Abstract
Although there is a growing body of literature on the development of reading skills of Spanish-speaking language minority children, little research has focused on the development of writing skills in this population. This study evaluated whether children’s Spanish early reading skills (i.e., print knowledge, phonological awareness, oral language) were related to their Spanish and English early writing skills using a sample of 554 children whose home language was Spanish. Multivariate regression analyses with simultaneous outcomes (Spanish and English invented spelling skills) were conducted to evaluate whether children’s early reading and writing skills were related across languages. Results indicated that children’s print knowledge and phonological awareness skills, but not oral language skills, were significantly related to their Spanish and English invented spelling skills. Spanish early literacy skills were not differentially related to Spanish and English reading and writing skills. The magnitude of the relations between print knowledge and oral language skills and children’s invented spelling skills varied as a function of child age; however, the magnitude of the relation between phonological awareness and invented spelling skills did not differ as a function of child age. Furthermore, results suggested that language minority children’s early reading and writing skills are related but distinct constructs and that children may be able to apply information gained from learning to read and write in their first language when learning to write in their second language.
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Notes
Analyses were also conducted using only data from 4- and 5-year-old children to determine if exclusion of 3-year-old children impacted the results; however, the pattern of results obtained was identical to the pattern of results obtained with the full sample.
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This research and report was supported by a grant from the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education (R305A090169). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and have not been reviewed or approved by the granting agency.
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Goodrich, J.M., Farrington, A.L. & Lonigan, C.J. Relations between early reading and writing skills among Spanish-speaking language minority children. Read Writ 29, 297–319 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-015-9594-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-015-9594-8