Longitudinal Relations of Spanish-English Bilingual Spelling: Influences of Spelling Scoring Method and Instructional Programs

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 9:45 am - Gold 4
  In Roundtable Session: Language and Literacy Development in Multilingual Contexts

Abstract

We examined Spanish-English emergent bilingual children's spelling development from Grade 1 to Grade 3 and the influence of instructional programs (bilingual or English immersion), using two scoring methods for spelling (conventional binary correctness score and non-binary text distance score). A total of 209 Spanish-English bilingual children in the U.S. were assessed on spelling in Grades 1 and 3. Spanish spelling positively predicted future English spelling using correctness scores, while English spelling negatively predicted future Spanish spelling. This was not found with text distance scores. No differences were found between instructional programs with correctness scores, but Spanish to English spelling relations differed with text distance scores. Implications of different scoring methods and language of instruction will be discussed.

Authors

• Youngsun Moon, Stanford University

• Young-Suk Grace Kim, University of California - Irvine