Developmental Consideration for Simple View of Reading in Bilingual Children and Adolescents

• In Event: Bilingualism - later childhood

Abstract

The Simple View of Reading (SVR; Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Hoover & Gough, 1990) is a parsimonious theoretical framework which posits that decoding and language comprehension (LC) are fundamental building blocks for reading comprehension (RC). While the SVR model has received wide support from studies with young children (e.g., Bonifacci & Tobia, 2017; Catts et al., 2015), limited studies have examined the applicability of SVR with older children and adolescents. Furthermore, recent research with young bilingual children have shown that reading proficiency varies as a function of their bilingual experiences, including home language use (Mancilla-Martinez et al., 2020). However, it is less clear how variations in bilingual experience relate to reading skills at different periods of development in children with diverse language experiences.

Our study examined the SVR in children and adolescents with exposure to English and other language(s) at home and school. Given the developmental difference in the reading demand and dynamic of language experiences across development, we examined and compared the role of language factors, including English Age of Acquisition (AoA), dominant language of the participant and their parent, and English exposure and usage at home in the SVR model between children and adolescents.

All participants had exposure to two or more languages at home and attended schools in which English and French were the main instructional languages. One hundred and thirty-four multilingual children (ages 6-10, n = 70, female = 56%) and adolescents (ages 12-15, n = 65, female = 57%) completed the Woodcock-Johnson IV (Schrank et al., 2014)., Oral Passage Understanding Scale (Carrow-Woolfolk & Klein, 2017), and Test of Memory and Learning (Reynolds & Voress, 2007) in an online session; measuring decoding, vocabulary, RC, LC, and working memory. All testing was conducted in English. Parents of participants completed an adapted version of the Language and Social Background Questionnaire (Anderson, 2018; Luk & Bialystok, 2013) which assessed the language and demographic background of the family and language experience of the child. We coded whether the parent and the child’s dominant languages were English.

Our results supported the SVR model such that decoding, and LC significantly predicted RC above and beyond age, gender, maternal education, and language variables (i.e., English AoA, dominant language of the participant and their parent). The final regression model was more robust in children, explaining 85% of the variance in RC, compared to 43% in adolescents. Notably, participants’ language background factors, working memory, and home language experiences did not significantly predict their RC performance in either age groups.

Our exploratory study confirmed that SVR was an applicable theoretical model for both bilingual children and adolescents. Indeed, Hoover & Gough (1990) had bilingual Spanish-English children as their sample in their original study. The variance SVR accounts for was much higher in children than in adolescents. One explanation is that adolescents were more advanced in word reading and potentially had restricting range in their performance. Findings in our study prompt future research to identify age-appropriate component skills for adolescents.

Authors

• Julie Oh, McGill University
  Presenting Author

• Justin Feng, McGill University

• Katie Hartwick, McGill University

• Lauren Schellenberg, McGill University

• Gigi Luk, McGill University