Development of phonological awareness in English-Mandarin bilinguals: a comparison of English-L1 and Mandarin-L1 kindergarten children

Neural substrates of L2-L1 transfer effects on phonological awareness in young Chinese-English bilingual children

The growing trend of bilingual education between Chinese and English has contributed to a rise in the number of early bilingual children, who were exposed to L2 prior to formal language instruction of L1. The L2-L1 transfer effect in an L1-dominant environment has been well established. However, the threshold of L2 proficiency at which such transfer manifests remains unclear. This study investigated the behavioral and neural processes involved when manipulating phonemes in an auditory phonological task to uncover the transfer effect in young bilingual children. Sixty-two first graders from elementary schools in Taiwan were recruited in this study (29 Chinese monolinguals, 33 Chinese-English bilinguals). The brain activity was measured using fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy). Bilingual children showed right lateralization to process Chinese and left lateralization to process English, which supports more on the accommodation effect within the framework of the assimilation-accommodation hypothesis. Also, compared to monolinguals, bilingual children showed more bilateral frontal activation in Chinese, potentially reflecting a mixed influence from L2-L1 transfer effects and increased cognitive load of bilingual exposure. These results elucidate the developmental adjustments in the neural substrates associated with early bilingual exposure in phonological processing, offering valuable insights into the bilingual learning process.

Effects of orthographic transparency on rhyme judgement

This study investigated the influence of multiliteracy in opaque orthographies on phonological awareness. Using a visual rhyme judgement task in English, we assessed phonological processing in three multilingual and multiliterate populations who were distinguished by the transparency of the orthographies they can read in (N = 135; ages 18-40). The first group consisted of 45 multilinguals literate in English and a transparent Latin orthography like Malay; the second group consisted of 45 multilinguals literate in English and transparent orthographies like Malay and Arabic; and the third group consisted of 45 multilinguals literate in English, transparent orthographies, and Mandarin Chinese, an opaque orthography. Results showed that all groups had poorer performance in the two opaque conditions: rhyming pairs with different orthographic endings and non-rhyming pairs with similar orthographic endings, with the latter posing the greatest difficulty. Subjects whose languages consisted of half or more opaque orthographies performed significantly better than subjects who knew more transparent orthographies than opaque orthographies. The findings are consistent with past studies that used the visual rhyme judgement paradigm and suggest that literacy experience acquired over time relating to orthographic transparency may influence performance on phonological awareness tasks.

The Specificity Principle in Young Dual Language Learners' English Development

This study employs the Specificity Principle to examine the relative impacts of external (input quantity at home and at school, number of books and reading frequency at home, teachers' degree and experience, language usage, socioeconomic status) and internal factors (children's working memory, nonverbal intelligence, learning-related social-skills, chronological age, gender) on children's English-language development in phonological awareness (PA), receptive vocabulary (RV), and word reading (WR). Altogether, 736 four- to five-year-old Singaporean Mandarin-English speaking kindergarteners were assessed twice longitudinally. Their English-language PA, RV, and WR development was predicted using the eight external factors and five internal factors with Bayesian least absolute shrinkage and selection operators. Internal factors explained more variance than external factors in all three language domains. External factors had their largest impact on RV.

The Impact of Different Writing Systems on Children's Spelling Error Profiles: Alphabetic, Akshara, and Hanzi Cases

The importance of literacy in academics and the predominantly digital world cannot be understated. The literacy component of writing is less researched than that of reading, even though it holds equal significance for modern success. Spelling is an important aspect of the construct of literacy, and is more difficult to acquire than reading. Previous work on spelling error analysis for English provides insight into the sets of knowledge and cognitive processes required for children to perform the task, and their different strategies across development. However, different sets of skills and strategies may contribute to spelling across types of orthographies. In this study, we extend spelling error analysis to groups of biliterate children learning two scripts, which include English plus either: (a) another Latin-script alphabet with a shallow orthography (Malay); (b) a transparent alphasyllabary using akshara (Tamil); or (c) a non-alphabetic, morphosyllabic script using simplified hanzi characters (Mandarin Chinese). These sets of scripts vary in how speech is mapped to print. We utilized an error coding scheme based on triple-code theory to enumerate the occurrence of phonological, orthographic (graphemic), and morphological (semantic) types of spelling errors across the three language groups. Five hundred and sixty-eight Grade 1, 6-year-old children participated, with 128 English + Malay, 119 English + Tamil, and 321 English + Chinese children in each bilingual group. They completed a spelling to dictation task in their Asian language, with ten words taken from the grade level curriculum per language. Results indicate group differences in the proportions of error types, with more overall errors for Tamil, more phonological errors for Malay, and more irrelevant or non-sense words for Chinese. The implications are that different scripts present different challenges for young learners.

Teacher's code-switching and bilingual children's heritage language learning and cognitive switching flexibility

To code-switch or not to code-switch? This is a dilemma for many bilingual language teachers. In this study, the influence of teachers' CS on bilingual children's language and cognitive development is explored within heritage language (HL) classes in Singapore. Specifically, the relationship between children's language output, vocabulary development, and cognitive flexibility to teachers' classroom CS behavior, is examined within 20 preschool HL classrooms (10 Mandarin, 6 Malay, and 4 Tamil). Teachers' and children's utterances were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed for CS frequency and type (i.e., inter-sentential, intra-sentential). 173 students were assessed with receptive vocabulary and dimensional card sort tasks, and their vocabulary and cognitive switching scores assessed using correlational and mixed effects analyses. Results show that inter-sentential and intra-sentential CS frequency is positively and significantly related to children's intra-sentential CS frequency. Overall, findings revealed that teachers code-switched habitually more often than for instructional purposes. Neither inter-sentential nor intra-sentential CS was significantly related to children's development in HL vocabulary, and intra-sentential CS was found to positively and significantly relate to children's growth in cognitive flexibility. These findings reveal the multi-faceted impact of teacher's CS on children's early development.

Bidirectional Cross-Linguistic Association of Phonological Skills and Reading Comprehension: Evidence From Hong Kong Chinese-English Bilingual Readers

This study examined the roles of first-language (L1) Chinese and second-language (L2) English phonological skills in English and Chinese reading comprehension, respectively, and their association with reading comprehension difficulties among Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children. We tested 258 second graders on nonverbal intelligence, working memory, phonological skills, word reading, and reading comprehension, in both Chinese and English. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that Chinese phonological skills contributed to English reading comprehension both directly and indirectly, through the mediation of English phonological skills and English word reading. In contrast, English phonological skills contributed only indirectly to Chinese reading comprehension through L1 Chinese phonological and word reading skills. Furthermore, poor Chinese readers, poor English readers, and poor readers in both Chinese and English exhibited lower levels of lexical tone awareness than average readers, even after controlling for nonverbal intelligence, word reading, and working memory. Poor Chinese readers outperformed poor English readers and poor readers in both Chinese and English on Chinese segmental phonological awareness, and their performance was comparable to average readers. These findings suggest that both suprasegmental and segmental phonological skills are critical to the development of reading comprehension across L1 Chinese and L2 English in Hong Kong Chinese-English bilingual children.

Early Reading Abilities of Bilingual Children With Nonsyndromic Orofacial Clefts

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the early reading abilities, and related cognitive-linguistic processes, in bilingual children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P), and to identify deficits that might be amenable to intervention.

DESIGN AND PARTICIPANTS

Bilingual participants with CL/P aged 5 to 6 years who were English-dominant ( n=17) or Mandarin-dominant ( n=18) were recruited using consecutive sampling from a national cleft treatment center and matched pairwise to a sample of typically developing (TD) children on language dominance, age, and socioeconomic status. All participants were assessed in English on single-word reading accuracy using the Wide Range Achievement Test (4th Ed), and key cognitive-linguistic factors associated with reading development: phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), receptive and expressive vocabulary, and verbal short-term and working memory.

RESULTS

CL/P and TD groups were compared within language dominance group (Mandarin or English) for all measures. The Mandarin-dominant CL/P group had significantly poorer reading accuracy and phonological awareness than their TD peers. Additionally, regardless of language dominance, faster RAN correlated significantly with better reading accuracy in both the CL/P groups but not the TD groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Children with CL/P who are learning English as a second language are at greater risk of reading difficulties. Furthermore, the cognitive-linguistic processes underlying early reading in bilingual children with CL/P differ from those of their TD peers. Routine screening and tailored intervention is advisable.

Phonemic awareness of English second language learners

Background

The PA skills of phonological blending and segmentation and auditory word discrimination relate directly to literacy and may be weak in English second language (EL2) learners. In South Africa, literacy skills have been found to be poor in especially EL2 learners.

Objectives

The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of vowel perception and production intervention on phonemic awareness (PA) and literacy skills of Setswana first language (L1) learners. These learners are English second language (EL2) learners in Grade 3.

Method

The present study employed a quasi-experimental, pre-test–post-test design.

Results

The findings of low–literacy skill levels concurred with previous investigations. However, post-test results of intervention in PA seemed to improve the literacy skills of EL2 learners.

Conclusion

PA skills should be a crucial part of the literacy curriculum in South Africa.

Using Spelling to Screen Bilingual Kindergarteners At Risk for Reading Difficulties

For bilingual children, the results of language and literacy screening tools are often hard to interpret. This leads to late referral for specialized assessment or inappropriate interventions. To facilitate the early identification of reading difficulties in English, we developed a method of screening that is theory-driven yet suitable for first-language (L1) and second-language learners of English. We administered five conventional tests (phonological awareness, vocabulary,Wide Range Achievement Test-4[WRAT-4] spelling, letter identification, rapid naming of digits) to 127 five-year-olds (60 English-L1, 67 Mandarin-L1) about 6 months after they started kindergarten, and used the WRAT-4 word reading score 6 months later as the outcome measure. Consistent with previous research, and with children with reading disabilities defined as below the 25 percentile on the reading outcome, logistic regression revealed that the full set of screening measures predicted reading disability status. However, when each predictor was taken as a single measure, spelling scores provided the best fit in terms of the compromise between sensitivity (.75) and specificity (.73) for an optimal cutoff point. Based on this exploratory study, group-administered spelling tasks could provide an efficient solution to screening difficulties in large classes of bilingual children.

Bilingualism and Phonological Awareness: Re-examining Theories of Cross-Language Transfer and Structural Sensitivity

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between bilingualism and phonological awareness by re-evaluating structural sensitivity theory and expanding cross-language transfer theory. The study was conducted with three groups of 1^st and 2^nd graders matched in age, SES and non-verbal IQ: a) monolingual English-speaking children from a general education program, b) native Japanese-speaking children from a Japanese-English two-way immersion bilingual program and c) native English-speaking children from the same bilingual program. An odd-man-out task that took into account the phonological and orthographical contrasts between English and Japanese was developed to assess onset awareness. The results showed that the bilingual children outperformed their monolingual peers in processing onsets that are shared between the two languages, which provided empirical support for the first hypothesis derived from structural sensitivity theory and highlighted the importance of contextual variability in bilingual metalinguistic processing. The second hypothesis derived from structural sensitivity theory, which predicated that bilingual advantage would be more evident in processing novel stimuli, was not confirmed in the present study. The absence of the predicted group difference may be attributed to the disparity in the extent of novelty of the stimuli and the difference in the comparability of participants' degrees of bilingualism between the present study and previous research. Finally, expanding existing research, results from this study showed that cross-language transfer can occur at a phonetic featural level. Future research and theoretical implications were discussed.

Spelling Processes of Children with Nonsyndromic Cleft Lip and/or Palate: A Preliminary Study

Objective

To compare the cognitive-linguistic processes underlying spelling performance of children with cleft lip and/or palate with those of typically developing children.

Design

An assessment battery including tests of hearing, articulation, verbal short-term and working memory, and phonological awareness, as well as word and nonword spelling, was administered to both groups.

Participants

A total of 15 children with nonsyndromic cleft lip and/or palate were case-matched by age and sex to 15 typically developing children. The children were aged between 6 and 8 years and were bilingual, with English the dominant language.

Results

Wilcoxon signed-rank tests revealed that the performance of children with cleft lip and/or palate was significantly poorer on phoneme deletion and nonword spelling ( P < .05) compared with typically developing children. Spearman correlation analyses revealed different relationships between the cognitive-linguistic and spelling measures for the cleft lip and/or palate and typically developing groups.

Conclusions

Children with cleft lip and/or palate underachieve in phonological awareness and spelling skills. To facilitate early intervention for literacy problems, speech-language pathologists should routinely assess the cognitive-linguistic processing of children with cleft lip and/or palate, especially phonological awareness, as part of their case management protocols.

A language-familiarity effect for speaker discrimination without comprehension

The influence of language familiarity upon speaker identification is well established, to such an extent that it has been argued that "Human voice recognition depends on language ability" [Perrachione TK, Del Tufo SN, Gabrieli JDE (2011) Science 333(6042):595]. However, 7-mo-old infants discriminate speakers of their mother tongue better than they do foreign speakers [Johnson EK, Westrek E, Nazzi T, Cutler A (2011) Dev Sci 14(5):1002-1011] despite their limited speech comprehension abilities, suggesting that speaker discrimination may rely on familiarity with the sound structure of one's native language rather than the ability to comprehend speech. To test this hypothesis, we asked Chinese and English adult participants to rate speaker dissimilarity in pairs of sentences in English or Mandarin that were first time-reversed to render them unintelligible. Even in these conditions a language-familiarity effect was observed: Both Chinese and English listeners rated pairs of native-language speakers as more dissimilar than foreign-language speakers, despite their inability to understand the material. Our data indicate that the language familiarity effect is not based on comprehension but rather on familiarity with the phonology of one's native language. This effect may stem from a mechanism analogous to the "other-race" effect in face recognition.

Profile of phonological awareness in bilingual and monolingual children

Purpose: To compare the performance of phonological awareness skills in bilingual and monolingual students of both genders. Methods: This research presents an observational, cross-sectional descriptive study conducted with 17 students from the 3rd grade, aged between seven years and 8 years and 11 months, with similar socioeconomic level, from two private schools, being one a monolingual school, and the other a bilingual one. Children at risk for auditory deprivation of any degree, those with learning difficulties, and children enrolled in the school less than two years were excluded from the research. A total of nine bilingual and eight monolingual students was tested using the Phonological Awareness Profile test. Results: The results showed that 64.7% of the 17 students tested reached the performance expected for their age, and 35.3% performed above expectation, being 83.3% of the latter bilingual students. The bilingual children presented better performance in the sequential rhyme skill and in the total test score, and the male bilingual children presented better performance in the phoneme addition skill. There was no statistically significant difference when comparing the performance of bilingual and monolingual female students. Conclusion: Bilingual children had greater command of phonemic awareness skill. Male bilingual children showed better performance when compared to their monolingual peers than female bilingual students.