| Two theories describing bilingual children's reading development are central processing and script dependent processing. Recent studies have revealed evidence for the interdependence of these two theories in second language learners. However, the lack of attention to cognitive abilities could possibly create illusory evidence. This study examines the effects that working memory and nonverbal reasoning skills have on bilingual children's reading development. Thirty-three Grade 1 Cantonese-English bilingual children were assessed on their vocabulary, phonological awareness, reading and cognitive abilities. Cross-linguistic transfer between English and Chinese reading measures decreased significantly after controlling for cognitive abilities. Nonetheless, cross-linguistic transfer in phonological awareness tasks between languages remained significant. Although phonological awareness was a significant predictor of reading in both alphabetic and character languages, it never fully explained reading in any language. Thus, it was possible that different processes were involved in activating phonological awareness when compared to reading. Furthermore, it was proposed that while central processing occurred at the phonological awareness level, script dependent processing was involved at the reading level. |
