Examining contributions of child- and classroom-level processes to cross-linguistic relations of literacy-related skills

Abstract This study examined whether cross-linguistic relations among early literacy skills in Spanish and English were consistent with child- or classroom-level processes in emergent bilinguals. Participants were 217 children followed from kindergarten to first grade across two states and instructional contexts (English-only and dual-language). In kindergarten, children completed measures of vocabulary, sentence repetition, rapid letter naming, and phonological awareness in both languages; in first grade, they completed measures of decoding, including word reading and nonword reading. Path analyses predicted first-grade reading outcomes from kindergarten language and code-related skills, first using unmanipulated scores and then using group-mean centered scores to separate child- from classroom-level variance. Results showed cross-language associations for code-related skills (particularly phonological awareness and letter naming), whereas oral language measures showed limited cross-linguistic prediction. When predicting Spanish reading from English early language and literacy, associations were consistent with child-level influences, with significant effects remaining after removing classroom-level variance. In contrast, prediction from Spanish to English was more consistent with classroom-level influences. This pattern of results suggests that cross-linguistic associations of language and literacy skills are bidirectional but asymmetric across skills, highlighting the need for instructional practices that jointly consider child abilities, classroom context, and the nature of specific literacy skills.