Well-established monolingual literacy predictors in bilinguals

Abstract

An important component of early reading intervention is the development and implementation of effective literacy screening tools. Historically, these precursor screening metrics have been designed primarily for the early identification and remediation of potential reading difficulties in monolingual English-speaking children—a focus that overlooks the significant population of bilingual children worldwide. This systematic literature review examines whether the precursor literacy skills commonly utilized for monolingual English-speaking cohorts have been systematically assessed and validated as predictors of later reading development in simultaneous bilingual children. Our findings demonstrate that the nine major literacy precursors identified in monolingual literature also significantly correlate with, and predict, reading performance in simultaneous bilingual children. These nine distinct literacy precursors comprise phonological awareness, letter knowledge, serial recall, oral language comprehension, vocabulary, grammar, memory, non-verbal intelligence, and word decoding.