Role of Phonological and Morphological Awareness in L2 Oral Word Reading

In this study, 57 fifth‐grade native Hebrew speakers performed orthographic‐phonological awareness, morphological awareness, and oral word reading tasks in both Hebrew (first language [L1]) and English (second language [L2]). The results of the language‐specific task scores in the two languages reflect, with certain qualifications, participants' L1 proficiency and the language proximity of particular language features. The more similar the language feature (linear morphology), the more positive the cross‐language influence; conversely, the less similar the language feature (phonology), the less positive the influence. Hebrew (L1) language‐specific task scores related to English (L2) word reading. In addition, Hebrew (L1) and English (L2) word reading scores were only related when Hebrew orthographic‐phonological and/or morphological awareness was low. In contrast, when the (L1) Hebrew orthographic‐phonological and morphological awareness scores were high, there was no correlation between Hebrew and English word reading.