Predictors of Spelling Development in Bilinguals: A Comparison of English L1 and Mandarin L1 Children

Abstract

The cognitive-linguistic processes underlying early spelling abilities in English were compared longitudinally in two groups of English-Mandarin bilingual children (50 English-L1 and 50 Mandarin-L1 5-6 year-olds) attending similar neighbourhood kindergartens. The three main objectives were to compare the two groups on phonological processing skills and letter knowledge, to determine the skills that contribute to word spelling sophistication over 6 months, and to compare the efficacy of L2 to L1 phonological processing skills for spelling sophistication. Regression analyses, using measures of English and Mandarin phonological processing (syllable and phoneme awareness, rapid naming, verbal short term memory and working memory) and letter knowledge, predicting spelling sophistication, revealed notable similarities as well as group differences. For both types of bilinguals, phoneme awareness at Time 1 predicted spelling sophistication at Time 2, consistent with previous work on monolingual English-speaking children. Letter knowledge was an additional predictor for Mandarin-L1 children only. Despite differences in orthography and phonology between Mandarin and English, L1 and L2 phonological processing abilities contributed comparable amounts of variance to early spelling in English.