We examine the strength of the relation between letter sound knowledge, word reading, and reading comprehension in Spanish and in English for 1,010 bilingual first grade students learning to read in both languages in the United States. Students were assessed in both languages on multiple beginning reading measures and on reading comprehension in Spanish and in English at the end of the year. Findings from structural equation modeling indicated that the best model fit for the bilingual data was when all pretest measures in each language loaded into the same latent language factor, and into a bilingual factor consisting of letter naming in Spanish, and pseudoword reading in Spanish and in English. This finding suggests that a bilingual latent factor supports the development of metalinguistic awareness, and it contributes to the prediction of reading comprehension in both languages. Thus, students receiving bilingual reading instruction, might not need to be taught letter sound correspondence for letter sounds that are similar in both languages twice, once in Spanish and once in English. Instead, learning this skill in their native language, provides teachers with more time to discuss letter-sounds that are different in both languages. Implications for teaching and research are discussed.
Baker et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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