ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the influence of cross-language literacy experience on Uyghur children's phonological awareness and literacy development. The first study, emphasizing the effects of Uyghur children's Chinese reading and writing competence, concludes that L2 plays an important role in L3 learning despite the large orthographic and linguistic differences, and that L2 reading and writing level is likely to be an important determinant of L3 metalinguistic awareness and literacy development. The effect of L2 reading and writing level on L3 learning might be achieved by promoting the development of L3 metalinguistic awareness (phonological awareness). Furthermore, to understand the effect of additional language learning on the development of bilingual children's existing phonological awareness, the second study investigated the role of English reading proficiency levels in the development of Chinese phonological awareness and literacy among Uyghur children. The results showed that the additional language learning has an overall effect on children's phonological awareness, and that as the level of additional language increases, so do the representational ability and refinement of the existing phonology. The contribution of additional language learning to children's phonological awareness is not only facilitated by the improvement of general cognitive ability, but also influenced by specific language learning experiences.
