Parental level of education, instruction time, and amount of language practice that children receive have enhanced our understanding of how bilingual and multilingual children learn to comprehend text. Guided by the simple view of reading and the interdependence hypothesis, this longitudinal study conducted in Canadian French immersion programs examined the (a) within- and cross-language association between oral language skills and reading comprehension of bilingual English–French and multilingual children and (b) patterns of growth, while controlling for possible influences of parental level of education and methods of instruction on reading achievement. The sample included 150 children tested once at the beginning of Grade 4 (T1) and again at the end of Grade 4 (T2) and in Grade 6 (T3). Individual growth modeling revealed that bilingual and multilingual children showed similar development in oral language and reading skills across the timeframe. Moreover, growth in English and French reading comprehension was associated with within-language variables. English reading comprehension in Grade 4 was also associated with cross-language variables, including French listening comprehension and vocabulary knowledge. Reading development in the second and third language is enhanced in contexts where classroom instruction, as well as social, economic, and educational opportunities to learn, is equivalent for all students.

Canada has resettled more than 57,000 Syrian refugees since 2015 (Government of Canada, 2017). However, little is known about refugee children’s language and literacy development. The present study evaluated Syrian refugee children’s performance on language and literacy measures in English and Arabic, and examined whether the simple view of reading model is applicable in both of their languages. Participants consisted of 115 Syrian refugee children 6–13 years of age. They received a battery of language and literacy measures including word reading, vocabulary, oral narratives, and reading comprehension in both English and Arabic. Compared to the normative samples, refugee children performed poorly on English standardized measures. They also demonstrated difficulties in Arabic, as more than half of the children were not able to read in the language. Despite the relatively low performance, there was evidence to support the simple view of reading model in both languages. In addition, oral language skills played a larger role in English reading comprehension in the older group than the younger group. This age-group comparison was not carried out in Arabic due to reduced sample size. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.