Spelling and writing skills in minority-language bilingual children exposed to a transparent orthography: multilevel profiles and concurrent predictors

ABSTRACT

Many studies have explored how Language-Minority Bilingual Children (LMBC) read and comprehend, while the way they learn to spell and write has received less attention. This study aimed to assess a comprehensive profile of spelling and writing skills in LMBC, comparing performances of 4th and 5th grade bilingual (n = 74) and monolingual (n = 131) children in word and nonword reading and multilevel spelling and writing tasks (word, nonword and passage dictation, and written narrative production). Furthermore, we explored the role of linguistic and cognitive predictors (nonverbal Intellectual Quotient, verbal knowledge, morphosyntactic comprehension, nonword repetition) in spelling and writing outcomes. Our findings showed that, overall, LMBC did not reach a monolingual-like proficiency in spelling by the end of primary school, while they were similar to monolinguals in reading tasks and were able to produce written narratives with adequate macrostructure, syntactic complexity, and lexical variety. Moreover, morphosyntactic comprehension predicted spelling in both groups. Nonverbal intelligence and verbal knowledge predicted spelling skills only for the bilingual group. With regards to writing skills, morphosyntactic comprehension emerged as a predictor exclusively in the bilingual group. These results are discussed with reference to educational and clinical implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Bilingualism
• spelling
• orthographic skills
• written production
• morpho-syntactic comprehension
• phonology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The matrix with all correlations between variables included in the study has been added as supplementary material (Appendix 1).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexandra Affranti

Alexandra Affranti has a research grant at the Department of Psychology “Renzo Canestrari”, University of Bologna, Italy. Her main research focus is on developmental trajectories of linguistic and literacy skills in language minority bilingual children.

Valentina Tobia

Valentina Tobia is a developmental psychologist and associate professor at the Faculty of Psychology, University Vita-Salute San Raffaele, Milan, Italy. Her research areas regard the development of learning skills in typical and atypical populations, and the interaction between cognition, relational/emotional, and contextual variables in developmental age, with a specific focus on school stressors and well-being in atypical populations, using a multi-informant and multi-method approach.

Stephanie Bellocchi

Stéphanie Bellocchi is an Associate Professor of Developmental Psychology at the Department of Psychology and at the Epsylon Research lab of the Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 University, Montpellier, France. Her research focuses on reading development in monolingual and bilingual children. She also studies the impact of visual-perception skills on typical and atypical reading development. Mostly, she explores the nature of the link between visuo-attentional deficits and developmental dyslexia with or without developmental coordination disorder.

Paola Bonifacci

Paola Bonifacci is an associate professor at the Department of Psychology “Renzo Canestrari”, University of Bologna, Italy. Her research areas regard cognitive and learning processes in typical and atypical populations, with specific reference to the identification of Developmental Language Disorder and Specific Learning Disorders in bilingual populations. Research addresses the relationships between cognition, relational/emotional, and contextual variables in pre-school and school age.