Orthographic constraints on phonological awareness in biliteracy development

Abstract

This study examined how orthography-specific demands affect decoding development in 10–14-year-old multilingual students learning to read Kannada and English in India. Given that there is dual-level representation of the size of phonological information (syllable and phoneme) in alphasyllabic Kannada and single-level (phoneme) representation in alphabetic English, our study posed three questions: (1) Are there distinct phonological awareness (PA) levels corresponding to decoding development in Kannada as a first language of literacy vs. English as a second language of literacy?; (2) What is the relationship between phonological awareness in Kannada and that in English?; and (3) How does phonological awareness in Kannada contribute to decoding development in English? The results provided evidence for differences in the level at which phonological information is graphically encoded in each language. The findings further suggested that there are orthography-specific constraints on transfer of phonological awareness from alphasyllabic Kannada to alphabetic English.

Keywords:

• Biliteracy
• Alphasyllabary
• Kannada
• Transfer
• Phonological awareness

Notes

¹There were two exceptions: one father who finished middle school, and another who finished high school.

²This particular practice of “reading” entailed mostly memorisation. When the same words from the religious text were presented in isolation or reconfigured into a novel passage, even decoding was a struggle.