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Influence of L1 Orthography on Spelling English Words by Bilingual Children: A Natural Experiment Comparing Syllabic, Phonological, and Morphosyllabic First Languages

This study examined the influence of first language (L1) orthography on bilingual children's spelling performance in their second language (L2), English. The subtests of spelling and letter-word identification from the Woodcock Proficiency Battery were administered to a sample of 285 six-year-olds in Singapore. All children received literacy instruction in English through the “look-say” method. Analyses of covariance showed a statistically significant effect of L1 on conventional spelling but not on phonological spelling, controlling for reading proficiency. The Chinese (morphosyllabic) group not only scored higher than the Malay (alphabetic) and Tamil (syllabic) groups overall, but also made more real-word substitution and transposition errors. The results are discussed in terms of the influence of L1 orthographic depth on spelling, and how learning disability specialists can utilize the information while evaluating the spelling/literacy skills of English L2 learners.