Katrin Skoruppa

This study investigated the influence of first language (L1) phonology on second language (L2) early reading skills in Sylheti‐English bilinguals ( N = 58; 48% girls; British Bangladeshi) and their monolingual‐English peers ( N = 43; 45% girls; 96% White British, 4% multiethnic British) in a diaspora context. Language‐specific phonological awareness and nonword repetition were tested at two time points (6;2–7;8 years‐old). At Time 1, the bilinguals had lower productive accuracy for phonological sequences that violated their L1 phonology ( d = .56; .84), and these skills accounted for a significant amount of variance in their reading accuracy. At Time 2, the language‐specific effects were no longer present. These findings highlight the importance of considering language structure in multilingual early literacy development.