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Name: I.G.A. Lokita Purnamika Utami Bilingual Course Assignment-Postgraduate study --------------------------------------------------- A. INTRODUCTION This paper aims at summarizing and reviewing an article on Bilingual which is entitled “The Development of Bilingual Children’s Early Spelling in English.” Following the introduction part the summary of the article and the review are provided. The review part contains the writer review on the research methodology based on the comparison made with other research and references, the writer’s prediction or assumption after looking at the found evidence, the suggestion, and the writer’s thought on the research’s beneficial impact for academic society. B. SUMMARY Title: The Develoment of Bilingual Children’s Early Spelling in English By Susan J. Rickard Liow and Lily H.S. Lau National University of Singapore Resources: Journal of Educational Psychology.2006. Vol 98. No.4. 868-878 There are a number of research recount the importance of phonological awareness in the development of English reading and spelling skills. However, those researches always excluded bilingual children (including ESL children). This may leave us a question whether the result for English unilingual generalizes to ESL children? The other questions were what is the impact of Bilingualism when the child’s first language (L1) is different from English? ; moreover, apart from phonological awareness, do other kinds of metalinguistic knowledge influence reading and spelling in ESL children? By using an extended version of R. Treiman M. Cassar, and A. Zukowski’s (1994) flap spelling task (wa_er is it t or d in water?), the author investigate the metalinguistic awareness of 6-year-old bilingual children from 3 different Language Backgrounds (LBs): English-LB (English L1, Mandarin L2), Chinese-LB (Chinese L1, English L2) and Malay-LB (Bahasa Malaysia L1, English L2). In the article, it is described how home languages, with different orthographic, phonological, and morphological features can influence and ESL preschool child’s untutored spelling in English. Flaps spelling paradigm In some varieties of spoken English, medial stop consonants in certain words undergo a process known as flapping. Speakers flap when bisyllabic words contain a single medial /t/ or /d/ that is preceded by a vowel and followed by a vowel or a vowel plus /r/. For example, when flapped the /t/ in water sound like a /d/. Before they learn to spell conventionally, children who make exclusive use of phonological processing choose the letter /d/ to spell words with spoken /t/ flaps, even with a context sentence for the target word. Ehri and Wilce (1986) looked at American English speakers’ oral spelling of /t/ and /d/ flaps in first graders, second graders and fourth graders. They found a /d/ bias overall, but there were differences across the cohorts: /d/ errors on words with /t/ flaps decreased with age. This is consistent with the claim that phonological awareness declines with age. Rickard Liow and Poon (1998) showed that Mandarin L1 children in Singapore relied more on visual-orthographic. Bahasa Indonesia-L1 classmates showed well-developed phonological awareness. This suggest that the influence of a child’s home language on English literacy development is not unitary, and cross-linguistics transfer could have negative as well as positive consequences: Chinese characters are relatively opaque with respect to phonology, but the alphabetic Rumi script for Bahasa Indonesia (and Bahasa Malaysia) is very transparent. Treiman (1993) and Read (1975) did an observation that early spelling attempts often results in phonologically plausible errors. However, errors also seem to depend on the kind of metalinguistic knowledge available at particular developmental stages. Therefore, differences in the use of metalinguistics skills among groups of bilingual children learning English seem inevitable not just probable. Bilingualism and Home Languages in Singapore Singapore’s three main ethnics –Malay, Chinese and Indian- speaks two or more of the four officila language : Mandarin, Bahasa Melayu, Tamil and English. Education policy states that children learn read and write in their respective home language as well as Standard English. However, Singaporean preschoolers’ linguistic experience depends more on the home language than on the explicit teaching/text. Children are exposed to a mix of Singapore Colloquial English (SCE) and Singapore Standard English (SSE). The author basic premise is that the spelling skills of the young Singaporean bilinguals should vary according to their linguistic experience, or LB. More specifically, the extent to which the linguistic features of the child’s home language (Malay or Mandarin) overlap with those of English determines what advantages (or disadvantages) bilingualism might confer. The spelling ability of English-LB Children in Singapore do not resemble their unilingual age peers since they are taught by using whole word strategy for reading English, so the English-LB children might rely more on visual-orthographic processes rather than on phonological awareness. Moreover, exposing children mostly with SCE -which is really different from the standard English- affect the spelling skills of children. The Rumi script of Bahasa Malaysia has a rich, transparent morphological structure with syllable-size affixes such as per-, ber- and –kan. The letters of English and Bahasa Malaysia overlap but the orthography-phonology relationship for Rumi is very shallow (regular) compared with English: only three diphthongs (ai, au and oi), and apart from /e/, each vowel represents only one sound. Simultaneous exposure to this transparent script should enhance the acquisition of phonological awareness for English spelling. If metalinguistic knowledge does transfer from Bahasa to English, the Malay-LB children may be able to use more phonological and morphological awareness in their spelling than either the Chinese-LB and the English-LB. Spoken Mandarin is morphosyllabic and tonal, with very few affixes. These features contrast with English and Bahasa Malaysia, so the phonological and morphological development of the Chinese-LB children is different from that of the other two groups. For early reading in English, root-learned associations do seem to suffice. Hence, it is predicted that Chinese-LB group would use visual-orthographic awareness more than more than phonological and morphological for flaps task. Method Participants : a total of 80 second-year pupils attending a government kindergarten in Singapore took part with parental consent: 30 were English-LB, 21 were Chinese-LB and 29 were Malay-LB children. All the children spent about 75 min per day learning English, so teaching methods were neither a factor nor a potential confound. A one-way ANOVA showed that the three groups were not different in age. Materials and Procedure Language Background Questionnaire (LBQ) was used to screen the students in terms of their most frequently spoken language at home before administrating the flaps test. 21 children who reported use of other languages were excluded from the study. Vocabulary scores which have been collected 5 months earlier by using the modified British picture vocabulary scale were available to corroborated the LBQ self-report data. A one way ANOVA on raw scores revealed a main effect of English vocabulary and planned comparisons confirmed that the English-LB group’s vocabulary scores were better than those for both ESL groups Flaps spelling test The extended flap test(16 cells of 10 words) comprised monomorphemic and bimorphemic, low-and high-frequency, flapped /t/ and /d/ words as well as monosyllabic and bisyllabic unflapped control /t/ and /d/ words. See the following table: Table : Design of the extended Flaps Spelling Skills Control Monomorphemic/ Monosyllabic (Unflapped Experimental Monomorphemic/ Bisyllabic (flapped) Experimental Bimorphemic/ Bisyllabic (flapped Control Monomorphemic/ Bysyllabic (unflapped) Word frequency /t/ /d/ /t/ /d/ /t/ /d/ /t/ /d/ Low Greet Hood Porter Poodle Greeted Hooded Pastry Cinder High late wide party garden started wooden sister powder The researcher manipulated flap type (/t/ or /d/) to look at phonological awareness, word frequency (high and low) to look at orthographic awareness, and the number of morphemes (moomorphemic and bimorphemic) to look at morphological awareness and then the unflapped control words (one or two syllable) is added. Small groups (5 or 6 children) were tested in two session at least 3 days apart. From 160 words, two 80-items subtests were developed. The research made use of cassette recorder to run the test. A female native speaker of SSE’s voice was recorded. She read aloud the target words and the context sentences. The answer sheet were printed in large lowercase typeface with an underlined blank in place of missing letters (e.g. wa_ter and to the right of the target words were the letters /t/ and /d/). The children were asked to listen and then circle the letter they thought belonged in the blank. They were each rewarded for their help with a small bar of chocolate. Result and Discussion First, the researcher assessed proficiency by looking at the mean proportion correct for each LB groups summed across all the control words. The post hoc test confirmed there was no statistical difference in overall performance on control words between any two of the three groups Orthographic Awareness: to test for differential use of orthographic awareness, the researchers manipulated word frequency for /t/ and /d/ control word (one morpheme and one syllable). There were no significant main effect of LB group or frequency, but the interaction between frequency and LB group was significant. For /d/ but not /t/, the English-LB children performed significantly better on high- than low-frequency control words. This was predicted because children from English-speaking homes are more likely to be exposed to printed text in English. The Chinese-LB children performed significantly better on high than low frequency /d/ control words, though the Malay-LB children did not. This advantage for high-frequency words for the Chinese-LB children is more difficult to explain in terms of print exposure, but learning to read logographic Chinese characters might enhance certain aspects visual processing, and these in turn support spelling of familiar English words after relatively limited exposure. Phonological awareness: to test for differential use of phonological awareness, the researchers looked at low-frequency words and tested for group difference performance for /t/ versus /d/ on flapped and unflapped monomorphemic bisyllabic words. There were significant main effect of flap type, and word type, but not in the LB group. All three groups were significantly poorer on at /t/ flaps than /t/ control words, but no group showed a difference between /d/ flaps and /d/ control words. A one way ANOVA on /t/ flapped words showed a significant different between across the LB groups, simple effect test confirmed that the Malay LB children were significantly more likely than either the English-LB children or the Chinese-LB children to choose /d/ instead of /t/. The performance of the English-LB and Chinese-LB groups was equivalent. Taken together, these result suggest all three LB groups use some phonological awareness for spelling but, as predicted, the Malay children rely more on it. Morphological Awareness: to test for differential use of morphological awareness, the researchers looked at the mean proportion of correct spellings on bisyllabic flapped monomorphemic and bimorphemic /d/ words. It was predicted that Malay-LB children might have better developed morphological awareness as a result of transfer from Bahasa Malaysia. If this is the case, the Malay-LB group should perform better than the other two group for /d/ flaps on bimorphemic words compared with monomorphemic words. However the result revealed a borderline main effect of morphological awareness in the opposite direction ((monomorphemic > Bimorphemic), which make it unlikely Malay-LB children were using morphological knowledge in preference to phonological awareness for low frequency words. Syllable Awareness: to test for differential sensitivity to number of syllables across three bilingual children, the performance on the low frequency monomorphemic, mono- versus bisyllabic /d/ control words. It was predicted that Chinese-LB would be poorer on bisyllabic and monosyllabic, considering the Chinese character morphosyllabic (one morpheme, one syllable). The result, however show that number of syllable had no effect on the Chinese-LB children’s decision. One plausible explanation for this is that the Chinese-LB children treat the bisyllabic words as two separate single syllable. For English and Malay-LB children the result showed that they performed significantly better on bisyllabic than monosyllabic. Conclusion The following review of the result by language groups support the idea that the bilingual children’s skill remain variable even when they have been learning English in the same kindergarten for almost 2 years. First, English-LB children were using some syllable awareness and seemed better able to combine their orthographic awareness with phonological awareness to optimize performance. However, there was no evidence found that morphological awareness supports the spelling skills of the English-LB children. Second, For Malay-LB children, it was found a strong evidence of the use of phonological and syllable awareness rather than orthographic awareness, but, again there was no evidence of morphological awareness. Finally, for the Chinese-LB children, it was found that visual-orthographic skills would be more important than either phonological and morphological awareness. To summarize, there were predictable group differences in the use of orthographic and phonological awareness, but no evidence of the use of morphological awareness was found. The data provides new evidence that bilingual children often approach spelling with different kinds of metalinguistic awareness. Moreover, the use of metalinguistic may be strongly influenced by their home language. C. REVIEW It is a very popular belief that the first language strongly influences the second language acquisition. The most obvious example that supports this belief comes from the ‘foreign’ accent in the second language speech of learners (Ellis, 1986). When a Balinese speak English, her English sounds Balinese. Therefore, I believe that different language backgrounds give different influences to the second language acquisition. After I have read the first few paragraphs of this article, I became very interested to read it further. Why so? because I have several questions in my mind, one of those, beside the accent, what else of the first language can influence the second language acquisition. However, long before I found this article I have actually had a thought that there are probably similar characteristics between two different languages (the native and the second language) that may enhance the learning of the second language. For example, the word order in Bahasa Indonesia for active sentences generally places the subject followed by the verb and its object. Such word order for active sentences is also applied in English. This, consequently enhances the English acquisition since the similarities ease the Indonesian learners to apply that particular concept of Bahasa Indonesia in English. In addition, I also believe that some distinction between the native and the second language may hinder the acquisition of the second language. For example, a Chinese girl who is exposed with Chinese words -which are morphosyllabic (one morpheme is one syllable)- may think a bisyllabic-monomorphemic English word (e.g. flower) as two morphemes, whereas it is not so. She may become more confused when she is then exposed with a bisyllabic-bimorphemic English word (e.g. handed) and are told that it is a word that has two morphemes while for her it ‘looks’ like a conjugation of two different words. One of the authors of this research article is Dr Rickard Liow. She is a Chartered Clinical psychologist. She joined National University of Singapore in 1987, and has published several papers on reading development and learning disabilities, with a focus on bilingualism. Her research article which I reviewed here is not her first research on Bilingual. In this article she descriptively explains her research which aimed at investigating the influence of home language on the spelling and writing skills of bilingual pupils in local kindergartens and primary schools. After having a close reading on the article, I see some points to be commented. The following paragraphs are my review on the research methodology (and other aspects) based on the comparison with other research methodology. In addition, I include my thought about the research implication to the academic society. Participant and research ethic Fraenkel and Wallen (1993: 82) states that if each member of population does not have an equal chance of being selected; some, in fact, have no chance then the sampling technique used is non-random sampling or purposive sampling. From this information, it can be said that the researchers used non-random sampling or purposive sampling. The participants of this research were screened (or selected) by using LBQ (language Background Questionnaire) before administrating the flap test. This means that not all members of population have equal chance to be selected. Only the students who speak Chinese, Malay and English were involved in the study, and the other students who reported speaking other home languages were excluded. Involving children in a research is quite an issue. The researcher should consider the research ethic before involving the participant in the study. Fraenkel and Wallen (1993) states that informed consent of parents or of those legally designated as caretaker is required for children participants. And children may never be coerced into participation in a study. Involving children in this study, they has considered the research ethic; they only involved those with parental consent. In Treiman’s and Bourassa’s research, they also screened 42 children with dyslexia who was granted permission to participate and 62 kindergarten to third grade children with parental permission to participate. Sampling reliability The research was trying to investigate how home languages’ role in enhancing a particular metalinguistic awareness to approach English early spelling. To fulfill this objectives then, the researchers must select pupils who experience the same length of formal English instruction as samples. The idea of using bilingual children who attend the same kindergarten as the subject of the research is really excellent, for this may reduce error in sampling. Even though Fraenkel and Wallen (1993) states that no two samples will be the same in all their characteristics. However, by selecting students who were attending the same kindergarten, it means that all students were being exposed with the same length of formal English instruction; then, home language is left to be the only factor that may cause the various approach the students used in spelling English. Despite the excellent techniques of selecting samples; however, I wonder if the number children of each LB group should not be significantly different. Would it give a more accurate result? In this research the number of children of each LB group is different. They were 30 English-LB children, 21 Chinese-LB children and 29 Malay-LB children. The number of English-LB children and Malay-LB children may be relatively the same, but the number of Chinese-LB children is only 70 % of the number of English-LB children. Moreover, Fraenkel and Wallen (1993: 92) suggest that: The sample size for experimental and causal-comparative studies is the minimum of 30 individuals per group. Although sometimes experimental studies with only 15 individuals in each group can be defended if they are very tightly controlled; studies using only 15 subjects per group should probably be replicated, however, before too much is made of any findings that occurs. As a comparison in Treiman’s and Bourassa’s (2003) research, they involved the same number of participants of groups that they examined. In their research they tried to examine the spelling performance of 30 children with dyslexia compared with that of 30 spelling-level matched younger children. Beside the number of participants the age also become one consideration in selecting sample. According to the previous research by Ehri and Wilce (1986), it was found that the /d/ errors on words with /t/ flaps decreased with age. This rationalizes why the researchers needed to find out whether the participants of the research were not significantly different in age before further administrating the research. By not being significantly different in age it means that the children used as samples have the same probability to do the /d/ errors on words with /t/ flaps. As a comparison, in Treiman’s and Bourassa’s research (2003) they also involved 30 children of each groups (dyslexia and normal children) with matched spelling level. The spelling level was examined through administrating spelling and reading subtest of the WRAT-3. Both groups of children should meet the same standard of spelling level. Moreover, obviously the researchers did not only rely on LBQ to categorize the subjects into a particular LB group, but they also administrated the vocabulary test as a back-up data which then can be used as a comparison to the self-report data. This way the researchers reduce the possibility of putting the subjects into the wrong LB group. Procedure The reserchers used the extended flap test (16 cells of 10 words) comprised monomorphemic and bimorphemic, low-and high-frequency, flapped /t/ and /d/ words as well as monosyllabic and bisyllabic unflapped control /t/ and /d/ words The researchers had manipulated several language components such as word frequency, the number of syllable, the number of morpheme, and the type of words (flapped and unflapped), to investigate a kind of metalinguistic used to approach English spelling. First, the researcher manipulated flap type (/t/ or /d/) to look at phonological awareness. Through analyzing the decision children make on /t/ and /d/ flapped words will show their phonological competency. This assumption comes from the idea that children who are exposed with English flapped words will hear /d/ sound for /t/ sound in flapped words. Second, to look at orthographic awareness the researchers manipulated the word frequency (high and low). I understand this since it can be assumed that the more exposure of printed English material (high frequency words) the more visual-spelling opportunity the children have. Third, to look at morphological awareness the researchers manipulated the number of morphemes (monomorphemic and bimorphemic) and the unflapped control words (one or two syllable). Through this manipulation, I think, researchers eventually can conclude whether children have developed morphological awareness or not. I would be really grateful if Mora’s article was equipped with the explanation of the research procedure. However, Mora’s article only explains briefly about his research result and discuss more about role of teachers in biliteracy development, alphabetic principle in Spanish and English, approaches to L2 reading instruction, research hypotheses about biliteracy and l2 reading, and transfer of metalinguistic knowledge. Therefore, I only can compare Dr Rickard’s research with Treiman’s and Bourassa’s. The procedure ran for this research is quite different from that of Treiman’s and Baurassa because it has different objectives. In this research the objectives is to investigate the metalinguistic awareness for early english spelling while in the Treman’s and Baurassa’s research the objective is to examine the oral and written spelling performance of dyslexia children compared with spelling-level-matched younger children In Treiman’s and Baurassa’s research (2003) each child spelled two lists of items each of which was derived from the word and nonword versions of the T–BEST Treiman &Bourassa, 2000a). Each list contained 10 words and 10 nonwords. For each child, one list was administered as an oral spelling test and the other as a written test. The words and nonwords on the two lists were similar in phonological structure and spelling patterns. The items on each list were presented in the same order to all children, the 10 words followed by the 10 nonwords. For the written spelling task, the child was told that he or she would be asked to spell some words and some “made-up words.” The experimenter first asked the child to spell his or her first name. One of the test lists, A or B, was then presented. For the word targets, the experimenter said each word, used it in a sentence, and then said the word again. The child was asked to repeat the target word. The child was given three chances to do so, and all children successfully repeated all target words. The child then wrote the word on his or her paper. The experimenter provided general encouragement but did not indicate whether a child’s spellings were correct. If the experimenter could not make out a letter the child had written, he or she inquired about the intended letter after the child had finished spelling the word. A poster on a nearby wall showed the upper and lowercase forms of each letter. The procedure for nonwords was identical to that for words, except that the experimenter pronounced each nonword three times before asking the child to repeat and spell it. All children successfully repeated all target nonwords. The procedure for the oral spelling task was like that for the written task except that the experimenter asked the child to spell each word aloud. Responses were tape recorded for later verification. Research result The result of Dr Rickard Liow’s research suggested that home language enhance a particular metalinguistic (phonological and orthographic) awareness which then influences children early spelling in English. This finding is inline with the cross-linguistic transfer hypothesis (Bialystok, 2007; Hornberger, 1994; Koda, 1997, Odlin, 1989 in Mora, 2008). This theory posits that knowledge is transferred from the learners first language into the performance of cognitive and linguistic tasks in the second language. The cross-linguistic hypothesis suggests that the greater the similarity in the writing systems of the two languages, the greater the degree of transfer, thus reducing the time and difficulties involved in learning to read and write the second language (Odlin, 1989 in Mora, 2008). Mora (2008) in his his article states that there is an orthographic transfer in a transitional Spanish/English bilingual children. Mora’s finding gives the same evidence for metalinguistic transfer for spelling as what Dr. Rickard Liow found. Dr. Rickard Liow found that Malay-L1 children (with Malay as first language) use more phonological knowledge and show an advantage for multi-syllabic words. This is caused by the Rumi script of Bahasa Malaysia which has a rich, transparent morphological structure with syllable-size affixes such as per-, ber- and –kan. Then, the simultaneous exposure to this transparent script should enhance the acquisition of phonological awareness for English spelling for Malay-LB children. The Mandarin-L1 children are more sensitive to word frequency and use more visual skills(orthographic), since they have been exposed to the logographich chinese letters which requires them rely on their orthographic. Only the English-L1 children combine phonological and visual knowledge. The English-Lb children’s environment that mostly speaks English all the time enhances their phonological awareness. Moreover, they have been exposed with many printed English text that enhance their orthographical awareness. This phenomenon is inline with the findings in Treiman’s and Bourassa’s (2003) research that children can more accurately analyze the phonological structure of an item when they are able to represent the results of their analyses in a visible form. Moreover, Treiman and Bourassa (2003) found that there was the advantage of words over non-words on both phonological and orthographic measures. The lexicality effect in the phonological and orthographic measures suggests that children use word-specific memory to aid their spellings of real words. Treiman and Bourassa also found that there was no differences between children with dyslexia and spelling-level-matched children without dyslexia on any of the measures developed by Treiman and Bourassa (2000a). The dyslexia group and the nondyslexia group were statistically indistinguishable in terms of correct spellings of real words. Moreover, the two groups performed at similar levels on measures that were designed to tap the phonological and orthographic In Mora’s article it is stated that Spanish and English share some (not all) similar orthography (see appendix 1). In Dr Rickard Liow’s research event though English and Chinese character don’t share similar orthography but it was found that Chinese-LB children spelling on high frequency words rely more on orthographic (or visual). Dr Liow stated that reading logographic Chinese characters might enhance certain aspects visual processing, and these in turn support spelling of familiar English words after relatively limited exposure. However, Dr. Liow finding on Chinese-LB children is still a strong evidence of cross-language transfer regardless of the similarities between the two languages’ orthography. However Dr Rickard Liow’s research showed no evidence for Morphological awareness. This leaves us questions why children did not show any morphological awareness. I think the absence of morphological evidence probably deals with the combination practice of SCE (Singapore colloquial English) and SSE (Singapore Standard English). Therefore, the exposure of non standard form of spoken English may likely moderate the children’s acquisition and use of morphological knowledge. The Singaporean children’s stages in mastering the standard English’ morphology is actually part of interlanguage. As what Selinker (1972) in Ellis (1986) suggested that there were 5 principal processes operated in interlanguage. These were (1) language transfer, (2) overgeneralization of target language rules, (3) transfer of training (i.e. a rule enters the learner’s system as a result of instruction, (4) strategies of L2 learning (i.e. an identifiable approach by the learner to the material to be learned), (5) strategies of L2 communication. The last point, that is learners’ identifiable approach to communicate in the target language influences their L2 learning. Singaporean children always communicate with SCE, of which the morphology contains of very limited affixation. This moderates the morphological knowledge they should have for standard English, of which the morphology has the full range of affixes. Comment on research contribution The research, I think, may contribute evidence of the influence of home language towards the metalinguistic awareness which is later used as an approach for English spelling. This, then may be a worth-noting for any education practitioner to develop a particular English spelling teaching method that may work accordingly with the metalinguistic awareness the children may use. To make it possible, I think further researches on spelling teaching method that works accordingly with particular metalinguistic awareness are needed. References Ellis, R. 1986.Understanding Second Language Acquisition. Britain: Oxford University Press Fraenkel, Jack R and Wallen, Norman E.1993. How to Design and Evaluate Research in Education. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc Mora, Jill Kerper. 2008. Metalinguistic Transfer in Spanish/English Biliteracy. http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/moramodules/MetalingTransfer.htm Rickard Liow, Susan J and Lau, Lily H.S. 2006. The Develoment of Bilingual Children’s Early Spelling in English. Journal of Educational Psychology.2006. Vol 98. No.4. 868-878 Treimann, Rebecca and Bourassa, Derric. 2003. Spelling in Children with Dyslexia: Analyses from the Treimann-Bourassa Early Spelling Test. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7 (4), 309-333 Copyright © 2003, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. http://artsci.wustl.edu/~rtreiman/Selected_Papers/Bourassa_and_Treiman_SSR_2003.pdf Appendix 1 Transfer of Metalinguistic Knowledge in Spanish/English Biliterate Students Source: Mora, J.K. (2001). Learning to spell in two languages: Orthographic transfer in a transitional Spanish/English bilingual program. In P. Dreyer (Ed.), Raising Scores, Raising Questions: Claremont Reading Conference 65th Yearbook, 64-84. Claremont, CA: Claremont Graduate University. The alphabetic principle and Spanish orthography The alphabetic principle and English orthography There are 29 alphabet letters that represent 24 phonemes. There are 26 alphabet letters that represent from 40 to 52 phonemes. 20 English phonemes have spellings that are predictable 90% of the time and 10 others are predictable over 80% of the time. There is a high level of correspondence between most Spanish letter-sound relationships and their English equivalents. The spelling of words can be derived by listening for its component phonemes and writing the corresponding letter. There is only one correct spelling for every word. We know how to pronounce every word we read based on its spelling. Segmenting words into sounds provides clues to their spelling most of the time. However, spelling in English also varies according to the position of the sound in a syllable, what sounds come before and after a given sound and the morphological structure of the word. Occasionally, a spelling will represent more than one word (read-read) so we have to use meaning as a clue to recognize the word. Some phonemes are spelled using more than one letter (ch, ll, rr). Other than these cases, if a letter is doubled, both letters are pronounced (leer). Many letters in English are used as markers that signal the sounds of other letters. These letters have no direct relation to the sounds in the word. Doubled letters may be part of a spelling pattern and frequently represent only one phoneme. There are 5 vowel letters and 5 vowel sounds that are consistent. They are always spelled the same, except for i which is sometimes spelled with a y (i griega) such as in soy, voy, y. There are five vowel letters and 15 vowel sounds in English. There are many different patterns used to spell these vowel sounds. A few phonemes can be spelled in more than one way (/h/= g or j as in jirafa, girasol; /s/ as in cita, sitio; /k/= c & qu as in casa, queso). There are 19 consonant phonemes that are sometimes spelled using more than one letter. Dividing words into syllables is helpful in knowing how to pronounce and spell them. Syllabification rules are regular. Syllables either contain a single vowel and or a diphthong. Diphthongs are a combination of a weak vowel (i, u) with a strong vowel (a,e,o) or two weak vowels. When we can pronounce words and break words into syllables and apply certain rules, we know how to place written accents correctly. Dividing words into syllables is helpful in knowing how to pronounce and spell them. There are six different types of syllables: open, closed, vowel-consonant-e, etc. Syllabification often depend on word meaning and origins, so we must use such word parts such as prefixes and suffixes for correct division and spelling of syllables. Parts of a word (morphemes) can be added or changed to change the meaning of the word. The meaning changes include verb tense, number and gender and agreement in number and gender, size and affection (-ito, -ón). Parts of a word (morphemes) can be added or changed to change the meaning of the word. Many parts of words in English do not change the way they are required to in Spanish.