READING, VOCABULARY AND LANGUAGE PREFERENCE IN 7-YEAR-OLD TO 8-YEAR-OLD BILINGUAL ASIAN CHILDREN

Background. Children who have a second language at home and report mor e usage of this language in various contexts ought reciprocally to be less proficient in English as frequency of exposure to English is redu ced. Similarly there should be a two-way directional influence between oral vocabulary and reading development. Samples. A group of 40 bilin gual Asian children was compared with an age-matched mixed race (but w ith only one Asian child) monolingual group of 24 children. Mean age w as 8 years for both groups (range 7;6 to 8;6 years) and socioeconomic status was low. Group allocation was based on a specially devised Lang uage Preference Questionnaire (LPQ) examining different contexts of la nguage use (e.g., during numerical analysis). Method, Standardised tes ts of non-verbal intelligence, vocabulary, basic reading, reading comp rehension and the LPQ were given. Results, Controlling for non-verbal intelligence, there was a marked difference in receptive oral vocabula ry and a weaker difference in reading ability between the two groups. The LPQ showed that bilingual children who reported thinking in their parental language had poorer English vocabulary development than bilin gual children who preferred to think in English. Conclusions. These fi ndings are discussed in terms of either an effect of frequency of expo sure to language or in terms of differences in phonological developmen t between the two groups. The contrasting differences in the effects o f bilingualism on vocabulary and reading suggest that in this particul ar socioeconomic setting parents of both groups do not have substantia l impact on reading, but they do have an influence on the development of English oral vocabulary.