Abstract
This study investigated the role of lexical skills and executive functioning on L1 Dutch and L2 English phonological awareness in children enrolled in bilingual Dutch/English kindergarten in The Netherlands (n = 95) and monolingual Dutch kindergarten (n = 83). Participants had an average age of 5 years and 10 months and completed tasks on phonological awareness, lexical skills (vocabulary and lexical specificity), and executive functioning (sustained visual and auditory attention, behavioural self-regulation, and verbal short-term memory) in the L1 Dutch and the L2 English. Dutch phonological awareness was predicted by self-regulation and verbal short-term memory. English phonological awareness was directly predicted by Dutch phonological awareness and visual sustained attention. The results highlight the importance of executive functioning such as sustained attention, behavioural self-regulation and short-term memory in first and second language learning in kindergarten, and support cross-language transfer effects from L1 to L2 phonological awareness among bilingual learners.
Highlights
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize, discriminate and manipulate speech sounds in a language
It has been found that an increase in vocabulary size in the first (L1) and second language (L2) may lead to better phonological awareness, and that lexical skills may be transferred from L1 to L2 (Metsala & Walley, 1998)
There is limited research investigating how executive functioning, lexical skills, and phonological awareness in kindergarten are affected by being in a bilingual educational setting, while the popularity of bilingual educa tion programs is increasing across the globe
Summary
Phonological awareness is the ability to recognize, discriminate and manipulate speech sounds in a language. It has been found that an increase in vocabulary size in the first (L1) and second language (L2) may lead to better phonological awareness, and that lexical skills may be transferred from L1 to L2 (Metsala & Walley, 1998). Between three and seven years of age, children experience a rapid development of executive functions and information processing skills (Anderson, 2002). This leads to more self-controlled behaviour and more abstract ways of learning, facilitating the development of phonological awareness (Ramscar & Gitcho, 2007). The aim of this study, was to determine how lexical skills and executive functioning predict phonological awareness in children enrolled in Dutch-English bilingual kindergarten
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