Unlocking Reading Skills: The Impact of Morphological Awareness, Vocabulary, and Print Exposure in Bilingual and Monolingual Children

This study examined the reading skills of Greek-Turkish bilingual children and age- and reading-matched Greek-speaking monolingual children, focusing on vocabulary knowledge, morphological awareness (inflectional, derivational, and compounding), and contextual factors. Seventy-five children participated, including twenty-five bilinguals aged 11;1–12;0, twenty-five age-matched monolinguals 11;0–12;0, and twenty-five reading-matched monolinguals aged 8;8–10;8. Results indicated that bilinguals performed significantly lower than their age-matched monolingual peers in reading skills (comprehension and fluency), vocabulary knowledge (expressive vocabulary and paradigmatic associations), and morphological awareness (inflectional morphology, derivational morphology, compounding). However, bilinguals performed similarly to their reading-matched monolingual peers in reading comprehension, reading fluency, paradigmatic associations, derivational morphology, compounding (word reversal, and word production). Notably, bilinguals matched both monolingual groups in word decoding accuracy, demonstrating com­parable performance. Morphological awareness and vocabulary breadth and depth predicted reading comprehension, while vocabulary breadth significantly influenced fluency and decoding, particularly for older monolingual children. Early print exposure in both languages was a predictor of decoding and reading comprehension for the bilinguals.