An investigation of developmental spelling in ESL and non-ESL kindergarten children
Date
2010-04-30T22:25:13Z
Authors
Keilty, Megan Brigid
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Abstract
The current study investigated developmental spelling in a group of English as a second language (ESL) and non-ESL children. The purpose was to determine if a measure of developmental spelling differed between a group of ESL and non-ESL kindergarten children, and further, what linguistic and literacy skills were related to developmental spelling for each group.
The results from 37 ESL and 40 non-ESL children revealed that the groups did not differ on a measure of developmental spelling, and that the predictors of developmental spelling included syntactic knowledge (Syntax Construction) and phonological processing (Sound Matching) for both groups, and Letter Identification for the non-ESL group only. The results revealed many similarities between the groups in their English spelling development. Some differences emerged, however, including phonological processing (Non-word Repetition) being related to developmental spelling for the ESL group only, and Letter Identification being related to developmental spelling for the non-ESL group only.
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Keywords
ESL, literacy, spelling, literacy development, spelling development, children