Meta-linguistic predictors of word-level literacy skills in monolingual and language minority learners

Abstract

Cross-linguistic transfer can influence the literacy strategies employed by children from multi-linguistic backgrounds when attempting to read or spell in their second language. The simultaneous influence of the three known meta-linguistic predictors of word-level literacy development, however, has not previously been explored in this group. This study examined the contribution of meta-linguistic skills (orthographic awareness, morphological awareness, phonological awareness) to predicting performance in English spelling and word recognition performance across children from monolingual (n = 64) and language minority (LM) backgrounds (n = 34) aged 5–8 years. Despite the groups performing equivalently on receptive vocabulary, literacy, and meta-linguistic measures, there were differences in the unique contributors to spelling performance. For the monolingual cohort, phonological awareness and orthographic awareness explained the unique and significant variance to spelling and reading, respectively. For the LM cohort, morphological awareness explained unique and significant variance to reading and spelling alone. The results suggest that cross-linguistic transfer of literacy strategy occurs regardless of the level of literacy and language proficiency that children possess in their second language. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.