Development of Bilingual Phonological Awareness in Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners: The Roles of Vocabulary,Letter Knowledge,and Prior Phonological Awareness |
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| Authors: | Jason L Anthony Emily J Solari Jeffrey M Williams Kimberly D Schoger Zhou Zhang Lee Branum-Martin |
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| Institution: | 1. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston;2. University of Houston |
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| Abstract: | Theories concerning the development of phonological awareness place special emphasis on lexical and orthographic knowledge. Given the large degree of variability in preschool classrooms that house Spanish-speaking English language learners (ELL), this study controlled for classroom effects by removing classroom means and covariances based on 158 children from 40 classrooms. Path analyses of the child-level covariance matrices tested the extent to which vocabulary and letter knowledge in each language predicted growth in English and Spanish phonological awareness of 130 preschool-age, Spanish-speaking ELLs. Results supported cross-linguistic effects of prior phonological awareness and Spanish vocabulary in the development of bilingual phonological awareness. Implications for theory, instruction, and research methods are discussed. |
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