Why do bilingual kids lag in reading comprehension?
Bilingual children read words as fast as monolinguals but understand texts less well, mainly because their vocabulary in the school language is smaller, and the same skills drive comprehension in both groups.
Source
Lexical quality and executive control predict children's first and second language reading comprehension
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — Single-time-point testing of Dutch fourth graders with multigroup path analysis comparing first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) readers
- N
- N=178 · 178 fourth graders (102 bilingual); first-language vocabulary available for a subgroup of 56 bilingual children
- Population
- Fourth-grade children in ten classrooms across seven schools in cities in the south of the Netherlands, monolingual Dutch and bilingual (mainly Turkish, Moroccan Arabic, Berber)
- Outcome
- Dutch reading comprehension (cloze text task), with vocabulary, decoding, syntactic integration, working memory and inhibition as predictors
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What they did
The researchers tested 178 Dutch fourth graders, 102 of whom spoke another language at home, on vocabulary, word and pseudoword decoding, grammar judgement (syntactic integration), backward digit span (working memory), a Simon task (inhibition) and a cloze-style reading comprehension test. They used path analysis to see whether lexical quality and executive control predicted comprehension directly and via syntactic integration, and whether these paths differed between monolingual and bilingual readers. For a subgroup of bilingual children they also measured vocabulary in the home language.
What they found
Bilingual children decoded faster than monolinguals but scored lower on Dutch vocabulary, grammar judgement and reading comprehension, with no differences in working memory or inhibition. In both groups, vocabulary and decoding predicted comprehension directly and through syntactic integration, and working memory worked only through syntactic integration; inhibition predicted syntactic integration only for bilinguals, and that group difference was marginal. The model explained 43% of comprehension variance for monolinguals and 51% for bilinguals, and home-language vocabulary added a positive direct effect on Dutch comprehension.
The limits
What it doesn't show
All measures were taken at one point in time, so the paths are statistical associations, not proof that vocabulary or working memory cause better comprehension; the authors call for longitudinal data. Each construct was measured with only one or two tests, so measurement error was not modelled, and the working-memory test had low reliability. The home-language vocabulary analysis rested on only 56 children, and the inhibition difference between groups was only marginally significant, so both findings need replication. The bilingual children were mostly non-balanced bilinguals from lower-income urban areas, which limits generalisation.
Key terms
- Lexical quality
- How detailed and quickly accessible a reader's knowledge of words is, covering spelling, sound and meaning; here measured through vocabulary and decoding.
- Syntactic integration
- Combining individual words into a grammatical sentence representation; measured here by spotting the incorrect sentence among three.
- Reading Systems Framework
- A model of reading in which word knowledge feeds sentence-level integration, which in turn supports understanding of the whole text.
- Path analysis
- A statistical method that estimates direct and indirect (mediated) links among several measured variables at once.
- Inhibition
- The ability to suppress irrelevant information or responses, measured here with the Simon task's congruent versus incongruent reaction times.
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Quiz yourself
What best explains bilingual children's weaker Dutch reading comprehension in this study?
Common questions
Are bilingual children worse readers overall?
No. They decoded words and pseudowords faster than monolingual peers; their weaker comprehension tracked their smaller vocabulary and grammar knowledge in Dutch, not a general reading or cognitive problem.
Did this study find a bilingual advantage in executive function?
No. Working memory and inhibition did not differ between groups, which the authors note adds to evidence questioning the claimed bilingual advantage.
Should parents of bilingual children stop using the home language?
The data point the other way: home-language vocabulary had a positive effect on Dutch reading comprehension, and the authors suggest home-language use be encouraged, though the subgroup was small and the design correlational.
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