Development and early contribution of morphological awareness to reading in bilingual and monolingual children: a longitudinal study from Kindergarten to grade 1 in the French curriculum

This study investigates the development and role of morphological awareness in the early stages of learning to read French as a first language in bilinguals compared to monolinguals. It aims at two objectives : on the one hand, to compare morphological awareness (MA) development between kindergarten and grade 1 of bilinguals compared to monolinguals and, on the other hand, to determine the early and very early contribution of MA to word reading and whether this contribution is moderated by bilingualism. MA was measured by a task of sentence completion by derived word while reading was measured by standardized tests of pseudoword and text reading (called EVALEC and OURALEC, respectively). Controlled measures such as nonverbal efficiency, verbal working memory, phonological awareness and vocabulary were also assessed. The results obtained on 38 learners followed from Kindergarten to grade 1, including 20 French-Portuguese immersion bilinguals, systematically showed bilingual superiority in MA and MA's contribution to reading for both bilinguals and monolinguals. However, MA contributed to reading only at 1st grade, while at Kindergarten it was non significant. These results support the idea of a metalinguistic advantage in bilinguals, and the role of early MA on written word identification but not the role of MA on written word identification.