Predictors of English spelling in bilingual and monolingual children in Grade 1: the case of Cantonese and Tagalog

In order to examine the effect of the home language on the spelling development in English in children who are learning English as a second language (ESL learners), it is best to directly compare groups of ESL learners from various home language backgrounds. This study compared the oral language, phonological awareness, reading, and spelling performance of Tagalog–English bilingual, Cantonese–English bilingual, and monolingual English-speaking children in Grade 1. The bilingual children had lower scores than the monolinguals on measures of oral proficiency, but demonstrated similar or better performance on most phonological awareness, reading, and spelling tasks after controlling for vocabulary size in English. A series of moderated regression analysis revealed that although phonological awareness was associated with English spelling performance regardless of language background, the associations between specific spelling tasks and related underlying skills seemed to differ across language groups.