ERIC Number: EJ934417
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011-May
Pages: 19
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0022-0663
EISSN: N/A
Cognitive-Linguistic Foundations of Early Spelling Development in Bilinguals
Yeong, Stephanie H. M.; Rickard Liow, Susan J.
Journal of Educational Psychology, v103 n2 p470-488 May 2011
Developing spelling skills in English is a particularly demanding task for Chinese speakers because, unlike many other bilinguals learning English as a second language, they must learn two languages with different orthography as well as phonology. To disentangle socioeconomic and pedagogical factors from the underlying cognitive-linguistic processes that predict the development of spelling, we used a 6-month longitudinal design and compared children with English as their first language (English-L1; n = 50) and children with Mandarin as their first language (Mandarin-L1; n = 50) from the same kindergarten. Both groups were tested on parallel versions of English and Mandarin tasks as predictors at Time 1, and their spelling sophistication scores were then computed from a 52-item experimental task administered at Time 2. After we controlled for nonverbal IQ, age, vocabulary, and spelling achievement on Wide Range Achievement Test 4 at Time 1, regression analyses showed that phoneme awareness was the strongest predictor of spelling sophistication for English-L1 children, but syllable awareness and letter-sound knowledge were also important for Mandarin-L1 children. The implications of these differences in the cognitive-linguistic processing of bilingual children learning two dissimilar languages are briefly discussed. (Contains 5 tables.)
Descriptors: Language Processing, Spelling, Phonology, Achievement Tests, Mandarin Chinese, English (Second Language), Bilingualism, Spelling Instruction, Cognitive Processes, Longitudinal Studies, Comparative Analysis, Kindergarten, Task Analysis, Nonverbal Ability, Vocabulary, Phonemic Awareness, Scores, Tests, Regression (Statistics), Phoneme Grapheme Correspondence
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org/publications
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Kindergarten
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Wide Range Achievement Test
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A