Children’s Expressive Language Skills and Their Impact on the Relation Between First- and Second-Language Phonological Awareness Skills

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the cross-language relations between the phonological awareness (PA) skills of preschool children learning more than one language are dependent upon their first- and second-language oral language skills. Four hundred sixty-six Spanish-speaking language minority children participated in this study. Results indicated that the relation between children’s first- and second-language PA skills varied as a function of their first- and second-language oral language skills. This effect was language specific such that only oral language skills in the same language as the PA outcome moderated the relations between children’s first- and second-language PA skills. This study helps extend findings from prior research on the cross-language transfer of PA.