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Article

Vocabulary, Morpho-Syntactic Skills, and Home Literacy Activities as Predictors of Reading Comprehension in Greek–English Bilingual Children: A Semi-Longitudinal Study

by
Theodora Papastefanou
1,* and
Theodoros Marinis
2,*
1
Department of Rehabilitation Sciences, Cyprus University of Technology, Limassol 3036, Cyprus
2
Linguistics Department, University of Konstanz, 78457 Konstanz, Germany
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Languages 2026, 11(5), 97; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages11050097
Submission received: 6 May 2025 / Revised: 16 February 2026 / Accepted: 22 April 2026 / Published: 11 May 2026
Versions Notes

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the performance of bilingual/biliterate children on expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills and the extent to which home literacy activities (HLA) contribute to primary school Greek–English bilingual children’s performance on reading comprehension. Forty children attending Years 1 and 3 at an English primary school in the UK were assessed in language and decoding skills. After one school year, they were assessed in oral language skills, decoding, and reading comprehension in Years 2 and 4. The children performed better on all tasks at Time 2 than at Time 1, and the older children performed better than the younger ones. Their performance was better in the English tasks than in the Greek tasks. Greek morpho-syntactic skills and HLA were significant predictors of Greek reading comprehension, suggesting that children may use their morpho-syntactic knowledge to support their reading comprehension in their heritage language. Moreover, heritage language exposure through HLA can benefit literacy of the heritage language.

1. Introduction

Reading comprehension is a complex process that requires various abilities, such as decoding—the ability to accurately and fluently convert print into the language code- and oral language skills, including vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills. Vocabulary knowledge is the most frequently evaluated skill in this field of study. Grasping word meanings is fundamentally important for understanding sentences (Nation, 2022; Perfetti, 2007). Similarly, morpho-syntactic skills are crucial for morpho-syntactic processing, which is also essential for comprehending sentences (Carlisle, 2003). Both vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills can also enhance word recognition (Carlisle, 2003), which, in turn, can indirectly improve reading comprehension. Additionally, reading comprehension can be influenced by environmental factors, such as the home literacy environment, which encompasses literacy-related activities and resources available at home. Previous studies have shown that bilingual children may have lower vocabulary scores in each individual language but comparable total vocabulary size scores across both languages (Bialystok et al., 2010; Melby-Lervåg & Lervåg, 2014), and they perform similarly or better on decoding skills than monolinguals (Bialystok et al., 2003; Janssen et al., 2013; Papastefanou et al., 2021; Schwartz et al., 2008). Recent evidence has supported these findings, indicating that bilingual children might have an advantage in decoding skills due to their experience navigating two orthographic systems (Raudszus et al., 2021). Although the significant contribution of vocabulary to reading comprehension among monolinguals has been extensively shown (e.g., Raudszus et al., 2021), its contribution among bilinguals has been less studied (Oakhill et al., 2003; Oakhill & Cain, 2012; Tannenbaum et al., 2006). Recent research has indicated that both vocabulary breadth and depth are crucial for bilingual reading comprehension (Cheng et al., 2025). Furthermore, few studies have investigated the contribution of morpho-syntactic skills to reading comprehension skills in bilingual children (Babayiğit, 2014; Babayiğit et al., 2022; Bellocchi et al., 2017; Peets et al., 2022). Importantly, morpho-syntactic skills have been shown to be a significant factor for reading comprehension, specifically in the later stages of reading in monolinguals (Bowey, 1986; Muter et al., 2004; Oakhill et al., 2003).
The home literacy environment has also been demonstrated to be a significant predictor of monolinguals’ reading comprehension (Katzir et al., 2009; Senechal, 2006; Speece et al., 2004; Van Steensel, 2006), although its contribution among bilinguals to reading comprehension has not been extensively examined (Peets et al., 2022). Our study aims to provide evidence about the factors associated with reading comprehension among bilingual and biliterate children. By separately examining expressive vocabulary1 and morpho-syntactic skills, we align our approach with recent research emphasizing the distinct roles of these language skills on reading comprehension (e.g., Marc Goodrich et al., 2023). Notably, relatively few studies have measured the effects of these factors separately on reading comprehension in both the heritage and the majority language (e.g., Peets et al., 2022). Additionally, this study examines the frequency of home literacy activities measured at an earlier time point to assess their contribution to reading comprehension in both the heritage and the majority language one year later. Importantly, our study aims to provide evidence on how exposure to two languages could affect children’s reading comprehension during a critical stage of reading development.

1.1. Development of Reading Comprehension

Decoding written text, vocabulary, and morpho-syntactic skills are all necessary for reading comprehension. The Simple View of Reading (SVR) is a very well-known theoretical framework for reading comprehension (Gough et al., 1996; Hoover & Gough, 1990). The SVR demonstrates how decoding and oral language comprehension result in reading comprehension. According to Joshi and Aaron (2000), decoding and oral language comprehension are both necessary for effective reading comprehension. As a result, readers who struggle with oral language comprehension, decoding skills, or both may have difficulties with reading comprehension (Catts et al., 2006). Phonological awareness, orthographic symbol knowledge (knowledge of the names and sounds of alphabet letters), orthographic awareness, morphological awareness, and rapid automatized naming are some of the processes and skills needed to develop decoding abilities (i.e., word reading and pseudo-word reading) (Apel et al., 2012; Carlisle, 2003; J. S. Kim & Quinn, 2013). Decoding skills include two key components: alphabetic decoding, which is the ability to recognize and sound out letters and letter patterns, and the use of stored orthographic knowledge, which helps in recognizing familiar written words quickly and accurately (Castles & Nation, 2010). According to the SVR, oral language comprehension is a broad concept that encompasses “parsing, bridging, and discourse building” (Hoover & Gough, 1990) as well as “the ability to take lexical information… and derive sentence and discourse interpretations” (Hoover & Gough, 1990; Tunmer & Chapman, 2012). Indeed, oral language comprehension encompasses higher-order processes, including syntactic parsing and discourse integration. Recent studies have demonstrated that oral language comprehension, including expressive vocabulary knowledge and morpho-syntactic skills, strongly predicts reading comprehension in bilingual children (Gonzalez-Barrero et al., 2021; Cheng et al., 2025). To capture the complexity of oral language comprehension, previous studies have employed a range of assessment approaches, including vocabulary (G. Ouellette & Beers, 2010; G. P. Ouellette, 2006), listening comprehension (Joshi et al., 2012; Lee et al., 2009; G. Ouellette & Beers, 2010), or combinations of these (Foorman et al., 2015; Kendeou et al., 2009; Protopapas et al., 2012). However, the use of diverse assessment approaches to measure oral language skills complicates our understanding of the distinct contributions of vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills.
With regard to the contributions of decoding and oral language comprehension to reading comprehension as a function of both text difficulty and readers’ skill level, several cross-sectional studies examining the SVR have shown a developmental shift (Catts et al., 2006; Gough et al., 1996). Decoding abilities can be a significant factor in reading comprehension for younger children, but as children get older and acquire more decoding abilities, oral language comprehension abilities seem to take their place as the best predictors of reading comprehension (Melby-Lervåg & Lervåg, 2014).
Most studies investigating the contribution of oral language skills to reading comprehension have used cross-sectional designs and measured oral language skills either in terms of vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, or a combination of both; very few studies have measured the contribution of vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills independently. For example, a study conducted by Babayiğit (2014) examined the variables associated with reading comprehension in a sample of 69 bilingual children between the ages of 9 and 10 who lived in the United Kingdom and spoke a range of native languages (there were 15 different native languages spoken by this sample). After controlling for verbal memory, nonverbal thinking skills, and years of formal education in England, the strongest significant predictors of reading and listening comprehension in English were both vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills. These results indicate that morpho-syntactic skills may be a separate contributor to reading comprehension from vocabulary. Although cross-sectional studies have provided valuable insights into reading comprehension in bilingual children, substantial individual variability within this population makes it challenging to draw clear conclusions about the factors shaping their reading abilities. This variability highlights the complexity of bilingual language profiles and the need for research approaches that can better capture these differences. Therefore, it is important to conduct longitudinal studies that test the same children over time and can inform about the predictive role of early language skills to reading comprehension at a later age (Giguere et al., 2024; Gunnerud et al., 2022; Luft Baker et al., 2023).
To date, there is limited evidence from studies on bilingual and biliterate children that could provide insights into the differences between reading comprehension development in bilinguals in both their heritage and majority language, as well as the effects of oral language and decoding skills on reading comprehension (Bellocchi et al., 2017; Droop & Verhoeven, 2003; Lesaux et al., 2007; Nakamoto et al., 2007). For example, Lesaux et al. (2007) examined a sample of 135 bilingual children who lived in Canada and spoke 33 native languages and found that, in addition to word reading abilities, syntactic abilities at kindergarten predicted reading comprehension at fourth grade. These findings are consistent with the SVR and other studies of bilingual children that have demonstrated significant relationships between children’s capacity to process grammatical structures and reading comprehension (Verhoeven et al., 2019). However, the study by Lesaux et al. (2007) did not measure the contribution of vocabulary to reading comprehension. Another study by Raudszus et al. (2021) found that bilingual children had higher scores on word and pseudoword decoding compared to their monolingual peers, but consistently lagged behind in reading comprehension across all grades. In addition, Raudszus et al. (2021) demonstrated that oral language skills, such as syntax, are associated with the initial status of reading comprehension, but do not affect the developmental rate in both bilingual and monolingual readers. Our study aims to provide further evidence by examining how decoding, expressive vocabulary, and morpho-syntactic skills at an early age can affect reading comprehension one year later in both their heritage and majority languages of bilingual and biliterate children. Specifically, our study is one of the few studies considering the effects of expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills as two distinct variables on reading comprehension (Bellocchi et al., 2017; Peets et al., 2022), and it provides evidence by measuring children’s heritage and majority languages.
Taken together, both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies indicate that oral language skills play a central role in children’s reading comprehension. Cross-sectional research has consistently shown that vocabulary knowledge and morphosyntactic skills are associated with reading outcomes alongside decoding (e.g., Gonzalez-Barrero et al., 2021; Marc Goodrich et al., 2023; Cheng et al., 2025). Complementary longitudinal evidence suggests that early oral language skills uniquely predict growth in reading comprehension across the school years, even after accounting for decoding ability (e.g., Castilla-Earls et al., 2020; Giguere et al., 2024; Lesaux et al., 2007). These findings highlight the need to examine vocabulary and morphosyntactic skills as distinct predictors of bilingual children’s reading comprehension, which is the focus of the present study.

1.2. Home Literacy Environment

Home literacy environment refers to the literacy activities between parents and children. Sénéchal and LeFevre (2002, 2014) have pointed out that parents typically engage in two distinct types of literacy-related activities in the home: formal activities, which involve teaching alphabet skills, playing word games, and informal activities, which are related to meaning and may include reading books, storytelling, and singing nursery rhymes. The frequency of these activity types has been shown to significantly predict early literacy development. For instance, previous evidence has demonstrated correlations between early language skills and factors, such as the frequency of parent–child shared reading, visits to the library, TV watching, and the number of books present in the home (Carroll et al., 2019; Van Bergen et al., 2017). In this study, we have measured the effects of informal activities (i.e., reading books and storytelling) on children’s reading comprehension in both their heritage and majority language.
Previous studies have shown that the home literacy environment can benefit monolinguals’ reading comprehension skills (Katzir et al., 2009; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002, 2014; Speece et al., 2004; Torppa et al., 2020; Van Steensel, 2006). Indeed, children’s language skills, such as vocabulary, can benefit from home literacy activities, demonstrating an indirect association with reading comprehension (Roth et al., 2002; Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2014). However, there is also evidence demonstrating that home literacy activities can directly contribute to reading comprehension (Van Steensel, 2006).
Less is known about the relationship between such experiences and reading comprehension abilities in bilingual children. Some studies have examined the effect of the home literacy environment on the language development of second language learners (Chow et al., 2009; Farver et al., 2013; Gonzalez & Uhing, 2008), but there is a lack of evidence that specifically measures the effect of home language activities on reading comprehension. Howard et al. (2014) examined its combined role alongside SES, school language and literacy activities, and vocabulary, and found that home literacy was not a significant predictor at the second-grade level but was significant at the fifth-grade level, predicting 13% of the variance in reading comprehension. Moreover, Paradis (2019) stressed that the quantity of the literacy input is essential for literacy development in bilingual children. In terms of home literacy environment factors, Paradis and Jia (2017) examined how these factors could have an impact on the English learning outcomes of 21 Chinese–English bilingual children. The results showed that activities such as reading books, digital device usage, and formal literacy activities could predict children’s performance in their oral language skills in their second language, but did not measure their literacy skills. Taken together, it is crucial to take into account the effects of the home literacy environment, specifically book reading and storytelling, on reading comprehension because it is a well-established fact that it helps readers increase their knowledge of uncommon words and morpho-syntactic features (Farrant & Zubrick, 2013; Hargrave & Sénéchal, 2000; Wasik et al., 2016; Wesseling et al., 2017). As a result, reading a book can positively affect vocabulary development and, in turn, reading comprehension (Silinskas et al., 2020).

1.3. The Present Study

The present study aimed to investigate the performance of bilingual and biliterate children in language and literacy measures in both their languages. Specifically, we aimed at providing evidence regarding whether or not decoding and oral language skills in terms of expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills in Year 1 and Year 3 (Time 1 = T1) predict the children’s performance on reading comprehension one year later, i.e., in Year 2 and Year 4 (Time 2 = T2). Based on the SVR, the hypothesis was that decoding, as well as expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills, would predict the children’s performance on reading comprehension (Bellocchi et al., 2017; Peets et al., 2022). Moreover, to address our limited knowledge about the role of home literacy activities on reading comprehension abilities in bilingual children, this study investigates the extent to which home literacy activities (i.e., reading books, storytelling, and TV viewing) at T1 contribute to primary school bilingual children’s performance on reading comprehension at T2.
The research questions were:
  • Do expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, and decoding at T1 predict reading comprehension at T2 separately in each language in bilinguals?
  • Do home literacy activities at T1 predict the bilingual children’s performance on reading comprehension at T2 in addition to decoding, expressive vocabulary, and morpho-syntactic skills?

2. Methodology

Participants

Forty typically developing Greek–English bilingual and biliterate children were recruited from primary schools in the London, Reading, and Oxford areas: 20 from Year 1 (Younger) (Mean age = 76.6 months, SD = 3.6, 14 boys and 6 girls) and 20 from Year 3 (Older) (Mean age = 100.4 months, SD = 3.4, 9 boys and 11 girls). The children were assessed in a range of tasks to address the research questions of the study—see Section 3, below. The children were reassessed one school year later. All children attended an English mainstream primary school and a Greek supplementary school where they developed their Greek literacy skills (Papastergiou & Sanoudaki, 2022). Most children were born in the U.K., but some were born in Greece and moved to the UK at least 2 years before the commencement of the study. The children mostly came from families of average and above-average socioeconomic status. The educational levels of parents were similar across the groups (Papastefanou et al., 2019). Previous analysis of the bilingual sample showed that, as a group, the children were Greek-dominant before the age of 4 but English-dominant now (Papastefanou et al., 2019). Moreover, none of them had any history of speech and/or language delay or impairment, and their parents were not concerned about their language development. All children had attended Reception classes in the U.K., the first year of formal schooling.

3. Materials

Standardized and non-standardized assessments were used to measure the children’s expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic, and decoding skills, as well as reading comprehension in Greek and English; a parental questionnaire measured the children’s language history, the amount of language input, and exposure. Specifically, we measured expressive vocabulary by administering the Renfrew Word Finding Vocabulary Scale to measure English vocabulary (Renfrew, 1995) and its Greek adaptation to measure Greek Vocabulary (Vogindroukas et al., 2009); we measured morpho-syntactic skills using the English and Greek LITMUS Sentence Repetition Tasks (SRT) (Armon-Lotem & Marinis, 2015) and decoding skills using the Test of Word Reading Efficiency (TOWRE) (Torgesen et al., 1999) and its adaptation in Greek (2012). A detailed description of the tasks can be found in Papastefanou et al. (2019). With regard to reading comprehension, we used the primary version of the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (Snowling et al., 2009) and its adaptation in Greek. A detailed description of the tasks can be found in (Papastefanou et al., 2021).
Home literacy environment: To measure the children’s frequency of home literacy activities, we used the Questionnaire for Parents of Bilingual Children (LITMUS-PABIQ) (Tuller, 2015). The LITMUS-PABIQ includes sections on the child’s early language history, current language skills, languages used in their home, home literacy activities, languages spoken outside the home, and how often the child communicates in different languages. It also includes information about maternal and paternal education and their proficiency in each language. In the current study, we present data regarding the section collecting information on the frequency of children’s home literacy activities in each language (namely, reading books and storytelling). Parents had to report how often their child engaged in literacy activities in different languages, English and Greek, every day, based on a scale from 0 to 4 (0—never or almost never; 1—at least once a week; 2—every day). The data are summarized in Table 1.

Procedure

At both time points, children were individually assessed in a quiet room in their schools or homes. At both time points, data collection took place in two sessions lasting around 45 min each. In the first session of Time 1, we measured the English language and literacy tasks (vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, and decoding), and the participants’ parents completed the LITMUS-PABIQ questionnaire. In the second session, we administered the Greek language and literacy tasks. The same procedure was used in Time 2 except that the children’s parents did not complete the LITMUS-PABIQ again. In Time 2, we also administered the reading comprehension assessment in both languages. Time 2 took place one school year after the first one. To avoid order effects, we counterbalanced the order of the sessions as well as the order of the tests within each session. Parental written consent was obtained before data collection could commence.

4. Results

We first present the children’s results in expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, decoding, and reading comprehension tasks in the two languages at the two testing points descriptively. We then proceed with analyses addressing our two research questions: (1) the predictive role of oral language skills and decoding at Time 1 on reading comprehension at Time 2, and (2) the predictive role of home literacy activities at Time 1 in addition to the children’s performance on oral language skills at Time 1 on reading comprehension at Time 2.

4.1. Overall Results in the Children’s Performance in Expressive Vocabulary, Morpho-Syntactic Skills, Decoding, and Reading Comprehension Tasks in the Two Languages at the Two Testing Points

Table 2 summarizes the children’s performance on expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, decoding, and reading comprehension tasks in the two languages at the two testing points. The children scored better on all tasks at Time 2 than they did at Time 1, and the older children had higher scores than the younger ones. Additionally, they had higher scores in the English tasks than in the Greek ones. This illustrated that English was the dominant language among children. Second, the documented shift in language dominance from the minority to the majority language before school is consistent with previous research on language dominance in children (Scheffner Hammer et al., 2008; Sheng, 2014). Indeed, even the Year 1 students in our sample scored better in the English than in the Greek tasks. The participants of our study had either been born in or had relocated to the U.K. at least two years before taking part in our study, and they had attended nursery school, including Reception, which in the U.K. precedes Year 1 and is the first year of formal schooling. As a result, by the time the current study was carried out, their language dominance had already changed from Greek to English due to their experience attending pre-school in the U.K. A detailed description of the children’s performance on language and literacy tasks can be found in a previous study (Papastefanou et al., 2021).

4.2. Predictive Role of Expressive Vocabulary, Decoding, and Morpho-Syntactic Skills at T1 on T2 Reading Comprehension, Examined Separately Within Each Language

To examine the predictive effects of expressive vocabulary, decoding, and morpho-syntactic skills on each group’s performance in reading comprehension, we ran linear mixed-effects regressions (LMER) for each language separately. The predictors in the models were groups’ scores on the tests assessing expressive vocabulary, decoding, morpho-syntactic skills, and the dependent measure was the reading comprehension score. Individual participants’ intercepts were included in each model as a random intercept. All statistical analyses were completed using the statsmodels 0.14.4 module in Python (Python version 3.11). Collinearity was assessed via the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) computed on the fixed-effects design matrix; all VIFs were below 4, indicating at most moderate correlation among predictors.
Age was not included as a model term. Instead, each T1 predictor (expressive vocabulary, decoding, morpho-syntactic skills) was residualized for T1 age, and the T2 reading comprehension outcome was residualized for T2 age. All residualized variables were then z-standardized within language prior to modeling.
Primary inference used a joint Participant-random LMM with Language (Greek, English), the T1 predictors, and all Language × Predictor interactions as fixed effects, plus a random intercept for Participant (two observations per child: one per language). Per-language effects were obtained by reparameterizing the same model with each language as the reference in turn.
The model showed a unique positive effect of English expressive vocabulary (T1) on T2 English reading comprehension (β = 0.48, SE = 0.16, z = 3.05, p = 0.002, 95% CI [0.17, 0.79]). In contrast, English decoding (T1) did not account for additional variance once the other predictors were included (β = 0.06, SE = 0.14, z = 0.43, p = 0.669), nor did English morpho-syntactic skills (T1) (β = 0.10, SE = 0.13, z = 0.77, p = 0.441). This pattern indicates that English reading comprehension is primarily predicted by expressive vocabulary rather than by decoding or morpho-syntactic skills, at this stage.
Both Greek expressive vocabulary (T1) and morpho-syntactic skills (T1) uniquely predicted T2 Greek reading comprehension. Expressive vocabulary showed a significant positive effect (β = 0.32, SE = 0.12, z = 2.67, p = 0.008, 95% CI [0.08, 0.56]), as did morpho-syntactic skills (β = 0.29, SE = 0.11, z = 2.64, p = 0.008, 95% CI [0.07, 0.50]). Decoding (T1) was not significant (β = 0.07, SE = 0.15, z = 0.45, p = 0.655). These findings suggest that, in the heritage language, both lexical and grammatical knowledge make independent contributions to later reading comprehension (Bellocchi et al., 2017).

4.3. Predictive Role of the Children’s Performance on Oral Language Skills and Home Literacy Activities at Time 1 and Reading Comprehension at Time 2

The second research question addressed whether home literacy activities, in addition to expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, and decoding at Time 1, could predict reading comprehension at Time 2. The hypothesis was that home literacy activities would contribute to bilingual children’s performance on reading comprehension in addition to expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, and decoding. Moreover, we hypothesized that the predictive role of home literacy activities on reading comprehension would be stronger in Greek than in English.
English expressive vocabulary (T1) remained a significant positive predictor after adding in English home literacy activities (β = 0.46, SE = 0.15, z = 3.04, p = 0.002, 95% CI [0.17, 0.75]). Neither English decoding (T1) (β = 0.03, SE = 0.14, z = 0.21, p = 0.835, 95% CI [−0.25, 0.31]) nor morpho-syntactic skills (T1) (β = 0.08, SE = 0.13, z = 0.62, p = 0.534, 95% CI [−0.17, 0.33]) were significant predictors, and the home literacy activities did not uniquely predict English reading comprehension (β = −0.05, SE = 0.10, z = −0.50, p = 0.616, 95% CI [−0.25, 0.15]). Thus, once language skills are considered, the frequency of English home literacy activities does not add predictive value beyond vocabulary.
Greek expressive vocabulary (T1), morpho-syntactic skills (T1), and home literacy activities in Greek (T1) were all significant positive predictors of T2 reading comprehension. Expressive vocabulary: β = 0.28, SE = 0.12, z = 2.33, p = 0.020, 95% CI [0.05, 0.51]; morpho-syntactic skills: β = 0.26, SE = 0.11, z = 2.36, p = 0.018, 95% CI [0.05, 0.48]; HLA in Greek: β = 0.24, SE = 0.10, z = 2.40, p = 0.016, 95% CI [0.05, 0.44]. These results suggest that, for the heritage language, both oral language skills and home-literacy activities jointly support later reading comprehension.

5. Discussion

This study aimed to investigate the performance of bilingual and biliterate children on language and literacy measures. Specifically, we measured the predictive role of expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, decoding, and home literacy activities on reading comprehension performance in Greek–English bilingual and biliterate children. The hypothesis was that expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills, aspects of oral language skills, and also decoding would contribute to bilingual children’s performance on reading comprehension (Peets et al., 2022). Additionally, we hypothesized that the frequency of home literacy activities would benefit children’s reading performance in each language separately (Cárdenas-Hagan et al., 2007; Dixon, 2011; Scheele et al., 2010). This is one of the few studies examining bilingual and biliterate children’s performance of reading comprehension, taking into account the effects of home literacy activities (Peets et al., 2022). Moreover, our study provides evidence regarding the differential contribution of expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills on children’s reading comprehension and contributes to understanding the factors that promote reading comprehension among bilingual and biliterate children.
Children performed better on every task in Time 2 than they did in Time 1, and the older children (in Year 3/4) performed better than the younger ones (in Year 1/2); they also scored higher in the English than the Greek tasks (Papastefanou et al., 2021). This finding demonstrated that children’s dominant language was English. Second, the observed shift in language dominance from the minority (Greek) to the majority language (English) prior to starting school aligns with previous studies on children’s language dominance (Hoff et al., 2021; Oppenheim et al., 2020). Specifically, children, even in Year 1, performed better in the English than in the Greek tasks. This can be explained by the fact that children had attended nursery school, which in the U.K. comes before Year 1 and is the first year of formal education.

Effects of Expressive Vocabulary, Morpho-Syntactic Skills, Decoding, and Home Literacy Activities on Bilinguals’ Reading Comprehension

The first research question examined whether expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, and decoding at Time 1 could separately predict reading comprehension at Time 2 in bilinguals. The hypothesis was that expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, and decoding would contribute to bilingual children’s performance on reading comprehension, but expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills would be stronger predictors of bilinguals’ reading comprehension.
The results for the children’s heritage language showed that Greek expressive vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills were a significant predictor of Greek reading comprehension, suggesting that bilinguals may use vocabulary and morpho-syntactic knowledge to support their reading comprehension in their heritage language (Marc Goodrich et al., 2023; Peets et al., 2022). With regard to the predictive power of expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, and decoding on reading comprehension in their majority language, the results showed that expressive vocabulary in English was the only significant predictor of English reading comprehension. These findings are in line with previous cross-sectional studies demonstrating that vocabulary may play a key role in advanced levels of reading among bilinguals (e.g., Muter et al., 2004), as well as with the longitudinal studies by Lesaux et al. (2007) and Geva and Farnia (2012), showing that vocabulary is associated with the growth of reading comprehension, suggesting that bilinguals may use this ability to support their reading comprehension. Our findings differ from Raudszus et al.’s (2021) study, demonstrating that oral language skills, such as vocabulary and morpho-syntactic skills, are associated with the initial status of reading comprehension but do not affect both bilingual and monolingual readers alike. The participants in the present study differ from those in previous studies: they were bilingual and biliterate, and formed a relatively homogeneous group, all speaking the same heritage language.
Τhe results of our study showed that decoding was not a significant predictor of reading comprehension in either the heritage or the majority language. Some studies have argued that decoding can be a significant factor in reading comprehension for younger children, but as children get older and acquire more decoding skills, oral language skills may take their place as the best predictors of reading comprehension (Catts et al., 2006; Gough et al., 1996). On the other hand, other studies have demonstrated that oral language skills may be a significant predictor of reading comprehension even at earlier stages of reading development (Lesaux et al., 2007). Our findings are in line with Bellocchi et al.’s (2017) findings, demonstrating that oral language skills, especially morpho-syntactic skills, are the main predictors of reading comprehension among children from different language backgrounds who are learning a highly transparent language (e.g., Greek).
The second research question examined whether expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, and decoding at Time 1 and home literacy activities could separately predict reading comprehension at Time 2 in bilinguals. This is one of the few studies to examine the relationship between home literacy activities and reading comprehension among bilingual and biliterate children. Studies on monolinguals have mainly demonstrated an indirect link between reading books in the home and reading comprehension, which is typically moderated by vocabulary development (Senechal, 2006), but not all studies have illustrated this link (Verhoeven & van Elsäcker, 2016; Wesseling et al., 2017). Unlike Peets et al. (2022), the results of the present study found that home literacy activities were a significant predictor of reading comprehension in the heritage language but not in English. The predictive role of Greek home literacy activities for reading comprehension in Greek is likely to be related to the fact that, in bilingual households, they are one of the main sources of input and use of the heritage language, but not all families use them to the same extent. Children whose families engaged more in literacy activities were the ones who also showed better reading comprehension in Greek. In contrast, the fact that English home literacy activities did not predict English reading comprehension could be related to multiple reasons. First, because all children attend English-medium schools, they engage in literacy activities within the school and develop their reading comprehension skills more or less to the same extent at school, i.e., there is less individual variability in the engagement of children in literacy activities in English. Second, children’s input to English is abundant outside the home environment for all children because they live in the U.K. In addition, families may not be involved in home literacy activities in English if they focus their effort on exposing their children to Greek (W.-J. Kim & Yim, 2024; Li et al., 2023). Taken together, these considerations help explain why home literacy activities relate more strongly to Greek than to English reading comprehension. Finally, the lack of home literacy activities as a significant predictor of reading comprehension in Peets et al. (2022) could have resulted from the nature and the quality of home literacy activities measured in their study.
As the vocabulary in books includes words that are linked to academic language, reading frequently may have played a particular role in the development of children’s literacy skills. This is particularly important because of its implications for home literacy environments. Families whose home language is not English may benefit most from informal literacy activities, such as storytelling, since they could support their children’s English literacy. In addition, heritage language exposure through home literacy activities may benefit reading comprehension of the heritage language (Scheele et al., 2010). Supporting heritage language and literacy skills could help maintain the heritage language and also support the dominant language, because several language skills are considered transferable across languages (August & Shanahan, 2006).
Finally, it is imperative to consider the literacy activities provided within homes, given that the quality of interactions between caregivers and children significantly affects the development of children’s literacy skills (Lau & Richards, 2021; Paradis, 2019). Our findings are in line with previous studies, suggesting that engaging in activities, such as reading books and storytelling, can positively impact children’s language and literacy skills (Evans & Shaw, 2008; Lau & Richards, 2021).
Our findings should be interpreted with several limitations in consideration. The sample size of approximately 40 children restricts statistical power, reducing sensitivity to small unique effects and cross-language differences. In addition, the home literacy environment was indexed through parent-reported frequency of book reading and storytelling, a method vulnerable to recall and social-desirability biases and one that does not capture the quality of interaction, the language used during activities, or text difficulty, all of which are likely to bear more directly on comprehension growth. Moreover, we employed a composite score that combined book reading and storytelling, which prevents identification of whether the observed association with reading comprehension is driven by one component or by their joint influence; future work should disaggregate these activities and evaluate their qualitative features. Finally, reading comprehension was not assessed at Time 1, which precluded modeling within-child change and confined our inferences to predictive rather than fully longitudinal conclusions. Despite these constraints, the study offers valuable evidence regarding the relations between home literacy engagement, language skills, and subsequent reading comprehension in bilingual, biliterate children.

6. Conclusions

This study is one of the few studies examining bilingual and biliterate children’s performance in language and reading skills, considering the effects of home literacy activities. Specifically, our study explored the effects of expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, decoding, and home literacy activities in bilinguals’ and biliterates’ development of reading comprehension in both of their spoken languages. We found that oral language skills predict reading comprehension in both of their languages. In addition, home literacy activities in Greek were a significant predictor of reading comprehension in that language, illustrating the importance of exposure to the heritage language through informal literacy activities for its maintenance and development (Dickinson & Porche, 2011). Crucially, there was no evidence of negative effects of exposure to Greek on English reading comprehension, suggesting that support of the heritage language does not affect children’s majority language negatively. The results of the present study expanded our current understanding by providing evidence concerning the home literacy environment among bilingual and biliterate children who speak Greek as their heritage language and English as their majority language. Moreover, these findings contribute to the existing literature regarding the factors that can facilitate bilingual and biliterate children’s reading comprehension.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, T.P. and T.M.; methodology, T.P. and T.M.; validation, T.P. and T.M.; formal analysis, T.P.; investigation, T.P. and T.M.; data curation, T.P. and T.M.; writing—original draft preparation, T.P.; writing—review and editing, T.P. and T.M.; visualization, T.P.; supervision, T.M. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences at the University of Reading and has been given a favorable ethical opinion for conduct (ethics application number: 2016-217-TM). All of the investigators on this project have had criminal records checks and have been approved to work with children.

Informed Consent Statement

Informed consent was obtained from all subjects involved in the study.

Data Availability Statement

The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author due to privacy reasons.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Note

1
Expressive vocabulary refers to the set of words that an individual can actively retrieve and use correctly in spoken or written language. It reflects the productive aspect of vocabulary knowledge, requiring not only recognition but also accurate selection and retrieval of words in communication (Biemiller, 2005; Hadley et al., 2019). Expressive vocabulary is a critical component of oral language skills and has been linked to reading comprehension development in both monolingual and bilingual children (G. Ouellette & Beers, 2010; Luo et al., 2021).

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Table 1. Descriptive statistics of home literacy activities in Greek and English. All scores were derived from the LITMUS-PABIQ parent-report questionnaire.
Table 1. Descriptive statistics of home literacy activities in Greek and English. All scores were derived from the LITMUS-PABIQ parent-report questionnaire.
Home Literacy ActivitiesGreekEnglish
YoungerOlderYoungerOlder
Reading booksMean1.351.100.901.25
SD0.490.550.310.52
Min-Max1–20–20–10–2
StorytellingMean1.51.000.900.55
SD0.510.720.710.67
Min-Max1–20–20–20–2
Table 2. Descriptive statistics of the bilingual children’s performance on the Greek and English expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, decoding (real-words, pseudo-words), and reading comprehension tasks (percentage correct) at Time 1 and Time 2.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics of the bilingual children’s performance on the Greek and English expressive vocabulary, morpho-syntactic skills, decoding (real-words, pseudo-words), and reading comprehension tasks (percentage correct) at Time 1 and Time 2.
TaskGreekEnglish
T1: YoungerT1: OlderT2: YoungerT2:
Older		T1: YoungerT1: OlderT2: YoungerT2:
Older
Expressive vocabularyMean58.173.865.279.776.487.680.291.4
SD8.5512.78.312.69.339.967.487.23
Min-Max42–7050–9450–7656–9866–10070–10070–9474–100
Morpho-syntactic skillsMean28.246.537.656.244.258.2849.8764.37
SD10.910.28.87.55.18.544.675.89
Min-Max16–5422–5827–5237–6536–5341–7041–5650–72
DecodingMean52.977.358.881.167.7683.6872.0386.86
SD19.114.517.714.512.14.748.664.68
Min-Max27–8534–9632–8941–9841–8872–9058–8774–93
Reading comprehensionMean--24.752.8--45.5367.39
SD--6.610.6--9.3613.49
Min-Max--13–3131–69--31–6842–86
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Papastefanou, T.; Marinis, T. Vocabulary, Morpho-Syntactic Skills, and Home Literacy Activities as Predictors of Reading Comprehension in Greek–English Bilingual Children: A Semi-Longitudinal Study. Languages 2026, 11, 97. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages11050097

AMA Style

Papastefanou T, Marinis T. Vocabulary, Morpho-Syntactic Skills, and Home Literacy Activities as Predictors of Reading Comprehension in Greek–English Bilingual Children: A Semi-Longitudinal Study. Languages. 2026; 11(5):97. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages11050097

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Papastefanou, Theodora, and Theodoros Marinis. 2026. "Vocabulary, Morpho-Syntactic Skills, and Home Literacy Activities as Predictors of Reading Comprehension in Greek–English Bilingual Children: A Semi-Longitudinal Study" Languages 11, no. 5: 97. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages11050097

APA Style

Papastefanou, T., & Marinis, T. (2026). Vocabulary, Morpho-Syntactic Skills, and Home Literacy Activities as Predictors of Reading Comprehension in Greek–English Bilingual Children: A Semi-Longitudinal Study. Languages, 11(5), 97. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages11050097

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