Investigating factors related to Chinese–English emergent bilingual children’s English letter knowledge

Abstract

<p>Children in Hong Kong are raised as emergent bilinguals, learning and using both Chinese and English. Acquiring English letters may be challenging for these children because the two languages use different language systems. Although socioeconomic status (SES) and an additional language (AL) reading indicator play critical roles in emergent bilingual children’s literacy outcomes, the literature on how emergent bilingual children’s AL reading indicator and SES relate to their English letter knowledge is limited. This study assessed the English letter knowledge of 100 emergent bilingual children in Hong Kong, with an average age of 51.4 months, and examined whether SES (female guardian’s education level and monthly household income) and an AL reading indicator (Chinese character recognition skill) predicted their English letter knowledge. On average, the children produced 17 uppercase letter names, eight uppercase letter sounds, 13 lowercase letter names, and eight lowercase letter sounds. After controlling for age and English oral proficiency, multilevel logistic regression showed that higher household income predicted higher scores in uppercase and lowercase letter sound production. A lower educational level for a female guardian predicted a child’s lowercase letter sound production scores. Chinese character recognition scores did not predict children’s English letter knowledge outcomes. No interaction effect was found between SES indicators and Chinese character recognition scores on English letter knowledge scores. The findings highlight the importance of supporting Chinese–English emergent bilingual children of lower SES backgrounds in their English letter sound knowledge, considering it is a foundational skill for early reading skills in English.<br></p>