In this explorative study, we discuss the links between language, reading and writing variables in the two languages of 26 fourth-grade Spanish-English bilingual children who have just been transitioned to all — English classrooms. Word recognition and spelling proficiencies were correlated both within- and across-languages, but they did not correlate with oral proficiency measures. The form ratings of the writing samples correlated with word recognition and spelling measures, but the content rating of writing samples did not correlate with oral proficiency measures. A qualitative analysis of the writing samples yielded cross-language transfer effects (in both directions) at the level of graphophonic, syntactic and vocabulary knowledge as well as in terms of story structure.
Keywords
- bilingualism
- reading
- writing
- cross-language transfer
- literacy development