Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Metalinguistic awareness and literacy among semitic-bilingual learners: a cross-language perspective

  • Published:
Reading and Writing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In the current study we examined three questions. First: How does emergent bilingualism affect the development of metalinguistic awareness in kindergarten and first grade? We compared the changes in scores of tests of phonological awareness and morphological awareness from kindergarten to first grade, in two bilingual groups (Hebrew–Arabic and Arabic–Hebrew) and two monolingual Hebrew and Arabic speaking groups. The results revealed a bilingual advantage in kindergarten in both languages, which persisted into first grade for the native Arabic speakers in both phonology and morphology, and in phonology for the native Hebrew speakers. Importantly, all groups showed approximately equal improvement in metalinguistic abilities between kindergarten and first grade. Second: How does exposure to a typologically similar second language affect literacy acquisition in first grade? In both languages, there was a bilingual advantage in nonword reading and spelling, but no effect on reading speed. Third: What are the relationships between literacy measures in first grade and morphological, and phonological awareness in kindergarten, and how are these relationships impacted by bilingualism? These relations were slightly different for the two languages. For children learning to read Hebrew, morphological skills in kindergarten predicted both nonword reading and spelling measures in first grade. For children learning to read Arabic, only parental education predicted nonword reading and reading speed. For spelling, language experience interacted with metalinguistic abilities, with morphological abilities predicting the scores of bilinguals and phonological skills predicting the scores of monolinguals. The significance of the results for cross-language effects in literacy acquisition are discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Abdelhadi, S., Ibrahim, R., & Eviatar, Z. (2011). Perceptual load in the reading of Arabic. Writing Systems Research, 3(2), 117–127.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, S. R. (1985). Phonology in the twentieth century: Theories of rules and theories of representations. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anthony, J. L., & Francis, D. J. (2005). Development of phonological awareness. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(5), 255–259.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anthony, J. L., Williams, J. M., McDonald, R., & Francis, D. J. (2007). Phonological processing and emergent literacy in younger and older preschool children. Annals of Dyslexia, 57(2), 113–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aram, D., & Levin, I. (2001). Mother–child joint writing in low SES: Sociocultural factors, maternal mediation, and emergent literacy. Cognitive Development, 16(3), 831–852.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asadi, I., Sahny, M., Ibrahim, R., & Ben-Simon, A. (2014). Diagnostic test for assessing the reading and writing skills of Arabic readers. Tel Aviv: Yesod Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Assad, H., & Eviatar, Z. (2013). The effects of orthographic complexity and diglossia on letter naming in Arabic: A developmental study. Writing Systems Research, 5(2), 156–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ben-Dror, I., Bentin, S., & Frost, R. (1995). Semantic, phonologic, and morphologic skills in reading disabled and normal children. Reading Research Quarterly, 30, 876–893.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ben-Zeev, S. (1977). The influence of bilingualism on cognitive strategy and cognitive development. Child Development, 48, 1009–1018.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Berko, J. (1958). The child’s learning of English morphology. World, 14(2–3), 150–177.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berman, R. A. (1978). Early verbs: How a child uses her first words. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 5, 21–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bialystok, E., Luk, G., & Kwan, E. (2005). Bilingualism, biliteracy, and learning to read: Interactions among languages and writing systems. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9(1), 43–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bialystok, E., Majumder, S., & Martin, M. M. (2003). Developing phonological awareness: Is there a bilingual advantage? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24(1), 27–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Boets, B., Wouters, J., Van Wieringen, A., & Ghesquière, P. (2006). Auditory temporal information processing in preschool children at family risk for dyslexia: Relations with phonological abilities and developing literacy skills. Brain and Language, 97(1), 64–79.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bruck, M., & Genesee, F. (1995). Phonological awareness in young second language learners. Journal of Child Language, 22, 307–324.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carlisle, J. F. (2003). Morphology matters in learning to read: A commentary. Reading Psychology, 24(3–4), 291–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Carrillo, M. (1994). Development of phonological awareness and reading acquisition. Reading and Writing, 6(3), 279–298.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Castles, A., & Coltheart, M. (2004). Is there a causal link from phonological awareness to success in learning to read? Cognition, 91(1), 77–111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Deutsch, A., Frost, R., & Forster, K. I. (1998). Verbs and nouns are organized and accessed differently in the mental lexicon: Evidence from Hebrew. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24(5), 1238.

    Google Scholar 

  • Duncan, G. J., & Magnuson, K. A. (2005). Can family socioeconomic resources account for racial and ethnic test score gaps? The Future of Children, 15, 35–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eviatar, Z., & Ibrahim, R. (2000). Bilingual is as bilingual does: Metalinguistic abilities of Arabic-speaking children. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21(4), 451–471.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eviatar, Z., Ibrahim, R., & Ganayim, D. (2004). Orthography and the hemispheres: Visual and linguistic aspects of letter processing. Neuropsychology, 18(1), 174–184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Feldman, L. B., Frost, R., & Pnini, T. (1995). Decomposing words into their constituent morphemes: Evidence from English and Hebrew. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21(4), 947.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frost, R., & Bentin, S. (1992). Processing phonological and semantic ambiguity: Evidence from semantic priming at different SOAs. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18(1), 58.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frost, R., Siegelman, N., Narkiss, A., & Afek, L. (2013). What predicts successful literacy acquisition in a second language? Psychological Science, 24(7), 1243–1252.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garcia, O. (2009). Emergent bilinguals and TESOL: What’s in a name? TESOL Quarterly, 43(2), 322–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • García, G. E., Jimenez, R. T., & Pearson, P. D. (1998). Metacognition, childhood bilingualism, and reading. In D. J. Hacker, J. Dunlosky, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Metacognition in educational theory and practice (pp. 193–219). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Geva, E. (2014). Introduction: The cross-language transfer journey—A guide to the perplexed. Written Language and Literacy, 17(1), 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goswami, U., Ziegler, J. C., & Richardson, U. (2005). The effects of spelling consistency on phonological awareness: A comparison of English and German. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92(4), 345–365.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ibrahim, R., & Eviatar, Z. (2012). The contribution of the two hemispheres to lexical decision in different languages. Behavioral and Brain Functions, 8(1), 3–7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Israeli Ministry of Education. (2008). Rama assessment and evaluation test for assessing the reading and writing skills of First grade Arabic readers. Tel-Aviv.

  • Jessner, U. (2006). Linguistic awareness in multilinguals: Cognitive aspects of third language learning. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kohnert, K. (2002). Pucture naming in early sequential bilinguals: A 1-year follow-up. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45(4), 759.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lam, K., Chen, X., Geva, E., Luo, Y. C., & Li, H. (2012). The role of morphological awareness in reading achievement among young Chinese-speaking English language learners: A longitudinal study. Reading and Writing, 25(8), 1847–1872.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Landerl, K., & Wimmer, H. (2008). Development of word reading fluency and spelling in a consistent orthography: An 8-year follow-up. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(1), 150–161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Levin, I., Ravid, D., & Rapaport, S. (2001). Morphology and spelling among Hebrew-speaking children: From kindergarten to first grade. Journal of Child Language, 28, 741–772.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Loizou, M., & Stuart, M. (2003). Phonological awareness in monolingual and bilingual English and Greek five-year-olds. Journal of Research in Reading, 26, 3–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nunes, T., Bryant, P., & Bindman, M. (1997). Morphological spelling strategies: Developmental stages and processes. Developmental Psychology, 33, 637–649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ravid, D. (2001). Learning to spell in Hebrew: Phonological and morphological factors. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 14, 459–485.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ravid, D. (2003). A developmental perspective on root perception in Hebrew and Palestinian Arabic. In J. Shimron (Ed.), Language processing and acquisition in languages of Semitic, root-based morphology (pp. 239–315). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ravid, D. (2012). Spelling morphology: The psycholinguistics of Hebrew spelling. Literacy Studies. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ravid, D., & Bar-On, A. (2001). The semitic root in language acquisition. In GALA (Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition), 2001 Proceedings. University of Lisbon, Cidade Universitária - Faculdade de Letras, Portugal.

  • Ravid, D., & Farah, R. (1999). Learning about noun plurals in early Palestinian Arabic. First Language, 19, 187–206.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ravid, D., & Malenky, D. (2001). Awareness of linear and nonlinear morphology in Hebrew: A developmental study. First Language, 21, 25–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2003). Linguistic distance and initial reading acquisition: The case of Arabic diglossia. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24(3), 431–451.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saiegh-Haddad, E., & Geva, E. (2008). Morphological awareness, phonological awareness, and reading in English–Arabic bilingual children. Reading and Writing, 21(5), 481–504.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saiegh-Haddad, E., & Henkin-Roitfarb, R. (2014). The structure of Arabic language and orthography. In E. Saiegh-Haddad & R. Joshi (Eds.), Handbook of Arabic literacy (pp. 3–28). Dordrecht: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schiff, R., Schwartz-Nahshon, S., & Nagar, R. (2011). Effect of phonological and morphological awareness on reading comprehension in Hebrew-speaking adolescents with reading disabilities. Annual of Dyslexia, 61, 44–63.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, M. (2006). Reading acquisition in Hebrew (L2) and in English (L3) among Russian-speaking (L1) children: Bi-literate bilingualism versus mono-literate bilingualism. Haifa: University of Haifa. (in Hebrew).

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, M., & Asli, A. (2014). Bilingual teachers’ language strategies: The case of an Arabic–Hebrew kindergarten in Israel. Teaching and Teacher Education, 38, 22–32.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, M., Ibrahim, R., & Kahn-Horwitz, J. (2016a). Multi-literate experience as a treasure chest for young learners of English as a foreign language. Reading and Writing, 29(7), 1293–1315.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, M., Leikin, M., & Share, D. L. (2005). Bi-literate bilingualism versus mono-literate bilingualism: A longitudinal study of reading acquisition in Hebrew (L2) among Russian-speaking (L1) children. Written Language and Literacy, 8, 179–207.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schwartz, M., Taha, H., Assad, H., Khamaisi, F., & Eviatar, Z. (2016b). The role of emergent bilingualism in the development of morphological awareness in Arabic and Hebrew. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 59(4), 797–809.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sénéchal, M. (2000). Morphological effects in children’s spelling of words. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 54, 76–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Serratrice, L. (2013). Cross-linguistic influence in bilingual development: Determinants and mechanisms. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism, 3(1), 3–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shany, M., Bahat, A., Lachman, D., Shalem, Z., & Zeiger, T. (2005). “Alep-Taph”—An assessment system for reading and writing disabilities. Tel Aviv: Ye-sod. (in Hebrew).

    Google Scholar 

  • Shany, M., & Ben-Dror, I., (1998). A test of phonological awareness for children. Unpublished test. Haifa, Israel.

  • Share, D. L., & Blum, P. (2005). Syllable splitting in literate and preliterate Hebrew speakers: Onsets and rimes or bodies and codas? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 182–202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shatil, E. (1995). Predicting reading ability: Evidence for cognitive modularity. Doctoral thesis. University of Haifa.

  • Shatil, E., & Share, D. L. (2003). Cognitive antecedents of early reading ability: A test of the modularity hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 83, 1–31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shimron, J. (2003). Semitic languages: Are they really root-based? In J. Shimron (Ed.), Language processing and acquisition in languages of Semitic, root-based morphology (pp. 1–25). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Snowling, M. J. (2001). From language to reading and dyslexia1. Dyslexia, 7(1), 37–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sparks, E., & Deacon, S. H. (2015). Morphological awareness and vocabulary acquisition: a longitudinal examination of their relationship in English-speaking children. Applied Psycholinguist, 36, 299–321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taha, H. Y. (2013). Reading and spelling in Arabic: Linguistic and orthographic complexity. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 3(5), 721–727.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taha, H., & Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2016). The role of phonological versus morphological skills in the development of Arabic spelling: An intervention study. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 45(3), 507–535.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taha, H., & Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2017). Morphology and spelling in Arabic: Development and interface. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 46(1), 27–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Taibah, N. J., & Haynes, C. W. (2011). Contributions of phonological processing skills to reading skills in Arabic speaking children. Reading and Writing, 24(9), 1019–1042.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Treiman, R., & Bourassa, D. C. (2000). The development of spelling skills. Topics in Language Disorders, 20, 1–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zdorenko, T., & Paradis, J. (2008). The acquisition of articles in child second language English: Fluctuation, transfer or both? Second Language Research, 24(2), 227–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ziegler, J. C., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading acquisition, developmental dyslexia, and skilled reading across languages: A psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1), 3–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel

    Zohar Eviatar

  2. The Department for Learning Disabilities, Sakhnin Academic College for Teacher’s Education, Sakhnin, Israel

    Haitham Taha

  3. Oranim Academic College of Education, Tiv’on, Israel

    Mila Shwartz

Authors
  1. Zohar Eviatar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Haitham Taha
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Mila Shwartz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zohar Eviatar.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Eviatar, Z., Taha, H. & Shwartz, M. Metalinguistic awareness and literacy among semitic-bilingual learners: a cross-language perspective. Read Writ 31, 1869–1891 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9850-9

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-018-9850-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation