Abstract: This study explores the relationship between Uygur children’s bilingual semantic development and cognitive school readiness. By adopting measures of PPVT and EVT in both Mandarin and the Uygur language, the study examines receptive and expressive language and cognitive school readiness of Uygur children aged between 4 and 6 years. Findings show that the semantic development in both Mandarin and the Uygur language in Uygur children is significant. Still, there is a remarkable difference in bilingual semantic development of children from kindergartens at different quality levels. Uygur children achieve over 50% of the cognitive school readiness concepts after three years of bilingual education. However, their command of concepts in different School Readiness Composite (SRC) subscales and comprehensive subscales varies greatly, implying that attention should be paid to including some concepts in the curriculum for young children. The correlational analysis demonstrates that the relationship between children’s receptive language or expressive language and cognitive school readiness is positively significant and further, the former two are strong predictors of children’s readiness skills. The study indicates that bilingual learning of Uygur children during early years facilitates their cognitive development.

Key words: preschool Uygur children, bilingual semantic development, cognitive school readiness