Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Early Education and Development, cilt.36, sa.6, ss.1298-1319, 2025 (SSCI, Scopus)
Research Findings: Emergent bilinguals (EB) are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. school population, with Spanish-English bilinguals as the largest sub-group. With literacy as the foundation for later academic success, it is urgent to understand how literacy skills develop among young Spanish-speaking EBs, who often underperform in literacy. The purpose of the present three-year longitudinal study was to investigate the within- and cross-linguistic influence of basic language skills on writing outcomes among Spanish-English bilinguals from Grade 1 through Grade 3. The findings revealed significant concurrent and longitudinal within- and cross-language relationships among early literacy skills, with generally stronger correlations within than across languages. Regression analyses indicated cross-linguistic factors that predicted English and Spanish writing performances across years. Within-year regression analyses indicated that Grade 1 Spanish spelling best explained concurrent Grade 1 English spelling. Subsequently, Grade 2 Spanish writing was predicted positively by Grade 1 Spanish vocabulary but negatively by Grade 1 English spelling, and Grade 2 English writing was explained by Grade 1 English vocabulary and Grade 1 Spanish writing. Practice or Policy: The results, generally, support the Simple View of Writing, extending it to include longitudinal cross-linguistic transfer in writing development. Study implications provide new directions for bilingual literacy development and biliteracy education.