First language impact on English reading in bilingual children: a systematic review and meta-analysis of linguistic knowledge transfer

<p dir="ltr">This thesis examines the metalinguistic awareness transfer from first language (L1) to second language (L2) reading acquisition in three essential components that support reading: phonological awareness (PA), morphological awareness (MA) and orthographic knowledge (OK). It included 88 studies and 441 effect sizes from 15 different L1s that assessed one or more of the three aforementioned components of children’s metalinguistic awareness, with reading skills of L2 fixed at English. The meta-analyses showed overall positive correlations between all three types of L1 linguistic knowledge and L2 reading skills. Further, the result revealed that the transfer effect is stronger when L1 is typologically similar to L2 English. The findings are in line with the current theories on knowledge transfer in reading acquisition. This thesis suggests a need for more experimental training research to detect direct evidence for linguistic knowledge transfer, and recommends investigating pedagogy choices on how to support bilingual students’ L2 English reading development.</p>