Authors
Hilde Lowell Gunnerud, Njål Foldnes & Monica Melby‑Lervåg
Abstract
Bilingualism appears to be related to poor language and reading comprehension in
the instructional language (L2). However, in the long term, an early age of second
language acquisition (AoA) may produce higher levels of second language skills
than a later onset of L2 exposure. Most studies on school-aged second language
learners (L2 learners) include children with 3–7 years of second language (L2)
exposure. We compared 91 early bilingual (Norwegian and a variety of different
native languages) 5th graders with 196 monolingual peers on a range of linguistic
skills and their relationships with reading comprehension. All bilingual learners in
the sample had been exposed to the instructional language by at least the age of 2.
The results, using structural equation modelling and latent variables, show that early
bilingual learners’ vocabulary, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension
are significantly lower than those of monolingual learners. Nevertheless, they have
similar levels of knowledge of conjunctions and decoding skills and corresponding
predictive patterns from linguistic skills to reading comprehension. We discuss the
implications of the findings