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Purpose: Our 1-year longitudinal study tracked the development of cognate awareness among second (L2) and third language (L3) learners of French in French immersion in Grades 1 and 2 to explore the impact of orthographic overlap and cognate status (true vs. false) on children's ability to recognize cognate relationships. We also assessed the impact of French L2/L3 status on performance. Method: We compared performance on three conditions (true cognates with same and similar spellings, false cognates with same spellings) within and across grades. We used a direct measure of cognate awareness that required children (n = 81) to distinguish true from false cognates presented orally and in print. Results: Overall, Grade 1 children failed to recognize cognate relationships between true cognates with similar spellings, but successfully recognized true cognates with same spellings. Performance on all conditions increased significantly between Grades 1 and 2. The greatest improvement was seen on true cognates with similar spellings. Performance on false cognates was inferior to performance on true cognates with same spellings in Grade 1, and inferior to performance on both same and similar spelled true cognates in Grade 2. No differences were found due to L2/L3 status. Conclusions: Among sequential learners of L2/L3 French in the early stages of additional language learning, cognate awareness is impacted by the degree of orthographic overlap, as well as by cognate status. Children's ability to recognize cross-language orthographic and semantic relationships improves substantially across the early elementary grades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the within-language and cross-language relationships between orthographic processing and word reading in French and English across Grades 1 and 2. Seventy-three children in French Immersion completed measures of orthographic processing and word reading in French and English in Grade 1 and Grade 2, as well as a series of control measures. Regressions controlled for non-verbal reasoning, phonological awareness, rapid naming, and the appropriate autoregressor of orthographic processing or word reading. Orthographic processing in Grade 1 did not predict word reading in Grade 2, in either language. Instead, within both languages, word reading in Grade 1 predicted orthographic processing in Grade 2. Cross-linguistically, French word reading was a unique predictor of growth in English orthographic processing. Theoretical and practical implications of the relationships between orthographic processing and word reading in bilinguals are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across all the domains of child development, we need to understand the temporal relationship between variables suspected to underpin growth; reading research is no exception. We conducted a preliminary evaluation of the direction of the relationship between children's morphological awareness, or the awareness of and ability to manipulate the smallest meaningful units in words, and their reading accuracy. Participants were 100 Grade 2 children who were tested again in Grade 3. We evaluated the children's morphological awareness and reading accuracy, each with 2 measures, in both Grades 2 and 3. We evaluated the outcomes in a robust measurement model including controls for phonological awareness, vocabulary, and nonverbal ability. These analyses included autoregressor controls designed to provide insight into the temporal relationship between these 2 skills. We found that children's early morphological awareness was associated with their growth in reading accuracy to the same extent that their early reading accuracy was associated with their growth in morphological awareness. Our results suggest a bidirectional relationship between children's morphological awareness and their reading accuracy, a finding that informs current models of reading development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the cross-language effects of the derivational awareness of Spanish-speaking learners on English vocabulary and reading comprehension. It discusses the significant role of cognate vocabulary in derivational awareness' cross-language transfer. Findings of the study show the indirect contribution of awareness to English language reading comprehension through English morphological awareness and cognate vocabulary.