A study of word-level decoding skills of 7-year-old Maltese children in a bilingual environment

Abstract

This study examines the attainment in word decoding and encoding skills of 7-year-old Maltese children exposed to two languages of differing orthographies concurrently, with a view to improving intervention procedures for children with learning difficulties. Parallel tests of word reading, spelling and phonological awareness were designed and administered to 361 children with varying levels of exposure to the two languages. The analyses indicated that overall performance was at a higher level on Maltese tasks than on the English tasks. Tests of oral language competence (listening comprehension, story telling and word fluency) led to the identification of three groups of children: Maltese-dominant, English-dominant and non-dominant. Attainment on Maltese word reading and spelling tests did not appear to be determined by levels of language competence, as assessed by the Test Battery, thereby suggesting that a language of regular orthography facilitated access to tasks. Contrastingly, attainment on the English word reading and spelling tests reflected the language bias of the three school categories suggesting that the deep orthography of the English language could accentuate the role of verbal competence. Skills of phonological awareness correlated positively both within each language and across the two languages. Furthermore, correlations between the literacy measures (word reading and spelling) and the tasks of phonological awareness brought to light some remarkable differences as a result of the nature of the orthography. Analyses showed that the predictors were generally comparable across the two languages but explained different levels of variance. The findings point at the necessity of testing a child in the dominant language on tasks of phonological awareness. However, the data also suggest that in the case of children who have roughly similar levels of language competence, it is necessary to test some of the skills of phonological awareness in both languages. This can lead to the identification of areas of difficulty which might not be sufficiently highlighted by means of the one language. Such testing can therefore lead to more appropriate intervention for the child encountering literacy difficulties.