliar words or pseudowords.

PM refers to the temporary maintenance of orally presented codes in the phonological loop before sounding them out (Baddeley, 1982, 1993, 2000). While some studies found a direct relationship between PM and reading abilities, others found a weak or inconsistent influence of PM on word reading. For instance, Asadi and Khateb (2017) reported that PM contributed to word decoding but not reading fluency in Arabic. However, Dufva and colleagues (2001) maintained that while PM had an indirect influence on word recognition through PA in the first grade, it had a weak yet direct effect in the second grade. Research with bilingual children showed that they had a better performance than monolingual children in PM as they experience an advantage of executive functions and verbal working memory (Blom et al., 2014; Delcenserie & Genesee, 2016). Such advantages could also be observed in low socioeconomic groups (Calvo & Bialystok, 2014) and emerging bilinguals.

RAN is concerned with effective retrieval and naming alphanumeric or non-alphanumeric stimuli (Bowers, 1993; Wolf & Denckla, 2003). Numerous studies have demonstrated that RAN is a stronger predictor of reading fluency rather than reading accuracy, which PA tasks typically measure (Bowers & Wolf, 1993; Compton et al., 2001; Georgiou et al., 2008). Furthermore, Wolf and Bowers (1999) argued that consistent orthographic systems emphasize the use of RAN, while inconsistent systems accentuate PA, due to their contribution to different types of reading outcomes. Some scholars acknowledge it as one of the strongest predictors of word reading across languages (Araújo et al., 2015; Georgiou et al., 2008; Norton & Wolf, 2012). The studies investigating the role of RAN and reading in Turkish monolingual children also showed that RAN was the best predictor of reading fluency with an increasing prominence across years (Babayiğit & Stainthorp, 2011; Özata, 2018). In the work by Özata (2018), RAN and orthographic knowledge were the strongest predictors of Turkish reading fluency both in the second and fourth grades. Moreover, RAN was the most powerful indicator of word reading fluency in Turkish–English bilingual children (Özata, 2013).

MA, morphological awareness, can be defined as the ability to recognize, discriminate, and manipulate morphemes (Carlisle, 1995). Similar to phonemic awareness, it facilitates decoding written words, and this skill becomes more critical in reading and comprehension in the subsequent years of elementary school (Carlisle, 2003). Previous studies also showed that MA was predictive of word reading accuracy, reading fluency, comprehension, VK, and the organization of mental grammar (Deacon, 2012; Deacon & Kirby, 2004; Green, 2009; Kuo & Anderson, 2006; Layes et al., 2017; Mahony et al., 2000; Moats, 1994). According to Verhoeven and Perfetti (2011), the significance of morphology varies based on the depth of orthography and morphological richness. As reported by Bektaş (2017), MA was a more powerful and reliable variable than PA due to the rich morphology of Turkish. Studies with bilingual participants showed that unlike PA and RAN, MA is a language-specific construct, thus transfer between morphologically distant languages may not be common (Luo et al., 2014).

In addition, this study introduces the term MF. MF represents the duration that participants allocate to MA tasks. It has been utilized as an independent measure to determine whether the duration of MA tasks predicts word reading fluency. The rationale behind using MF as an independent measure is to separate accuracy and fluency. MA refers to the ability to accurately recognize and differentiate between morphemes. On the other hand, MF focuses on the ability of readers to automatically recognize and manipulate morphemes in various tasks.

PS, the pace of processing information, has been investigated as a correlate of reading achievement (Catts et al., 2002; Kail & Park, 1994). Furthermore, the association between rapid naming and PS was reported in the work by Cutting and Denckla (2001). In their study, orthographic knowledge was predicted by rapid naming with the contribution of PS. Data from Greek showed that PS significantly contributed to reading fluency when rapid naming was excluded (Papadopoulos et al., 2016). Similar findings were reported by Özata (2018) in Turkish. With regard to bilingualism, Park and colleagues (2020) demonstrated that among monolingual and bilingual children with or without developmental language disorders, bilingual children showed faster processing, yet this difference was not significant when socioeconomic status was controlled for.

VK develops through exposure to print as well as direct and indirect experiences. It has a strong relationship with reading skills, particularly comprehension (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986; Verhoeven & Perfetti, 2011). Monolingual and bilingual children may show variability in their VK. According to Tabors and colleagues (2003), bilingual children perform lower than monolingual children in expressive and receptive vocabulary. In a longitudinal study with Spanish–English bilingual children, oral vocabulary and narrative skills of bilingual children were behind those of monolingual children from kindergarten to the first grade (Uccelli & Páez, 2007). In the case of linguistic tasks, bilingual children were less successful than their monolingual counterparts in vocabulary (Bialystok et al., 2010; Oller et al., 2007). Monolingual and bilingual children exhibit different vocabulary development patterns, with English L2 learners lagging behind monolingual children in expressive and receptive vocabulary (Tabors et al., 2003). However, bilingual/biliterate children show a positive relationship in depth of vocabulary (Ordóñez et al., 2002; Wang et al., 2006).

The present study

This study investigated the predictors of reading which have been commonly employed in reading development studies (PA, PM, RAN, MA, PS, and VK). This study additionally established the concept of MF as a measure of word reading abilities. To investigate the development of WREAD among the monolingual and bilingual participants, the following research questions were addressed:

Is there a significant difference between Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual and Turkish monolingual second-grade children in PA, PM, RAN, MA, MF, PS, VK, and WREAD?

To what extent do the variables, PA, PM, RAN, MA, MF, PS, and VK, explain variance in WREAD in Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual and Turkish monolingual children?

Based on the literature, it was hypothesized that monolingual and simultaneous bilingual children would be different in PA (Bialystok, 2001a, 2001b; Bialystok et al., 2003), PS (Park et al., 2020), and VK (Bialystok et al., 2010; Oller et al., 2007). Yet, as the participants were exposed to print in Turkish, their VK might be similar to Turkish monolingual children, unlike the previous studies showing a disadvantage of bilingual children in VK. WREAD could be explained by RAN, MF, and PS in both groups. In other words, the independent variables, which are timed, would explain WREAD better than other predictors.

Participants

The data of the current study were collected from five primary schools in Hatay, Turkey. Hatay is located on the border of Syria and the area has received a large immigrant population in the recent years. However, the bilingual participants in the study were not immigrants, their ancestors were also born in Hatay. One hundred thirty-eight students participated in the study; 100 of them were Turkish–Arabic bilingual children, while 38 children formed the Turkish monolingual group. The age range was 7–8 in both groups. The participants had no reported diagnosis of developmental or cognitive impairment.

The home languages of the bilingual children were Turkish and Arabic and they received formal instruction only in Turkish. In Hatay, Turkish is the official language, but a local Arabic dialect is also spoken. There is no written form of the dialect. Modern Standard Arabic and Vernacular Arabic exhibit differences in vocabulary, morphology, pronunciation, and so on, despite sharing some similarities. Modern Standard Arabic is used in formal settings, and children learn it through formal education. Thus, neither parents nor children had access to the written form and could only use the colloquial Arabic in Hatay unless they received private instruction. At home, while parents mostly preferred speaking Arabic, siblings commonly communicated in Turkish. The bilingual children were included in the study based on their teachers’ reports on their students’ Arabic knowledge. The researchers also asked several daily questions in Arabic before giving the tests to check their comprehension and production.

Characteristics of Turkish language

The Latin alphabet has been used in Turkey since 1928. There are 29 letters—21 consonants and 8 vowels. The vowel harmony and suffixation system allow for straightforward development in phonology and morphology (Durgunoğlu, 2017). It has a transparent orthographic system. In other words, there is consistency in phoneme to grapheme, grapheme to phoneme conversion rules. Literacy instruction is based on phonics approach. Reading and writing are taught simultaneously in the first grade. The Turkish language is an agglutinative language with a rich and transparent morphology. Thus, free and bound morphemes that make up words are readily segmentable and recognizable. Due to the regular and transparent morphology, Turkish children acquire morphophonological forms easily and with fewer mistakes (Aksu-Koç & Slobin, 1986). The majority of nominal and verbal inflections are present in their oral productions by the age of 24 months (Aksu-Koç & Slobin, 1986).

Instruments

The study has a cross-sectional design. Each participant completed a battery of Turkish PA, PM, RAN, MA, PS, VK, and WREAD tests. MF scores were based on the time participants spent on the MA task.

PA skills were measures through Turkish Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (KFFT: Kapsamlı Fonolojik Farkındalık Testi; Babür et al., 2013). KFFT consists of two core tests: word elision and blending, and four supplemental subtests: blending non-words, segmenting non-words, phoneme reversal, and word segmentation. The participants completed all core and subtests. Two core tests were employed in PM assessments: memory for digits and non-word repetition. Digit span tasks were divided into two subtests as forward and backward. Babür et al. (2013) reported strong reliability in KFFT (α = .85). The same level of reliability has been found in this study as well.

For the RAN tests, Turkish Test of Rapid Automatized Naming (HOTIT: Hızlı Otomatik İsimlendirme Testi. Bakır & Babür, 2018, 2009) was employed. HOTIT comprises alphanumeric and non-alphanumeric stimuli. Alphanumeric stimuli consist of letters and numbers, whereas in the non-alphanumeric stimuli, colors and objects were named. In this study, the participants were asked to name the alphanumeric visuals as fast as possible. Bakır and Babür (2018) reported that the test–retest coefficients in the primary school group ranged from .85 to .95.

MA was measured through three tests. The first test measured the awareness of derivational and inflectional morphemes. It consisted of 30 sentences and the children made judgments about their grammaticality after reading them silently. Stopwatch was used in this test. The second test measured awareness of inflectional morphemes (Kuzucu Örge, 2018; Kuzucu Örge et al., 2021). Similar to the first test, the participants read the sentences and determined whether the sentences were grammatical or ungrammatical. Finally, the awareness in derivational morphology was measured through a multiple choice test (Kuzucu Örge, 2018; Kuzucu Örge et al., 2021). The children read situations which included non-words, and then they answered questions based on the derivationally correct use of the given non-word. The participants were instructed to read all sentences without spending time. Meanwhile, the researcher kept a stopwatch in all MA tasks. Kuzucu Örge et al. (2021) reported that the values of Cronbach alpha were .87 in inflectional awareness test and .61 in derivational awareness test. The time participants spent on the tasks was recorded as their MF scores.

In the PS task, there were 40 items. The participants were expected to match related images in the same line as fast as possible. The number of correct matches within 3 minutes was recorded as the score in this test.

VK was a naming task which included 44 colored images with increasing difficulty. The expressive vocabulary task was untimed. The number of correctly named words were recorded as the score in the test.

Turkish Test of Word Reading Efficiency (KOBIT; Babür et al., 2013) measured WREAD. KOBIT test consists of two subtests: word reading and non-word reading. The tests were developed based on the morphological and phonological characteristics of Turkish. Word reading test measures sight word reading efficiency, while non-word reading measures phonemic decoding efficiency. The number of correctly decoded words in 60 seconds was recorded as the participant’s fluency score.

Procedure

Permission to conduct the research was granted by the Turkish Ministry of Education; parental and school approvals were also obtained before the tests administration. The data were collected during school hours in quiet classrooms. The tests which include PA, PM, RAN, MA, VK, and WREAD were given to each participant. All exams were administered individually, with pauses as needed, and lasted approximately 1.5 hours. The tests were presented in a random order. The same test instructions were given to the children. Their test scores and the amount of time they spent on each test were recorded.

Statistical analysis

The data of the current study were collected from 138 children. However, 11 of them were excluded from the analyses as they failed to complete the tasks. The ultimate number of participants put into analyses was 127. Ninety-two of them were bilingual children and 35 of them were monolingual.

The analyses were carried out through the SPSS Windows 22.0 program. In all statistical tests, alpha value was adopted as .10. Due to the exploratory character of the study, a more liberal and comprehensive alpha value was chosen to avoid excluding any potentially valuable associations, as suggested by Babür (2003). To compare the scores of the two groups, independent samples t-test with bootstrapping function was performed. Bootstrapping function was employed for the accuracy and power of estimation. Composite scores in PA, PM, RAN, MA, MF, and WREAD were used in the analysis. Composite scores were obtained by summing up the scores in the subtests.

For the regression analyses, Pearson r analysis was conducted to observe correlations among the variables. The contribution of each independent variable (PA, PM, RAN, MA, MF, PS, and VK) was determined through stepwise regression analyses. In the stepwise method, the most useful independent variables remain in the model, while the least relevant ones are excluded from the analyses. The assumptions of autocorrelation, multicollinearity, outliers, undue influence of cases on models, normality, linearity, and homoscedasticity were controlled.

Results

The descriptive analyses of the data are presented in Table 1. The minimum, maximum, mean scores and standard deviation of each test were presented in the two groups. The scores in each subtest were summed to get the composite score.

Table 1.

Descriptive statistics for monolingual and bilingual participants.

Tasks	Monolingual (n = 35)				Bilingual (n = 92)
Tasks	Min	Max	M	SD	Min	Max	M	SD
PA (composite)	19	100	58.37	23.60	22	114	74.52	20.89
PM (composite)	17	33	23.51	3.61	17	34	24.78	3.55
RAN (composite)	41.4	86.6	62.09	8.89	40.90	98	60.43	11.83
MA (composite)	33	60	48.51	7.4	32	223	50.90	19.56
MF (composite)	361	1,038	655.94	205.13	318	2,015	672.18	250.07
PS	13	33	20.94	4.48	15	39	23.01	4.19
VK	15	25	19.91	2.62	11	30	19.96	3.02
Real WREAD	17	85	42.74	14.04	10	67	40.32	13.53
Pseudo WREADWREAD (Comp.)	1027	47129	26.1768.91	7.9120.02	212	45108	24.6064.91	7.5620.05

Note. PA = phonological awareness (composite), PM = phonological memory (composite), RAN = rapid automatized naming (composite), MA = morphological awareness (composite), MF = morphological fluency (composite), PS = processing speed, VK = vocabulary knowledge, Real WREAD = real word reading fluency, Pseudo WREAD = pseudoword reading fluency, WREAD-comp. = word reading fluency (composite).

Although the descriptive data showed variability between the two groups, the independent samples t-test with bootstrapping function revealed that simultaneous bilingual children were different only in PA and PS performance. In PA, the bilingual children (M = 75, SE = 2.17) performed better than monolingual children (M = 58, SE = 4). The difference between the two groups, −16.15, bias correlated and accelerated (BCa) 95% confidence interval (CI) [−26, −6.2] was significant, t(125) = −3.754, p < .01. With regard to PS, the bilingual (M = 23, SE = 0.44) and monolingual (M = 21, SE = .76) comparison revealed that the mean difference between the two groups, −2.07, BCa 95% [−3.8, −.326] was significant t(125) = −2.44, p < .05. The bilingual group outperformed monolingual children in PS. The differences in the other tests (PM, RAN, MA, MF, VK, and WREAD) were not significant.

Pearson product-correlation coefficients were presented below to demonstrate the interrelations among the variables. Table 2 represents the correlation matrixes for bilingual participants, and Table 3 represents the correlation matrixes for monolingual participants:

Table 2.

Correlation matrix of the variables—bilingual participants (n = 92).

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. PA (Composite)	—
2. PM (Composite)	.541**	—
3. RAN (Composite)	−.348**	−.160	—
4. MA (Composite)	.215*	.185	−.145	—
5. MF (Composite)	−.371**	−.183	.491**	−.004	—
6. PS	.214*	.142	−.385**	.021	−.353**	—
7. VK	.239*	.283**	−.131	.148	−.277**	.345**	—
8. Wread (Composite)	.261*	.187	−.558**	.104	−.657**	.380**	.295**	—

Note.* p < .05. ** p < .01.

PA = phonological awareness (composite), PM = phonological memory (composite), RAN = rapid automatized naming (composite), MA = morphological awareness (composite), MF = morphological fluency (composite), PS = processing speed, VK = vocabulary knowledge, WREAD (composite) = word reading fluency (composite).

Table 3.

Correlation matrix of the variables—monolingual participants (n = 35).

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. PA (composite)	—
2. PM (composite)	.714**	—
3 RAN (composite)	−.404*	−.288	—
4. MA (composite)	.588**	.545**	−.011	—
5. MF (composite)	−.341*	−.281	.367*	−.326	—
6. PS	.592**	.420*	−.298	.516**	−.297	—
7. VK	.055	.182	.257	.162	−.053	.077	—
8. WREAD (Composite)	.538**	.493**	−.426*	.496**	−.668**	.340*	.088	—

Note. *p < .05. **p < .01.

According to the correlation analyses, it was observed that the strongest correlation of WREAD was with MF (r = −.66, p < .01) which was followed by the relationship with RAN (r = −.56, p < .01). Similarly, in the monolingual group, WREAD had the strongest connection with MF (r = −.67, p < .01). WREAD was also strongly correlated with PA (r = .54, p < .01). The correlation analysis further exhibited that there was a powerful relationship among the fluency measures. Strikingly, phonological measures were still powerful associates of word reading in the monolingual group.

The influence of the independent variables on WREAD was investigated through stepwise regression analyses. Each analysis was conducted separately for bilingual and monolingual participants (Tables 4 and 5).

Table 4.

Summary of stepwise regression analysis for variables predicting word reading in Turkish for bilinguals (n = 92).

Dependent variable	Independent variable	B	β	Squared semi-partial correlation	t-value	p
Step 1
WREAD	MF	−.053	−.66	.43	−.8.3	.00*
Note. R = .657, R² = .431, R² adj = .425, F(1, 90) = 68.257, p < .01
Step 2
WREAD	MF	−.040	−.505	.194	−5.893	.00*
	RAN	−.525	−.310	.073	−3.621	.00*
Note. R = .710, R² = .504, R² adj = .493, F(2, 89) = 45.275, ^p < .01.*

Table 5.

Summary of stepwise regression analysis for variables predicting word reading in Turkish for monolinguals (n = 35).

Dependent variable	Independent variable	B	β	Squared semi-partial correlation	t-value	p
Step 1
WREAD	MF	−.065	−.668	0.45	−.5.163	.00*
Note. R = .668, R² = .447, R² adj = .43, F(1, 33) = 26.652, p < .01
Step 2
WREAD	MF	−.056	−.549	0.27	−4.379	.00*
	PA	.297	.351	0.11	2.796	.01*
Note. R = .745, R² = .555, R² adj = .528, F(2, 32) = 19.989, ^p* < .01.

Based on the regression analysis, MF and RAN were the only significant predictors of WREAD in the bilingual children. The most correlated variable, MF, t(89) = −5.893, p < .01, β = −.505, was also the best predictor of word reading. Squared semi-partial correlations showed that the unique variance explained by MF was 19%. RAN, t(89) = −3.621, p < .01, β = −.310, was the second best predictor of WREAD in bilingual children. The unique variance explained by RAN was 7%. Other predictors (PA, PM, MA, PS, and VK) in the study were removed from the models since they did not have significant contributions.

In the monolingual group, the regression analyses revealed that MF, t(32) = −4.379, p < .01, β = −.549, was the best predictor of word reading in Turkish. MF explained 27% of unique variance. PA was also a significant predictor in WREAD among the monolingual children, t(32) = 2.796, p < .01, β = .351. It explained 11% of unique variance. Other predictors (PM, RAN, MA, PS, and VK) in the study were removed from the models.

The regression analyses demonstrated two different patterns for the two language groups. While word reading was supported by MF and RAN in second-grade Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual children, monolingual word reading was supported by MF and PA.

Discussion

The current research investigated the role of cognitive and linguistic factors on word reading fluency (WREAD) in Turkish monolingual and Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual children. The results showed that Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual children were similar to monolingual children in Turkish WREAD. The stepwise regression analyses revealed that WREAD was predicted by morphological fluency (MF) and rapid automatized naming (RAN) in the bilingual group. MF and RAN accounted for 49.3% of total variance in word reading in the bilingual group, while MF and PA explained 52.8% of variance in the monolingual children.

PA was one of the measures that bilingual participants outperformed monolingual participants significantly. The bilingual children were exposed to spoken Arabic only. Therefore, higher performance due to their sensitivity in perception and production of the sound units in both languages was expected. According to the the correlation analysis, even though PA was weakly correlated with word reading (r = .26) in bilingual children, there was a stronger correlation between PA and word reading (r = .54) in the monolingual group. Similar results were obtained in the regression analyses. Whereas PA did not have a significant contribution to Turkish WREAD in second-grade Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual children, PA was a significant predictor of word reading in the monolingual group. It explained 11% of unique variance in reading fluency. The results for the monolingual participants were in line with the studies reporting the continuing effect of PA on word reading (Güldenoğlu et al., 2016; Torgesen et al., 1997; Wagner et al., 1994, 1997). On the other hand, the findings for the bilingual word reading were consistent with the hypotheses. According to Bialystok (2001a, 2001b), the development of PA is enhanced by simultaneous bilingualism, as it involves continuous exposure to two phonological systems, which in turn refines individuals’ ability to perceive and distinguish verbal sounds. The performance of children in PA tasks hits a plateau relatively quickly, after which other factors such as RAN becomes a more reliable predictor of word reading efficiency. Therefore, PA became redundant and was unable to explain the bilingual children’s WREAD.

In line with the predictions, the results showed that PM did not have a significant influence on WREAD in either group. The findings of this study are inconsistent with the findings of Dufva et al. (2001), which indicated a weak direct impact of PM on word recognition in second-grade students, as well as an indirect impact through PA in first-grade students. Congruent with the findings of this study, some scholars highlighted that PM was not influential in word recognition (Babayiğit & Stainthorp, 2014; Georgiou et al., 2008). Moreover, Asadi and Khateb (2017) mentioned that PM contributed to word decoding but not fluency. Due to the presence of consistent phoneme-to-grapheme and grapheme-to-phoneme conversion rules in Turkish, the process of decoding does not impose significant cognitive demands. Consequently, the utilization of PM becomes superfluous in the context of second grade.

RAN was strongly correlated with word reading in bilingual children. These findings were compatible with previous studies in opaque and transparent languages (Araújo et al., 2015; Georgiou et al., 2008; Norton & Wolf, 2012; Papadopoulos et al., 2016; Tan et al., 2005). In the monolingual children, there was a moderate association between RAN and WREAD. According to the regression analysis, RAN was the second strongest predictor of word reading in the bilingual children. In all, 7.3% of the unique variance in word reading was explained by RAN. The results of this study align with prior research conducted in Turkish (Babayiğit & Stainthorp, 2010, 2011; Bektaş, 2017; Özata, 2013, 2018; Sönmez, 2015), which suggests that RAN is a strong predictor of word-level reading fluency, particularly when PA, a measure of accuracy, is no longer significant. Similar findings were obtained in other languages (Bowers & Wolf, 1993; Cutting & Denckla, 2001; González-Valenzuela et al., 2016; Manis et al., 2000; Papadopoulos et al., 2016).

While the findings demonstrated statistical significance in the case of bilingual children, it should be noted that RAN did not exhibit any predictive capacity in monolingual children. These results may indicate that although WREAD scores of both groups were similar, they relied on different mechanisms. Since bilingual children had more advanced PA skills due to their exposure to two languages from birth, PA ceases to be an important indicator of word reading efficiency and RAN becomes more significant.

MA did not contribute to word reading fluency in either group. The absence of MA’s contribution to word reading may be due to the focus of the MA task. As MA measures the accuracy and sensitivity to structural units in words, it was not strongly related to fluency in word reading. The results could have been different if the word reading skills were measured through an accuracy task. The associations between WREAD and MF were different. MF was the strongest correlate and predictor of WREAD both in monolingual and bilingual children. The unique variance explained by MF was 19.4% in bilingual and 27% in monolingual children. That is, the time participants spent on the MA tasks (MF) predicted their word reading performance. These findings may further indicate that MF rather than morphological accuracy is a strong predictor of WREAD among second-grade Turkish children. MF, a potential index of MF or automaticity, predicted WREAD in second-grade monolingual and Turkish–Arabic simultaneous bilingual children. It can be inferred that the automaticity of morphological processing facilitates fluent reading in both monolingual and bilingual children in the context of Turkish, which is an agglutinative language. Furthermore, as a result of its rich and easily comprehensible morphemic structure, Turkish children exhibit a high level of competence in acquiring morphophonological units, with a reduced frequency of errors (Aksu-Koç & Slobin, 1986).

The facilitative role of Turkish morphology supports accurate morphological productions at an early level. Thus, the automatization of morphological skills become a better predictor of WREAD compared to morphological accuracy.

PS was one of the two tasks that bilingual children significantly outperformed monolingual children. The task involved a timed, matching activity with distracting information which meant that the children were also expected to inhibit unnecessary information and focus to select two related items from the pictures. The bilingual children could selectively attend to the stimulus while ignoring the distractors. These findings align with other research that has emphasized the benefits of bilingualism in various aspects of executive function, including inhibition, selective attention, and mental flexibility, among others (Barac & Bialystok, 2012; Bialystok, 1999; Bialystok et al., 2012; Kroll & Bialystok, 2013). In the work by Barac and Bialystok (2012), bilingualism had a distinct impact on nonverbal outcomes, regardless of factors such as linguistic similarity, cultural background, and language of schooling. Similarly, in this study, bilingualism itself provided an advantage over monolingual children in PS tasks.

There was not a significant difference between the two groups in VK. The findings presented in this study are inconsistent with other research that has demonstrated a comparatively lower level of achievement in bilingual children (Pearson, 2002; Rothou & Tsimpli, 2020; Tabors et al., 2003; Uccelli & Páez, 2007; Verhoeven, 2000). However, in this study, the bilingual children were exposed to two languages from birth and Arabic was only spoken at home. The bilingual children possessed a sufficient amount of language exposure in Turkish, which facilitated the enhancement of their vocabulary both within the educational setting and through interactions with their peers. As hypothesized, in the regression analyses, no significant influence of VK on WREAD was observed. The results did not yield significant results for either group.

The study has a number of limitations that need to be mentioned. First of all, the research has a cross-sectional design. That particular design was selected to measure various variables at a time. However, the developmental processes of monolingual and bilingual children in reading could have been tracked more transparently in a longitudinal design. Second, the tasks were conducted only in Turkish. To gain a better insight into the reading development and domains of transfer among the bilingual participants, the data could have been collected in Arabic as well. Furthermore, although the role of MF was powerful in the research, it is not known whether orthographic awareness has a significant effect on this skill. Thus, instruments that specifically measure morphological processing or fluency, such as masked prime tasks, can be employed in future studies. In addition, longitudinal studies and tests in both languages would provide better insights into understanding the literacy development of Turkish–Arabic bilingual children.

This study demonstrated that skills that require speed were the most accurate indicators of word reading proficiency in Turkish. These findings emphasize the need of practitioners in instructional settings prioritizing activities that promote increased word reading speed once accuracy has been established. According to the findings of the present study, it is recommended to take into account the differences in literacy development between monolingual and bilingual children. Teachers should be cautious about the cognitive and linguistic abilities and limitations of bilingual students in their classrooms. The Interdependence Hypothesis (Cummins, 1979) and Durgunoğlu (2002) have established that linguistic and cognitive challenges in one language can endure in the other language. Furthermore, the fact that learners are unable to convey their knowledge in a single language does not necessarily imply that they struggle with reading. Instead, the first step to take should be to assess that specific knowledge in the stronger language. The proficiency may not have been attained in the weaker language yet. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate students in both languages if appropriate measures are available.

Conclusion

The overall results revealed that the bilingual children did not perform lower than monolingual children in any tested domains. On the contrary, bilingual children were better at PA and PS. Due to the exposure to two separate phonological systems, bilingual children exhibit an enhanced ability to detect and manipulate syllabic and subsyllabic units, leading to a more rapid development of these skills compared to their monolingual counterparts. Specifically, in the cognitive task, bilingualism itself caused advantage irrespective of other variables.

The study evidenced word reading is not reinforced by a single variable. Furthermore, bilingual and monolingual children might display differences in their reliance on the variables. In this study, WREAD was supported by MF and RAN in the bilingual group and MF and PA in the monolingual group. These findings corroborate with the view that reading is a multilayered skill which involves linguistic and general processing abilities. Therefore, it is essential to consider multiple factors in the assessment of literacy skills.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This study is part of the first author’s (F.İ.) PhD dissertation completed at Boğaziçi University, Turkey. We would like to thank the school principals, the teachers, and the participating children who cooperated with us during data collection in Hatay. Without their constant support, it would not have been possible to conduct and complete this study. The instruments used in this study were sourced from projects led by the senior authors, Babür and Haznedar, supported by the Bogazici University Research Fund (Project No: 05D101) and TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, Project No: 115K023).

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Ferda İlerten

Belma Haznedar

Author biographies

Ferda İlerten is a lecturer in the Department of Foreign Languages at Yildiz Technical University. Her research interests are bilingualism, literacy development in bilingual children, language attrition and maintenance in migrant populations.

Belma Haznedar is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Her work addresses childhood bilingualism, literacy development in monolingual and bilingual children, and migrant populations with low literacy skills.

Nalan Babür is a retired faculty member at Bogazici University in the Department of Primary Education. She is an expert in the area of literacy and dyslexia. She has published articles, book chapters, and conducted workshops on learning disabilities, especially dyslexia.

References

Aksu-Koç

Slobin

D. I.

(1986). A psychological account of the development and use of evidentials in Turkish. In Chafe

W. L.

Nichols

(Eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology (pp. 159–167). Ablex.

Anthony

J. L.

Francis

D. J.

(2005). Development of phonological awareness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(5), 255–259.

Araújo

Reis

Petersson

K. M.

Faísca

(2015). Rapid automatized naming and reading performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(3), 868–883.

Asadi

I. A.

Khateb

(2017). Predicting reading in vowelized and unvowelized Arabic script: An investigation of reading in first and second grades. Reading Psychology, 38(5), 486–505.

Babayiğit

Stainthorp

(2007). Preliterate phonological awareness and early literacy skills in Turkish. Journal of Research in Reading, 30(4), 394–413.

Babayiğit

Stainthorp

(2010). Component processes of early reading, spelling, and narrative writing skills in Turkish: A longitudinal study. Reading and Writing, 23(5), 539–568.

Babayiğit

Stainthorp

(2011). Modeling the relationships between cognitive–linguistic skills and literacy skills: New insights from a transparent orthography. Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(1), 169–189.

Babayiğit

Stainthorp

(2014). Correlates of early reading comprehension skills: A componential analysis. Educational Psychology, 34(2), 185–207.

Babür

(2003). Exploring the relationships among RAN, linguistic/cognitive variables and early reading skills in first- and second-grade students [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. The University of Arizona ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 3119931.

10.

Babür

Haznedar

Erçetin

Özerman

(2013). Türkçe’de kelime okuma bilgisi testinin geliştirilmesi [Developing word reading skills tests in Turkish]. Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Eğitim Dergisi (Bogazici University Journal of Education), 28(2), 1–25.

11.

Baddeley

A. D.

(1982). Implications of neuropsychological evidence for theories of normal memory. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. B, Biological Sciences, 298(1089), 59–72.

12.

Baddeley

(1993). Short-term phonological memory and long-term learning: A single case study. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 5(2), 129–148.

13.

Baddeley

(2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of working memory? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(11), 417–423.

14.

Bakır

F. H.

Babür

(2009). Türkçe Hızlı Otomatik İsimlendirme (HOTI) Testleri’nin geliştirilmesi ve ön bulgular [Developing Rapid Automatized Tests (RAN) in Turkish and Preliminary Findings]. Paper presented at 18, Ulusal Eğitim Bilimleri Konferansı (National Educational Sciences Conference), Selçuk, Izmir.

15.

Bakır

F. H.

Babür

(2018). Hızlı Otomatik İsimlendirme Testi’nin Türkçeye Uyarlanması [The Adaptation of Rapid Automatized Naming Tests to Turkish]. Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Eğitim Dergisi (Bogazici Journal of Education), 35(2), 35–51.

16.

Barac

Bialystok

(2012). Bilingual effects on cognitive and linguistic development: Role of language, cultural background, and education. Child Development, 83(2), 413–422.

17.

Bektaş

(2017). Cognitive and linguistic components of reading acquisition in Turkish: Evidence from second and fourth graders [Unpublished master thesis, Boğaziçi University].

18.

Bialystok

(1999). Cognitive complexity and attentional control in the bilingual mind. Child Development, 70(3), 636–644.

19.

Bialystok

(2001a). Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. Cambridge University Press.

20.

Bialystok

(2001b). Metalinguistic aspects of bilingual processing. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 21, 169–181.

21.

Bialystok

Craik

F. I.

Luk

(2012). Bilingualism: Consequences for mind and brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 16(4), 240–250.

22.

Bialystok

Luk

Peets

K. F.

Yang

(2010). Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13(4), 525–531.

23.

Bialystok

Majumder

(1998). The relationship between bilingualism and the development of cognitive processes in problem solving. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19(1), 69–85.

24.

Bialystok

Majumder

Martin

M. M.

(2003). Developing phonological awareness: Is there a bilingual advantage? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24(1), 27–44.

25.

Blom

Küntay

A. C.

Messer

Verhagen

Leseman

(2014). The benefits of being bilingual: Working memory in bilingual Turkish–Dutch children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 128, 105–119.

26.

Bowers

P. G.

(1993). Text reading and rereading: Determinants of fluency beyond word recognition. Journal of Reading Behavior, 25(2), 133–153.

27.

Bowers

P. G.

Wolf

(1993). Theoretical links among naming speed, precise timing mechanisms and orthographic skill in dyslexia. Reading and Writing, 5(1), 69–85.

28.

Calvo

Bialystok

(2014). Independent effects of bilingualism and socioeconomic status on language ability and executive functioning. Cognition, 130(3), 278–288.

29.

Carlisle

J. F.

(1995). Morphological awareness and early reading achievement. In Feldman

L. B.

(Ed.), Morphological aspects of language processing (pp. 189–209). Lawrence Erlbaum.

30.

Carlisle

J. F.

(2003). Morphology matters in learning to read: A commentary. Reading Psychology, 24(3–4), 291–322.

31.

Catts

H. W.

Gillispie

Leonard

L. B.

Kail

R. V.

Miller

C. A.

(2002). The role of speed of processing, rapid naming, and phonological awareness in reading achievement. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 35(6), 510–525.

32.

Compton

D. L.

Defries

J. C.

Olson

R. K.

(2001). Are RAN-and phonological awareness-deficits additive in children with reading disabilities? Dyslexia, 7(3), 125–149.

33.

Cummins

(1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49(2), 222–251.

34.

Cutting

L. E.

Denckla

M. B.

(2001). The relationship of rapid serial naming and word reading in normally developing readers: An exploratory model. Reading and Writing, 14(7–8), 673–705.

35.

Deacon

S. H.

(2012). Sounds, letters and meanings: The independent influences of phonological, morphological and orthographic skills on early word reading accuracy. Journal of Research in Reading, 35(4), 456–475.

36.

Deacon

S. H.

Kirby

J. R.

(2004). Morphological awareness: Just “more phonological”? The roles of morphological and phonological awareness in reading development. Applied Psycholinguistics, 25(2), 223–238.

37.

Delcenserie

Genesee

(2016). The effects of age of acquisition and bilingualism on verbal working memory. International Journal of Bilingualism, 21(5), 600–616. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367006916639158

38.

Dufva

Niemi

Voeten

M. J.

(2001). The role of phonological memory, word recognition, and comprehension skills in reading development: From preschool to grade 2. Reading and Writing, 14(1–2), 91–117.

39.

Durgunoğlu

A. Y.

(2002). Cross-linguistic transfer in literacy development and implications for language learners. Annals of Dyslexia, 52(1), 189–204.

40.

Durgunoğlu

A. Y.

(2017). An updated review of cross-language transfer and its educational implications. In Segers

Broek

P. V. D.

(Eds.), Developmental perspectives in written language and literacy: In honor of Ludo Verhoeven (pp. 167–182). John Benjamins.

41.

Durgunoğlu

A. Y.

Nagy

W. E.

Hancin-Bhatt

B. J.

(1993). Cross-language transfer of phonological awareness. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85(3), 453–465.

42.

Genesee

Geva

Dressler

Kamil

M. L.

(2006). Synthesis: Cross-Linguistic Relationships. In August

Shanahan

(Eds.), Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth (pp. 153–174). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

43.

Georgiou

G. K.

Parrila

Papadopoulos

T. C.

(2008). Predictors of word decoding and reading fluency across languages varying in orthographic consistency. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(3), 566–580.

44.

González-Valenzuela

M. J.

Díaz-Giráldez

López-Montiel

M. D.

(2016). Cognitive predictors of word and pseudoword reading in Spanish first-grade children. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, Article 774.

45.

Green

(2009). Morphology and literacy: Getting our heads in the game. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 40(3), 283–285.

46.

Güldenoğlu

Kargın

Ergül

(2016). Sesbilgisel farkındalık becerilerinin okuma ve okuduğunu anlama üzerindeki etkisi: Boylamsal bir çalışma [The Influence of Phonological Awareness on Reading and Reading Comprehension: A Longitudinal Study]. Elementary Education Online, 15(1), 251–272.

47.

Kail

Hall

L. K.

(1994). Processing speed, naming speed, and reading. Developmental Psychology, 30(6), 949–954.

48.

Kail

Park

Y. S.

(1994). Processing time, articulation time, and memory span. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 57(2), 281–291.

49.

Koda

Zehler

(Eds.). (2008). Learning to Read across Languages: Cross-Linguistic Relationships in First- and Second-Language Literacy Development. New York: Routledge.

50.

Kroll

J. F.

Bialystok

(2013). Understanding the consequences of bilingualism for language processing and cognition. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 25(5), 497–514.

51.

Kuo

Anderson

R. C.

(2006). Morphological awareness and learning to read: A cross language perspective. Educational Psychologist, 41(3), 161–180. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep4103_3

52.

Kuzucu Örge

. (2018). Differentiating poor and good readers in second grade: Cognitive and linguistic variables [Unpublished master thesis, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi].

53.

Kuzucu Örge

Babür

Borkan

Haznedar

. (2021). İlkokul İkinci Sınıfta Zayıf ve İyi Okuyucuların Okuma Akıcılığını Yordayan Dilbilimsel ve Bilişsel Beceriler [Linguistic and Cognitive Predictors of Word Reading Fluency in Poor and Good Readers in the 2^nd Grade]. Bogazici University Journal of Education, 38(2), 27–56. https://doi.org/10.52597/buje.1008426

54.

Layes

Lalonde

Rebaï

(2017). Study on morphological awareness and rapid automatized naming through word reading and comprehension in normal and disabled reading Arabic- speaking children. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 33(2), 123–140.

55.

Lesaux

N. K.

Siegel

L. S.

(2003). The development of reading in children who speak English as a second language. Developmental Psychology, 39(6), 1005–1019.

56.

Luo

Y. C.

Chen

Geva

(2014). Concurrent and longitudinal cross- linguistic transfer of phonological awareness and morphological awareness in Chinese-English bilingual children. Written Language & Literacy, 17(1), 89–115.

57.

Mahony

Singson

Mann

(2000). Reading ability and sensitivity to morphological relations. Reading and Writing, 12(3), 191–218.

58.

Manis

F. R.

Doi

L. M.

Bhadha

(2000). Naming speed, phonological awareness, and orthographic knowledge in second graders. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 33(4), 325–333.

59.

Moats

L. C.

(1994). The missing foundation in teacher education: Knowledge of the structure of spoken and written language. Annals of Dyslexia, 44(1), 81–102.

60.

Nicolson

R. I.

Fawcett

A. J.

(1994). Reaction times and dyslexia. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A, 47(1), 29–48.

61.

Norton

E. S.

Wolf

(2012). Rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading fluency: Implications for understanding and treatment of reading disabilities. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 427–452.

62.

Oller

D. K.

Pearson

B. Z.

Cobo-Lewis

A. B.

(2007). Profile effects in early bilingual language and literacy. Applied Psycholinguistics, 28(2), 191–230.

63.

Ordóñez

C. L.

Carlo

M. S.

Snow

C. E.

McLaughlin

(2002). Depth and breadth of vocabulary in two languages: Which vocabulary skills transfer? Journal of Educational Psychology, 94(4), 719–728.

64.

Ouellette

G. P.

(2006). What’s meaning got to do with it: The role of vocabulary in word reading and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(3), 554–566.

65.

Özata

(2013). Reading acquisition in early bilingualism: Reading skills of Turkish child L2 learners of English [Unpublished master’s thesis, Boğaziçi University].

66.

Özata

(2018). Reading fluency and comprehension in a transparent orthography: Evidence from Turkish children [Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Boğaziçi University].

67.

Özata

Babür

Haznedar

(2016). Phonological awareness in reading acquisition: Evidence from reading skills of Turkish-English successive bilingual children. In Haznedar

Ketrez

(Eds.), The acquisition of Turkish in childhood (pp. 243–271). John Benjamins.

68.

Papadopoulos

T. C.

Spanoudis

G. C.

Georgiou

G. K.

(2016). How is RAN related to reading fluency? A comprehensive examination of the prominent theoretical accounts. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 1–15.

69.

Park

J. S.

Miller

C. A.

Sanjeevan

van Hell

J. G.

Weiss

D. J.

Mainela-Arnold

(2020). Bilingualism and processing speed in typically developing children and children with developmental language disorder. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63(5), 1479–1493.

70.

Pearson

B. Z.

(2002). Narrative competence among monolingual and bilingual school children in Miami. In Oller

D. K.

Eilers

R. E.

(Eds.), Language and literacy in bilingual children (pp. 135–174). Multilingual Matters.

71.

Rothou

K. M.

Tsimpli

(2020). Biliteracy and reading ability in children who learn Greek as a second language. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 23, 1036–1050.

72.

Snow

C. E.

Burns

M. S.

Griffin

(1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children committee on the prevention of reading difficulties in young children. National Research Council.

73.

Sönmez

(2015). An investigation of spelling skills in Turkish: The role of phonological encoding and rapid naming in the literacy skills of third and fourth graders [Unpublished master thesis, Boğaziçi University].

74.

Stahl

S. A.

Fairbanks

M. M.

(1986). The effects of vocabulary instruction: A model-based meta- analysis. Review of Educational Research, 56(1), 72–110.

75.

Tabors

P. O.

Paez

M. M.

Lopez

L. M.

(2003). Dual language abilities of bilingual four-year olds: Initial findings from the early childhood study of language and literacy development of Spanish-speaking children. NABE Journal of Research and Practice, 1(1), 70–91.

76.

Tan

L. H.

Spinks

J. A.

Eden

G. F.

Perfetti

C. A.

Siok

W. T.

(2005). Reading depends on writing, in Chinese. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 102, 8781–8785.

77.

Torgesen

J. K.

Wagner

R. K.

Rashotte

C. A.

Burgess

Hecht

(1997). Contributions of phonological awareness and rapid automatic naming ability to the growth of word-reading skills in second-to fifth-grade children. Scientific Studies of Reading, 1(2), 161–185.

78.

Uccelli

Páez

M. M.

(2007). Narrative and vocabulary development of bilingual children from kindergarten to first grade: Developmental changes and associations among English and Spanish skills. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 38(3), 225–236.

79.

Verhagen

Aarnoutse

Van Leeuwe

(2008). Phonological awareness and naming speed in the prediction of Dutch children’s word recognition. Scientific Studies of Reading, 12(4), 301–324.

80.

Verhoeven

(2000). Components in early second language reading and spelling. Scientific Studies Studies of Reading, 4, 313–330.

81.

Verhoeven

Perfetti

C. A.

(2011). Morphological processing in reading acquisition: A cross- linguistic perspective. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32(3), 457–466.

82.

Wagner

R. K.

Torgesen

J. K.

Rashotte

C. A.

(1994). Development of reading-related phonological processing abilities: New evidence of bidirectional causality from a latent variable longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 30(1), 73–87.

83.

Wagner

R. K.

Torgesen

J. K.

Rashotte

C. A.

Hecht

S. A.

Barker

T. A.

Burgess

S. R.

Garon

(1997). Changing relations between phonological processing abilities and word-level reading as children develop from beginning to skilled readers: A 5-year longitudinal study. Developmental Psychology, 33(3), 468–479.

84.

Wang

Cheng

Chen

S.-W.

(2006). Contribution of morphological awareness to Chinese-English biliteracy acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 542–553.

85.

Wimmer

Landerl

Linortner

Hummer

(1991). The relationship of phonemic awareness to reading acquisition: More consequence than precondition but still important. Cognition, 40(3), 219–249.

86.

Wolf

Bowers

P. G.

(1999). The double-deficit hypothesis for the developmental dyslexics. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(3), 415–438.

87.

Wolf

Denckla

(2003). Rapid automatized naming tests. Super Duper.