Learning to read in bilingualism: Do English-Chinese bilingual children use different learning mechanisms in reading acquisition?

Nearly 25% of the Australian population are bilingual, with Chinese being the most commonly spoken second language. However, little is known about how EnglishChinese bilingual children learn to read, and whether they use the same learning mechanism when acquiring new words. This project aims to better understand how reading acquisition takes place in English-Chinese bilinguals, and how reading skills in one language affect reading acquisition in the other. The outcomes of this project include an increased understanding of the effects of bilingualism on learning to read, which will have applications to literacy instructions and interventions for reading impairments in this population.