Cross‐Linguistic Transfer of Phonological Awareness and Reading Skills in Russian–Uzbek Bilingual Children

ABSTRACT Background Bilingualism and biliteracy impact the development of phonological awareness and reading. However, existing research is Indo‐European‐centric, limiting our understanding of reading development in diverse linguistic environments. Method Addressing this gap, this study examined the relation between phonological awareness and reading in monolingual and bilingual/biliterate children in Uzbekistan, where both Uzbek and Russian are widely spoken. One hundred two Uzbek–Russian bilingual and 98 Uzbek monolingual (6–10 years; Grades 1–4) children in Uzbekistan completed phonological awareness and reading tasks. All children attended a bilingual school; however, the language of instruction was primarily Uzbek for Uzbek children and Russian for Uzbek–Russian bilinguals. Results Overall, children demonstrated stronger reading skills in their respective language of instruction; however, bilingual children showed stronger reading skills than monolinguals, despite being instructed in their second language. This suggests that bilingual children demonstrate a reading advantage when tested in instructional languages, but not in non‐instructional languages. Bilinguals' phonological awareness significantly predicted cross‐linguistic reading performance, specifically from the instructional language (Russian) to the non‐instructional language (Uzbek). Conclusion Phonological awareness is a significant cross‐linguistic predictor of reading skills, even when the languages have overlapping but competing orthographies, providing support for interactive cross‐linguistic transfer in reading.