Vocabulary limitations undermine bilingual children’s reading comprehension despite bilingual cognitive strengths

Babayiğit, Selma; Hitch, Graham J.; Kandru-Pothineni, Swathi; Clarke, Annie; Warmington, Meesha · 2022 · Reading and Writing

DOI: 10.1007/s11145-021-10240-8

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Summary

This study investigates the paradoxical relationship between bilingual cognitive strengths and reading comprehension weaknesses in children. While previous research indicates that bilingualism enhances executive function, working memory, and novel-word learning, bilingual children often exhibit weaker vocabulary and reading comprehension in their second language compared to monolingual peers. The authors aimed to clarify how these cognitive and linguistic skills interact to influence reading comprehension, specifically testing whether bilingual cognitive advantages compensate for vocabulary limitations. The study involved 102 English-speaking monolingual children and 104 Hindi/Urdu-English bilingual children in the UK, with a mean age of approximately 118 months. All assessments were conducted in English. The researchers measured vocabulary (receptive and expressive), working memory, executive function (cognitive inhibition and updating), novel-word learning, and reading skills (word reading and comprehension). Statistical analyses, including Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) controlling for age and vocabulary, were used to compare group performance and determine predictors of reading comprehension. The results confirmed a bilingual advantage in working memory, novel-word learning, and verbal inhibition (letter fluency), while bilingual children demonstrated significantly weaker receptive and expressive vocabulary and lower reading comprehension scores than monolingual peers. Despite comparable word reading accuracy between groups, the bilingual group’s reading comprehension deficits persisted. Crucially, vocabulary size emerged as the most powerful unique predictor of reading comprehension for both groups. When vocabulary was statistically controlled, the bilingual disadvantage in reading comprehension disappeared, and the magnitude of bilingual advantages in cognitive tasks increased. The effects of cognitive control skills on reading comprehension were mixed and largely indirect, mediated through word reading skills. The findings suggest that bilingual children’s cognitive strengths in working memory and executive function do not offset the negative impact of limited second-language vocabulary on reading comprehension. Instead, vocabulary knowledge is the primary driver of comprehension success, regardless of bilingual status. The study concludes that educational policies must prioritize oral language assessment and support, particularly vocabulary development, to address reading comprehension challenges in multilingual classrooms. The results highlight that while bilingualism confers specific cognitive benefits, these do not automatically translate into improved reading outcomes without adequate lexical knowledge.

Key finding

Bilingual children's weaker reading comprehension is primarily driven by limitations in English vocabulary size rather than deficits in cognitive control skills, which actually show advantages compared to monolingual peers.

Methodology

lab_experiment

Sample size: 206

Provenance

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Topics

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• cognitive capacity variation