| The main purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship of phonological awareness to reading in the second language in Hispanic children learning English. This issue is important for two reasons. First, there are many Hispanics in this country and the educational system is not serving this population well. Second, some people question the value of native language instruction. There are two main questions to the present investigation. First, does the relationship of phonological awareness and reading for Hispanic bilingual children mirror that for monolingual English speakers, i.e. Does phonological awareness predict reading achievement and does phonological awareness improve with instruction for bilinguals as is the case for monolingual English speakers? Second, does phonological awareness transfer from Spanish to English?; To address these questions, a group of 53 Hispanic students was followed from second grade through third grade. The following tasks were administered: phonemic segmentation, decoding (real and invented words), reading comprehension, spelling (real and invented words), and non-verbal intelligence. These tasks were administered in English and in Spanish in the spring of 1999 as well as the fall of 1999 and only in English in the spring of 2000.; Based on the evidence gathered, all of the research questions can be answered in the affirmative. The relationship of phonological awareness and reading in English is similar for second language learners and monolinguals, i.e. phonological awareness does predict reading achievement and phonological awareness does improve as a result of instruction. In addition, phonological awareness does transfer between languages. This transfer is not confounded with either intelligence or reading ability. There are two educational implications of this research. First, the development of phonological awareness in English will facilitate the reading achievement of Hispanic students. Second, for Hispanic students, since this metalinguistic capability transfers, its development through instruction in Spanish will provide a firm base for its development in English. The basic policy implication of this research is that literacy instruction in the native language facilitates the learning of English. Theoretical implications are discussed as well. |
