Effect of home language on spelling error patterns in primary school children

Research has demonstrated a relationship between phonological awareness and literacy development. Children that manifest difficulties with phonographemic mapping are more likely to experience delays in literacy development1, which may be reflected in the nature of their spelling mistakes. More specifically, these children may be more prone to making phonologically based errors, as opposed to orthographic ones1. Another line of research has focused on the relationship between phonological awareness and bilingualism, whereby the phonology of 1st language may affect spelling error patterns in the other2.

This study assesses the impact of home language on spelling error patterns in Luxembourg, where most children acquire literacy skills in German, even though for many, this is not their main language spoken at home3. A representative sample of 691 children (aged 8 - 11 years) completed a sentence writing task. Possible differences in error types between language groups will be analyzed.

References

1Moats, L. (1996). Phonological spelling errors in the writing of dyslexic adolescents. Reading and Writing, 8(1), 105–119.

2Bonifacci, P., et al. (2017). English as a foreign language in bilingual language‐minority children, children with dyslexia and monolingual typical readers. Dyslexia, 23(2), 181–206.

3RP 1st results 2021 N°08 “Linguistic diversity on the rise” [Online], 2023, posted online on 12/07/2023, consulted on 23/02/2023.