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The relationship between language dominance and pre-reading skills in young bilingual children in Egypt

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Abstract

This study explored the relationship among pre-reading skills, language proficiency, and visual perceptual abilities in 150 children who had been exposed to both English and Arabic (mean age 70 months). Information regarding language proficiency was gathered indirectly through reports from teachers and parents and directly through children’s test performance. Consequently, the children were divided into three language dominance groups: stronger in Arabic, stronger in English, or equally strong in both English and Arabic. The main aim of this study was to determine whether the pre-literacy skills (visual processing skills, phonological processes, and orthographic knowledge) differed across the three groups and were correlated with langauge dominance. No significant relationships were found between language dominance and tasks that pertained to phonological awareness skills, which may support the notion of the transfer of phonological processing skills between languages. Visual processing and visual memory skills did not differ across language groups, a finding which was expected, as these functions do not directly pertain to language dominance. However, overall the groups did better on the English orthographic task than on the Arabic orthography, perhaps because they found Arabic print more visually confusing and demanding than English.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the teachers, parents, and children of El Alsson British and American International School, Canadian International School of Egypt, The British Columbia Canadian International School, New Generation School, and Smart Village-Kipling School; and all who participated in this study; in addition to, Dr. Nadia Taibah and the Centre for Child Evaluation and Teaching in Kuwait for sharing their tests. The first author is particularly grateful for the support of the Sawiris Foundation Grant that made this study possible.

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  1. Educational Psychology Group, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Sandy Tahan, Tony Cline & Souhila Messaoud-Galusi

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  1. Sandy Tahan
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Correspondence to Sandy Tahan.

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Tahan, S., Cline, T. & Messaoud-Galusi, S. The relationship between language dominance and pre-reading skills in young bilingual children in Egypt. Read Writ 24, 1061–1087 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-011-9301-3

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