Contribution of executive functions to reading comprehension in bilingual and monolingual 3rd grade children

Reading comprehension is a complex skill, which relies on language comprehension and reading fluency, as well as higher-order cognitive skills, including executive functions. Bilingual children, who speak a heritage language, have less exposure to the societal language and thus may experience difficulties in reading comprehension, related to reduced linguistic knowledge. Here we examined the possibility that bilingual children may be able to recruit additional cognitive abilities to support their reading comprehension. Thus, we tested third grade children who are either monolingual speakers of Hebrew (n = 86) or bilingual speakers of Hebrew and an additional heritage language (n = 86). Participants completed assessments of reading comprehension, reading fluency, Hebrew vocabulary and executive functions (working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility). Results showed higher scores for monolingual children in reading fluency, vocabulary, and reading comprehension, but no group differences in executive function skills. For both groups, reading fluency and vocabulary contributed to reading comprehension. The picture for executive functions was more complex. When analyzing all children, both working memory and inhibition significantly predicted reading comprehension. However, when examining each group separately, none of the executive functions were meaningful predictors of reading comprehension for monolingual children, whereas for bilingual children inhibition significantly predicted reading comprehension. We interpret this pattern as suggesting that bilingual children may rely more on executive functions in order to overcome vocabulary and reading difficulties and possibly to manage interference from the other language.