Extensive evidence indicates that oral language skills at school entry predict later reading development among monolingual children. It is not clear if the effect is the same for bilingually developing children and whether their oral skills in one language can transfer to reading comprehension in the other. The current longitudinal study followed 72 Spanish-English bilingual children (42 girls, 30 boys) and examined the extent to which early oral language proficiency in English and in Spanish were related to later reading comprehension development within- and across-languages. Multilevel models revealed significant within-language relations between oral language skills at 5 years and reading comprehension growth from 6 to 8 years in both English and Spanish. Additionally, English oral skill predicted Spanish reading comprehension, whereas Spanish oral skill was unrelated to English reading comprehension. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2019. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

This study investigated the underlying factor structure of second language (L2) cloze test performance as explained by a theoretical model including the following hypothetical constructs: cloze-taking ability, knowledge of language, knowledge of text content, and knowledge of contextual constraints. Eight cloze tests reflecting the posited factors were constructed and administered to 182 Francophone, university-level students. The factors were examined separately and in combination through a causal model building process. A model composed of three orthogonal factors was confirmed and accepted as the best explanation of the data. The results indicate that cloze performance is dependent upon knowledge of a specific language (second language or first language) and nonlinguistic-specific knowledge related to close-taking ability that crosses over linguistic boundaries. Cloze has been considered as an overall L2 proficiency measure. This study empirically demonstrates that factors other than language are significantly contributing to cloze performance. It also demonstrates the potential of a causal modeling approach.

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