The reading process in bilingual and monolingual children: fluency as a mediating mechanism in a morphologically complex and transparent language

Abstract This study examines how native language status shapes the reading process in a morphologically rich and orthographically transparent language, focusing on reading fluency as a mediating mechanism linking bilingualism to reading comprehension. Participants were 330 primary school children in Grades 2 and 4 from low socioeconomic backgrounds, including 164 monolingual Turkish-speaking children and 166 Kurdish–Turkish bilingual children. Reading performance was assessed using grade-appropriate narrative and expository texts from the reading skills assessment tool (RSAT). Reading fluency was indexed by text reading time, total correct words, and correct words per minute, while comprehension was measured through responses to comprehension questions. Results indicated that bilingual children demonstrated lower reading fluency and comprehension than monolingual peers across text types. Fluency indicators were associated with comprehension outcomes among bilingual readers but not among monolinguals. Hierarchical regression analyses further showed that reading fluency partially mediated the relationship between native language status and reading comprehension. These findings suggest that in morphologically complex yet orthographically transparent languages such as Turkish, bilingual reading difficulties may primarily reflect reduced processing efficiency during text reading rather than fundamental decoding deficits.