ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Language, Culture and Diversity
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1591142
From Cotenyou to Continue: Modeling the Contributions of Phonological and Morphological Awareness to Spelling Accuracy in Young Spanish-English Dual-Language Learners
Provisionally accepted
- 1Kent State University, Kent, United States
- 2Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Kentucky, United States
- 3University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee, United States
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Purpose This study evaluates a developmental model of predictive relationships between orallanguage based metalinguistic skills in kindergarten and single-word reading and spelling in second grade for Dual-language Learning (DLL) children.Method Seventy-one Spanish-speaking English-learning children participated in this longitudinal study. A partial-least squares path model investigated how cross-linguistic Phonological Awareness in kindergarten predicted English Morphological Awareness (MA) and later English literacy performance (single-word reading and spelling) in second grade.Results Spanish Phonological Awareness (S-PA) at the end of kindergarten predicted 2 nd grade English MA (E-MA) development and indirectly facilitated spelling performance. English Phonological Awareness (E-PA) at the end of kindergarten uniquely supported 2 nd grade word reading and spelling accuracy. Within the model, S-PA was the only significant longitudinal predictor of E-MA, and E-PA was the predictor most strongly associated with spelling skill, overall.Children learning more than one language are able to leverage first language knowledge dynamically to support second language literacy outcomes over time. Study results suggest DLL children's phonological awareness in both languages should be assessed in kindergarten to more accurately estimate risk-status for poor literacy performance over time.
Keywords: dual-language learners, phonological awareness, morphological awareness, reading, spelling
Received: 15 Mar 2025; Accepted: 26 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Durant, Oddo, Harrell-Williams and Jarmulowicz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Kathleen Durant, Kent State University, Kent, United States
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