Kahn-Horwitz, Schwartz & Share (2011)

Acquiring the complex Englishorthography: a triliteracy advantage?Janina Kahn-Horwitz

Oranim Academic College of Education; Gordon College of Education, Israel

Mila Schwartz

Oranim Academic College of Education; Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Centerfor the Study of Learning Disabilities, Department of Learning Disabilities,University of Haifa, Israel

David Share

Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities,Department of Learning Disabilities, University of Haifa, Israel

The script-dependence hypothesis was tested through the examination of the impact ofRussian and Hebrew literacy on English orthographic knowledge needed for spellingand decoding among fifth graders. We compared the performance of three groups:Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates, Russian–Hebrew-speaking emergingbiliterates who were not literate in Russian (but only in Hebrew) and Hebrew-speakingemerging biliterates. Based on similarities between Russian and Englishorthographies, we hypothesised that Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterateswould outperform both other groups on spelling and decoding of short vowels andconsonant clusters. Further, we hypothesised that all groups would face similardifficulties with novel orthographic conventions. Russian–Hebrew-speaking emergingtriliterates demonstrated advantages for spelling and decoding of short vowels and fordecoding of consonant clusters. All three groups experienced difficulty with spellingand decoding the digraph th as well as the split digraph (silent e).

Going beyond second language (L2) acquisition to the acquisition of additional languages

is very common for many people all over the world. The development of third language

(L3) knowledge refers to the acquisition of a non-native language by learners who have

previously acquired or are acquiring two other languages. In this paper, we focus on

children for whom Russian is their heritage or first language (L1), and Hebrew is the

majority language and for them their L2. English for these children is an L3 that is

acquired at a relatively early age in third grade. All three languages are acquired

Journal of Research in Reading, ISSN 0141-0423 DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2010.01485.xVolume 34, Issue 1, 2011, pp 136–156

Copyright r 2011 UKLA. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

Journal ofResearch in Reading

Journal ofResearch in Reading

sequentially. The current objective was to examine the contribution of the Russian

language and script to the acquisition of specific orthographic conventions in English as

an L3 versus challenges posed by the English orthography to Hebrew- and Russian-

speaking children.

English literacy is taught in Israeli elementary schools by starting with explicit

instruction of letter–sound correspondences (State of Israel Ministry of Education English

Inspectorate, 2009). The difference between long and short vowel sounds is not uniformly

emphasised (J. Kahn-Horwitz, unpublished data). English as an additional language

(EL2) textbooks that instruct early literacy acquisition include common digraphs (e.g. sh,

ch, th, ee, oo) and there is an instruction of these common digraphs. However, many of

these textbooks do not extensively cover the English orthographic conventions and it

would be inaccurate to say that the curriculum is phonics based or that instruction of

orthographic conventions is uniform (J. Kahn-Horwitz, unpublished data). This lack of

uniformity may also reflect a lack of orthographic knowledge on the part of EL2 teachers

(N. Roffman, unpublished data).

It has been hypothesised that access to two linguistic systems when acquiring an L3

represents a unique and complex phenomenon, which differs qualitatively from access to

only one linguistic system as in the case of L2 acquisition (Cenoz & Genesee, 1998;

Cenoz & Hoffmann, 2003). Some research supports this assumption by showing that

trilinguals differ from bilinguals in an increasing positive effect such as ‘an emergent

ability to focus attention’ (Aronin & OLaoire, 2003), cognitive effects such as

metalinguistic awareness (Jessner, 1999, 2006), general language proficiency and literacy

skills (language use, pragmatic skills, text reading accuracy and written expression) in

additional languages (Bild & Swain, 1989; Errasti, 2003; Valencia & Cenoz, 1992).

However, it could be that this evidence reflects proximity between the languages being

studied, which explains the positive effect of trilingualism and triliteracy (Cenoz &

Genesee, 1998; Cenoz & Hoffmann, 2003; Jessner, 2006; Leung, 2005). In this case, the

more typologically similar language and orthography (L1 or L2) might facilitate L3

literacy acquisition and vice versa. Accordingly, this facilitating effect may not be a

result of a general L1 and L2 and literacy advantage per se. In the following section, we

will address this issue of typological distance and closeness with regard to basic literacy

skill acquisition in EL2, specifically focusing on orthographic categories that are similar

and different to the Russian (L1) and Hebrew (L1, L2) orthographies.

Research focusing on the contribution of L1 and L2 phonemic awareness, decoding

and encoding to the development of L3 literacy skills among young bilinguals is still in

its infancy. The aim of this research was to investigate difficulties with novel digraphs in

English among Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilinguals who were literate in Russian and

Hebrew and were emerging triliterates, Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilinguals who were

literate in Hebrew only and were emerging biliterates and Hebrew-speaking monolingual

monoliterates who were emerging biliterates. These three groups were compared in their

L2 or L3 English spelling and word decoding regarding specific orthographic

conventions. An earlier study found Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterate bilinguals in

fifth grade to be significantly superior to their Hebrew-speaking monolingual peers on

phonological processing skills (phoneme analysis, nonword decoding and spelling in

English L3; Schwartz, Geva, Leikin & Share, 2007). These findings provided support for

a positive impact of Russian (L1) basic literacy skills on English (L3) literacy acquisition.

In order to more finely examine the findings of this earlier study, the present study went

one step further by investigating specific English orthographic challenges emerging from

ACQUIRING THE COMPLEX ENGLISH ORTHOGRAPHY 137

Copyright r 2011 UKLA

different literacy backgrounds. This study examined success in reading and spelling

specific English orthographic characteristics that exist in Russian but not in Hebrew as

opposed to English orthographic characteristics that do not exist in either Russian or

Hebrew for emerging biliterates as opposed to emerging triliterates.

What do we know about basic literacy skills acquisition from bilingual research?

Up to now, much of our knowledge concerning connections between written languages

with regard to spelling and decoding acquisition came from bilingualism research.

Relationships between basic literacy acquisition in L1 and L2 have been attributed to

underlying cognitive abilities (Geva & Ryan, 1993). Such abilities as, for example,

phonological awareness, and working memory are ‘thought to be part of one’s general

cognitive endowment and to be largely independent of specific language experiences’

(Genesee, Geva, Dressler & Kamil, 2006, p. 159). To complete the picture, phonological

segmentation ability was found to be a significant predictor of reading abilities among

children with monolingual, bilingual and trilingual backgrounds (Muter & Diethelm,

2001). This approach is rooted in Cummins’ interdependence hypothesis (Cummins, 1978),

and compatible with the linguistic coding differences hypothesis (Sparks & Ganschow,

1993), which attests to the transfer of literacy-related skills (e.g. phonological awareness

and word-recognition ability) between languages belonging to different linguistic families

with distinct orthographies (e.g. Hebrew–English, Geva & Wade-Woolley, 1998; Kahn-

Horwitz, Shimron & Sparks, 2005; Chinese–English, Gottardo, Yan, Siegel & Wade-

Woolley, 2001; Russian–Hebrew, Schwartz, Leikin & Share, 2005). Cross-linguistic

transfer has evolved conceptually and the current study uses August and Shanahan’s (2006)

broader conception of cross-language transfer whereby a dynamic interaction exists

between L1 and L2 component language and literacy skills. The former is a rich resource

from which to draw when acquiring a new language and literacy. Furthermore, L1 literacy

has been found to have a profound and long-lasting impact on the development of L2

literacy print acquisition and reading development (Koda, 1995, 2008). Understanding

cross-linguistic transfer for literacy acquisition may explain literacy developmental

trajectories in the case of different minority groups. In addition, pedagogical implications

would suggest highlighting relevant similarities or differences between L1 and the target

literacy in order to promote target literacy acquisition (Koda, 2008).

Note, however, that within the framework of bilingual research, there is growing

evidence to the role of script typology on cross-linguistic interaction between L1 and L2.

In this context, the script-dependent hypothesis (Geva & Siegel, 2000; Geva, Wade-

Woolley & Shany, 1993) claims that specific characteristics of L1 linguistic and

orthographic structure affect L2 literacy acquisition due to cross-linguistic transfer (Geva

& Siegel, 2000; Geva & Wade-Woolley, 1998). We suggest here that emphasis needs to

be placed not only on orthographic characteristics but also on the way the orthography

reflects the linguistic structure and the interplay between the languages involved. For

example, linguistic distance between Hebrew and English where the novel phoneme /y/

or /j/ represented by the grapheme th is both linguistically and orthographically

challenging due to the fact that digraphs do not exist in Hebrew. Specific characteristics

of any given orthography will determine the type of mapping with its underlying

processing that is required for successful decoding and encoding. Translated into practice

in any given literacy, children need to understand the orthographic-specific unit of word

138 KAHN-HORWITZ, SCHWARTZ and SHARE


analysis and how this maps onto phonemes or morphemes. This should then provide an

overall framework for subsequent literacy acquisition. If the unit of word analysis is

similar for L1 and the target orthography, for example consonant clusters in Russian and

English, learners will experience a similar process to their L1 literacy acquisition. In this

case, L2 basic literacy skills acquisition will be facilitated and strengthened by prior

literacy experience. A connectionist paradigm would explain the transition from effortful

mapping of orthographic units onto phonemes to automatic recognition in L2 literacy as

being a gradual and dynamic process (Koda, 2008). In this complex interplay between

developmental and cross-language factors, L2 literacy evolves, which provides a secure

basis for further L2 literacy acquisition (Genesee et al., 2006).

In the present study, the inclusion of two Russian–Hebrew-speaking groups who were

both exposed to Russian oral language from birth enabled us to study the interplay

between orthographic and linguistic characteristics of the language. A methodological

design that included a Russian–Hebrew-speaking emergent triliterate group facilitated

controlling for the role of Russian literacy over and above oral language. Accordingly, we

predicted that only the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emergent triliterates would benefit

from the complex syllabic structures (consonant clusters) in oral Russian. Their

experience with consonant clusters would act as a catalyst for greater phonemic

sensitivity. This sensitivity in turn would be expected to facilitate spelling and decoding

of English consonant clusters.

Basic literacy skills acquisition in EL2: an L1 Russian and Hebrew background

Phonemic awareness and word decoding

Phonemic awareness is an underlying mechanism of basic literacy skill acquisition.

Developing EL2 phonemic awareness reflects L1 orthographic experience (Bruck &

Genesee, 1995; Wade-Woolley, 1999). Thus, children with a background in an

orthography that is not analysed at a phonemic level may be expected to experience

phonemic awareness and synthesis as a greater challenge than children who have had

experience in phonemic awareness in their L1 orthography.

Like English, Russian Cyrillic script is a fully fledged alphabet, which is read from left

to right and has letters representing consonants and vowels. The Russian syllable

structure is very much more complex than the English syllable structure with Russian

syllables having up to four consonants in a single cluster (Akhmanova, 1971). This

phonological complexity has been found to have a positive influence on the development

of phonological awareness at the phonemic level. Thus, it has been found that Russian-

speaking preschoolers and first graders are able to perform more complex phonological

segmentation tasks than English- or Hebrew-speaking children (R. Ibrahim & Z. Eviatar,

unpublished data; Zaretsky, 2002).

The Russian orthography is considered to be relatively more transparent and less

challenging regarding letter–sound correspondence and decoding. However, spelling in

Russian is comparable with opaque orthographies with inconsistent grapheme–phoneme

correspondence such as English (Grigorenko, 2003). Reading instruction in Russian

schools stresses intensive phonemic awareness training by discrimination of phonemes,

phoneme blending and phoneme manipulation, distinguishing between consonants in

consonant clusters and between consonants and vowels, and segmentation of syllables

(Kerek & Neimi, 2009; Kornev, 1997; McEneaney, 1997).



Hebrew is a Semitic language with a consonantal orthography (or ‘abjad’), read from

right to left, and existing in two forms: pointed (fully vocalised by means of vowel

diacritics) and unpointed (partly vocalised) (Ravid, 2006; Share & Levin, 1999; Shimron,

1993). Both forms of the Hebrew script do not present vowels by fully fledged letters,

while initial acquisition of reading in pointed script is based on the usage of CV

subsyllabic segments as the basic units of decoding instruction. Early literacy instruction

in Hebrew does not stress the distinction between consonants and vowels (Bentin &

Leshem, 1993). Hebrew-speaking children may therefore be less sensitive to vowels as

separate phonemes. That is, these children struggle with progressing from the default

kamatz /a/ diacritic (e.g. 5 /ra/) CV segment to another CV segment with a different

diacritic mark (e.g. hirik /i/). This perhaps explains the fact that most reading errors in

Hebrew are vowel decoding errors (Share & Levin, 1999).

In addition, in contrast to Russian and English, Hebrew is characterised by relatively

simple syllable structures (CV and CVC). Consequently, we expected that Russian–

Hebrew-speaking emergent triliterates would experience success with phonemic

awareness and short vowel decoding in English (L3). This is due to their experience

with Russian (L1) literacy as a fully fledged alphabet with letters representing consonants

and vowels. We expected Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates and Hebrew-

speaking emerging biliterates to find English phonemic awareness and short vowel

decoding to be challenging. This prediction is based on Schwartz et al.’s (2007) study,

which found that biliterate bilinguals performed significantly better than their

monoliterate bilingual and monolingual peers on a global score for phonemic awareness

in English as an L3.

Spelling acquisition

The English orthography is considered to be opaque (Seymour, Aro & Erskine, 2003;

Spencer, 2000, 2007). This implies that both decoding and encoding involve additional

mappings aside from direct translation of spelling to pronunciation. Acquisition of

symbol–sound correspondence of the English alphabet is merely a first step in literacy

acquisition. Additional orthographic processing involves automatic recognition of tens of

orthographic patterns making words graphemically complex (Davis & Bryant, 2006;

Spencer, 2007) as well as acquisition of words that have varying degrees of phonemic

irregularity, for example one where only the /n/ is phonemically regular. Successful

decoding and spelling include an understanding of the complex syllabic structure of

English, which facilitates pronunciation of multiple vowel combinations (e.g. closed

syllables with short vowel sounds such as, run, fun, up and phonemic exceptions such as

put where the /u/ does not have a short sound despite the syllable being closed;

Shankweiler & Fowler, 2004). According to Frost (2005), the multiple vowel system

(about 15 vowels) which is represented by fewer graphemes is what gives the English

orthography its opaque character. English word recognition is complex so that both

syllabic and morphological knowledge necessary for decoding multi-syllabic content

words of Greek and Latin origin need to be acquired. L1 English readers use this

knowledge from fourth grade onwards in order to ensure continued accurate and

independent decoding (Harm, McCandliss & Seidenberg, 2003; Henry, 2003;

McCandliss, Beck, Sandak & Perfetti, 2003). The various multiple-stage models that

describe English monolingual spelling development are testimony to the challenging

nature of the English orthography (Young, 2007). Indeed, it has become widely



recognised that English poses extraordinary difficulties for the young child learning to

read and write in English L1 (Davis & Bryant, 2006). This is even more so in the case of

EL2 and these difficulties appear to be directly rooted in the complexity of the

orthography (J. Kahn-Horwitz & Z. Goldstein, unpublished data; Spencer, 2000;

Wimmer & Goswami, 1994).

There has been less empirical examination of cross-linguistic transfer in spelling

between languages belonging to different families and represented by different scripts, as

in our case Hebrew, Russian and English. Existing research on development of EL2

spelling points out that children and college students transferred their knowledge of L1

phonology and phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence to their early EL2 spelling

(Fender, 2008; Tal, 2005; Van Berkel, 2005). In a review of L1 impact on EL2 spelling

development, Figueredo (2006) cites repeated evidence of facilitation and obstruction of

EL2 spelling depending on the characteristics of L1 orthographies and the distance

between L1 and L2 orthographies. At the pronunciation stage, English phonemes that do

not exist in L1 may be mispronounced and misrepresented graphemically in English

spelling. An example of this is the phoneme /y/ or /j/ represented by the consonant

digraph th that exists neither in Hebrew nor in Russian.

In accordance with the script-dependent hypothesis, concerning EL2 spelling

acquisition we predicted that Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates would

outperform Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates and Hebrew-speaking emer-

ging biliterates in the spelling and decoding of short vowels and consonant clusters. We

also hypothesised that all three groups would face similar difficulties in their spelling and

decoding of the following: foreign consonants, consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs and

foreign digraphs as novel orthographic conventions (see Table 1).

Method

Participants

A sample of 99 fifth-grade children were selected from five elementary schools located in

similar neighbourhoods in the northern region of Israel. The schools were characterised

by similar middle socioeconomic (SE) index. This index is calculated by the Israeli

Ministry of Education based on parents’ reports on their income, occupation and ranking

of family residential area. The government uses this index for the differential funding of

schools. In Israeli schools, the SE index is measured on a 10-point scale ranging from 1 to

10, with higher scores indicating lower SE status. In the present study, the SE index for

the schools was the following: 4.70, 4.90, 5.05, 5.05 and 5.1. Participant selection was

Table 1. Orthographic differences and similarities between Russian, English and Hebrew.

Orthographic conventions and patterns English Russian Hebrew

Consonant clusters Present Present Absent

Short vowel representation Present Present Absent

Foreign consonants (w, j) Present Absent Absent

Consonant digraphs (sh, ch) Present Absent Absent

Vowel digraphs (oo, ee) Present Absent Absent

Foreign digraphs (th) Present Absent Absent

Split digraph (silent ‘e’) Present Absent Absent



conducted in two stages. First, parents were approached during parent–teacher meetings.

The consent form for parents of both bilingual groups included questions concerning date

of arrival in Israel, ratings of language dominance at home, information on the level of

the child’s Russian literacy knowledge, length of exposure to Russian and English

literacy and whether children received private tutoring in English. The consent form for

parents of Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates contained questions about parent

education, the age when the child began to receive English instruction and whether the

child received any private tutoring in English.

Next, based on the information provided by parents and teachers, we selected 53

Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates who met the following exclusionary

criteria: (1) Russian is the first and dominant language in the home; (2) acquired basic

skills in Russian literacy between the ages of 5 and 6 years; (3) immigrated to Israel

before entering Grade 2; (4) began their English instruction in Grade 3; (5) did not

receive any supplementary private tutoring in English outside of school; (6) were not

diagnosed with learning disabilities, and severe hearing, visual and neurological

impairments (see Table 2). On the basis of the parental report, we selected 46

Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates studying EL2 who shared the last three criteria

with their emerging triliterate peers. Finally, according to the information obtained from

parental reports of children’s Russian literacy knowledge, and the results of our own

testing of Russian decoding and spelling skills, the Russian–Hebrew speakers were

divided into two groups: (1) Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates (were able to

read Russian and Hebrew with English as L3) (n 5 34) and (2) Russian–Hebrew-speaking

emerging biliterates (were able to read Hebrew with English as an L3) (n 5 19). Note that

the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates had rudimentary knowledge of the

Russian alphabet.

All Russian–Hebrew speakers were second-generation Russian–Jewish immigrants,

who lived in the north of Israel. Russian was the dominant home language, although

Hebrew was the primary language used outside of the home. Russian–Hebrew speakers’

reports regarding language practice at home and in the immediate environment described

the following: communication between children and grandparents occurred in Russian,

communication between parents and children was mostly in Russian, between siblings

communication was mainly in Hebrew for older siblings and in Russian for younger

siblings and between friends was mostly in Hebrew but with Russian-speaking friends

was sometimes in Russian.

Table 2. Group classification criteria.

Group L1

Russian

Russian literacy

acquisition

between 5 and

6 years old

Immigrated to

Israel before

Grade 2

Began English

instruction in

Grade 3

After school

English

tutoring

Diagnosed

learning

disabilities

Russian–Hebrew-

speaking emerging

triliterates

X X

Russian–Hebrew-

speaking emerging

biliterates

X X X

Hebrew-speaking

emerging biliterates

X X X X X



Research variables

Dependent variables were English literacy measures: pseudoword spelling and decoding.

Independent variables were Russian and Hebrew (L1 and L2) phoneme deletion,

pseudoword reading, spelling, and word reading accuracy and English phoneme analysis,

phoneme deletion and word recognition. General nonverbal ability was controlled for.

Measures

Baseline measures in Hebrew and Russian. These had a number of purposes. First, the

Russian literacy tests were conducted in order to distinguish between Russian–Hebrew-

speaking emerging triliterates and Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates.

Second, Hebrew literacy tests facilitated controlling for differences in L1 or L2 between

the groups. Finally, the focus on Hebrew literacy tests enabled us to check for cross-

literacy links.

Phonemic awareness in Hebrew and Russian. Phoneme deletion (Hebrew version:

Shany, Lachman, Shalem, Bahat & Seiger, 2003; Russian version: Schwartz, 2006). This

measure consists of 20 words ranging from one to two syllables. The words represent the

following consonant/vowel structures: CVC, CCVC, CCVCV, CVCVC and CVCCV. For

test administration, the tester pronounced each word aloud. The participant repeated the

word after hearing it and then deleted a phoneme at the beginning, middle or end of the

word and pronounced the remaining (nonmeaningful) sequence. For example, in Hebrew,

‘Say matos (‘airplane’). Now, say matos without t’, correct answer would be ‘maos’; (In

Russian: shkola, ‘school’ without sh, correct answer would be ‘kola’). Two examples

were presented to the participants at the beginning of task administration. The total

number of correct responses was calculated. The maximum possible score is 20 for both

the Hebrew and the Russian task, respectively. The internal consistencies for the Hebrew

and Russian versions of this test (coefficient a) are .85 and .62, respectively.

Hebrew literacy tests

1. Word recognition accuracy (Shany et al., 2003). This test includes a list of 38 pointed

(vowelled) words varying in degree of difficulty, ranging from short, monomorphemic

words (e.g. dug, ‘fish’) to longer, multi-morphemic (e.g. , mitravxim, ‘they

get more comfortable’). The participants read these word after word aloud. Accuracy

scores were computed by allocating one point for each correctly pronounced word.

The maximum score on this task is 38. Internal consistency (coefficient a) is .90.

2. Pseudoword decoding (Deutsch, 1994). This list of 24 pseudowords was read aloud by

each participant. The number of errors (accuracy) was recorded. The maximum score

on this task is 24. Internal consistency (coefficient a) is .90.

3. Spelling (adapted from Shany et al., 2003). This test consists of 20 words representing

three different linguistic categories: (1) function words, (2) uninflected content words,

(3) inflected content words consisting of roots and word patterns different from those

used in the previous category. Participants listened to each target word, then to a

sentence including the word and again to the word in isolation. They were then

requested to write the target word. Internal consistency (coefficient a) is .87. The

maximum score for this task is 20.



Russian literacy tests

The Russian literacy tests reflect the Russian orthography (Grigorenko, 2003; Inshakova,

2004; Kerek & Neimi, 2009) and were built on the basis of the Russian syllable structure

(Akhmanova, 1971; Kerek & Neimi, 2009).

1. Word recognition accuracy (Schwartz, 2006). Participants orally read a list of 20

words of increasing difficulty ranging from short, monomorphemic to longer, multi-

morphemic words with consonant clusters (e.g. grib [‘mushroom’], velosiped

[‘bicycle’]). Accuracy scores were computed by allocating one point for each

correctly pronounced word. The maximum score on this task is 20. Internal

consistency (coefficient a) is .63.

2. Pseudoword decoding (Schwartz, 2006). Participants decoded 20 pseudowords that

comply with Russian’s morpho-phonemic conventions. These words included mono-

and multi-syllabic pseudowords (e.g. porexi). Accuracy scores were computed by

allocating one point for each correctly pronounced word. The maximum score for this

task is 20. Internal consistency (coefficient a) is .90.

3. Spelling (Schwartz, 2006). Participants wrote 10 uninflected content words in L1

Russian. Participants first listened to the target word, then to a sentence including the

word and again to the word in isolation. They were then requested to write the target

word. One point was allocated for each correctly spelled word (e.g. kniga [‘book’]).

The maximum score for this measure is 10. Internal consistency (a) is .88.

General ability

In the Raven’s colored matrixes (Raven, Raven & Court, 1976, sets A, B, C, D and E), a

nonverbal ability test, participants matched one of six graphic patterns to a visual array.

English phonemic awareness and literacy tests

Baseline measures. In addition to Hebrew and Russian baseline measures, three English

measures were administered: phoneme deletion, phoneme analysis and word recognition.

1. Phoneme deletion (adapted from Rosner, 1975). Similar to Hebrew and Russian

phoneme baseline deletion tests, the adapted version of this test included 20 one-

syllable words that required the deletion of initial, middle or final phoneme. Each

word was presented orally, the participant repeated the word after hearing it and then

deleted a target phoneme and pronounced the remaining sequence, for example, ‘Say

gate. Now, say gate without g’. Internal consistency (coefficient a) is .74.

2. Phonemic analysis. Participants were asked to analyse words into constituent

phonemes. The tester pronounced the target word. The participant repeated the word

and was then asked to say the word like a robot would. Two examples were given

before the 20 target items were presented. The test was constructed to include 20

frequent monosyllabic words taken from the required vocabulary sections of fourth-

and fifth-grade elementary school English textbooks that the students studied from.

The test is made up of items including a closed syllabic structure including five basic

CVC items (e.g. dog), five items with a consonant cluster at the beginning of the word

CCVC (e.g. trip), five items with a consonant cluster at the end of the word CVCC

(e.g. milk) and five items with a consonant cluster at the beginning and end of the word



CCVCC (e.g. stand). Four sets of variables were used, each calculated separately: (1)

overall score was computed by allocating one point for each correctly analysed word

(maximum score for this task is 20); (2) a score was calculated for each correctly

analysed initial consonant cluster (maximum score for this task is 10); (3) a score was

allocated for each correctly analysed final consonant cluster (maximum score for this

task is 10); and (4) one point was allocated for analysing medial vowels (maximum

score for this task is 20). Internal consistency (coefficient a) was .87.

3. Word recognition (Woodcock reading mastery test-revised, form H: word recognition

subtest, Woodcock, 1987). This standardised test measures single-word reading skills.

Participants read aloud the list of words of increasing difficulty. After six consecutive

errors the test was discontinued. The maximum score on this task is 65. The test

manual reports split-half reliability coefficients ranging between 0.81 and 0.99.

Experimental measures. In order to check to what extent the linguistic and orthographic

structures of Russian versus Hebrew impacted on L2 spelling (script-dependent

hypothesis), a spelling test in English was constructed. The same items of this task

were reordered into a pseudoword reading task in order to examine the relationship

between spelling and decoding.

1. Pseudoword spelling (Kahn-Horwitz, Schwartz & Share, 2008). Two stages were

completed in our measure construction in order to increase the internal validity of this

tool. The first was screening 34 orthographic conventions that appear in four fifth-

grade English textbooks. Then based on our hypotheses, we analysed novel

orthographic conventions into those that were considered a challenge for all three

groups versus those that were considered a challenge for Russian–Hebrew-speaking

emerging triliterates as opposed to Russian–Hebrew-speaking and Hebrew-speaking

emerging biliterates (see explanation in introduction and Table 1). In the second stage,

12 experienced elementary school teachers were asked to rank to what extent students

at the end of fifth grade were familiar with each pattern. A word example was given

for each pattern. Teachers ranked each pattern from 1 (no exposure and instruction) up

to 5 (high level of exposure and instruction). Only patterns that received a ranking of 4

or 5 by at least 80% of teacher agreement were included as target items for dictations.

The following patterns were excluded based on this ranking: vowel diphthongs (ou,

oy, oi) foreign digraphs (oa) and r-controlled patterns (ur, ir). The final list included

eight orthographic conventions. Each group was represented by at least five items in

the final pseudoword list. Participants were asked to spell 34 pseudowords, which

were designed to investigate the script-dependent hypothesis. We distinguished

between two sets of items: the first set included English spelling conventions that exist

in Russian but not in Hebrew (examining Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging

triliterate advantages over Russian–Hebrew-speaking and Hebrew-speaking emerging

biliterates). The second set incorporated English spelling conventions, which do not

exist in either of the target languages – Russian or Hebrew (in order to check for

general EL2 or L3 spelling difficulties) (see Table 1). Each target pseudoword was

pronounced twice by the English tester. After hearing the target pseudoword,

participants repeated the stimulus, and then wrote it. Scores were computed by

allocating one point for each correctly spelled item (maximum score for this task is

34). A separate score was calculated for each correctly spelled convention within each

of the categories (see Table 3). Internal consistency (coefficient a) is .72.



2. Pseudoword decoding (Kahn-Horwitz et al., 2008). The same above items were

presented in a jumbled order for reading. Internal consistency (coefficient a) is .80.

Procedure

In this attribute group design study, we tested children’s L1 (Russian or Hebrew), L2

(Hebrew) and English (L2, L3) literacy measures at the end of Grade 5. At this point, all

children had been exposed to 3 school years of language and literacy instruction in

English (three lessons a week). The Russian literacy tasks were administered to the

Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates. The Russian phonemic awareness task

was administered to both Russian–Hebrew-speaking groups. Hebrew and English

language and literacy measures were administered individually to all children.

For emerging triliterates and biliterates, Russian and Hebrew measures were

administered in the same session and counterbalanced. This session lasted about 45

minutes. For Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates, Hebrew measures were administered

in one session lasting approximately 30 minutes. English measures were administered

during two separate sessions 2 weeks apart. We counterbalanced these measures in order

to present the pseudoword spelling and pseudoword decoding in separate sessions. The

Ravens test of nonverbal intelligence was administered in small groups of three children

at the end of one of the English sessions. The Hebrew tasks were administered by native

Hebrew speakers, while native Russian speakers administered the Russian tasks, and

native English-speaking English teachers and assessors administered the English tasks.

The instructions for each testing session were given in the language being tested except

for the English tasks where the instructions were administered in Hebrew in order to

avoid any misunderstanding.

Results

Table 4 presents the background data for bio-social and nonverbal ability for the three

groups. In order to examine differences between the groups on the variables mentioned

above, we conducted one-way analysis of variance followed up with post hoc

comparisons. In most analyses, the significant differences between the groups are

indicated by means of Latin superscripts (a, b), with different superscripts indicating a

statistically significant difference; groups sharing a common superscript do not differ

significantly.

Table 3. English orthographic category scoring for experimental pseudoword decoding and spelling.

Category Example

1. Consonant cluster ‘spr’ in sprit

2. Short vowel ‘u’ in snup

3. Foreign consonants ‘w’ in wid

4. Consonant digraphs (ch and sh) ‘sh’ in fosh

5. Foreign digraph (th) ‘th’ in swith

6. Vowel digraph (ee and oo) ‘oo’ in stoon

7. Split vowel digraph ‘e’ zome

8. r-controlled combination ‘ar’ in yarb



It can be seen that the three groups did not differ significantly in age and nonverbal IQ.

However, there was a significant difference between all three groups in gender with a

smaller number of girls in the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterate group

compared with a preponderance of girls in the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging

triliterate group (w2(1) 5 12.3, p 5 .00). This difference will be addressed in the following

data presentation.

Group comparisons on baseline spoken and written English, Hebrew and Russian

language measures are presented in Table 5. Table 5 also includes L1 Russian literacy

scores.

The data reveal that all three groups received similar high scores for Hebrew and

English phoneme deletion. In addition, there were no significant differences between

groups for any of the English phoneme analysis tasks except for medial vowel analysis

where the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates outperformed the Russian–

Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates but not the Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates.

Because of the numerical differences between the Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates

and the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates, we created a new emergent

biliterate group by combining Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterate and

Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterate groups. This combined group was compared with

the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterate group on medial vowel analysis.

Independent t test results showed significant differences between the groups on vowel

analysis F(1, 97) 5 4.15, po.05.

The Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates outperformed Russian–Hebrew-

speaking emerging biliterates on the phoneme deletion task in Russian (L1). Concerning

groups’ performance on Hebrew (L1, L2) measures, it is notable that the Hebrew-

speaking emerging biliterates performed better than both Russian–Hebrew-speaking

groups on Hebrew spelling. These results can be attributed to the complexity of spelling

in Hebrew (Ravid, 2006). More specifically, because the Hebrew orthography is

characterised by many-to-one phoneme-to-grapheme relationships, with a number of

pairs of graphemes representing the same phoneme (e.g. /k/), it seems that the

findings point to a possible delay in Hebrew spelling among Russian–Hebrew-speaking

children. Hebrew spelling ability has been found to be strongly related to

morphosyntactic awareness and lexical knowledge (Levin, Ravid & Rapaport, 1999;

Ravid, 2006). We did not collect data on children’s morphosyntactic and lexical

knowledge, so we can only speculate that these second-generation immigrants from the

former Soviet Union still have relatively less-developed Hebrew (L2) vocabulary.

Finally, Table 5 shows that the performance of Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging

triliterates on Russian reading measures was near to maximum. These same triliterate

Table 4. Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) on background bio-social factors and nonverbal

intelligence.

Variables RHS emergent

triliterate (n 5 34)

RHS emergent

biliterate (n 5 19)

HS emergent

biliterate (n 5 46)

F w2

Age (years:months) 10.8 (0.56) 10.8 (0.42) 10.7 (0.51) .53 –

Gender (boys:girls) 12:23 16:3 24:22 – 12.30*

Nonverbal intelligence 67.9 (17.56) 70.9 (13.30) 68.3 (10.94) .30 –

Note: RHS 5 Russian–Hebrew speaking; HS 5 Hebrew speaking.*po.005.



children were less successful at spelling in L1 compared with reading. A possible

explanation for this may be the complexity of Russian spelling, which is characterised by

highly opaque phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence (Grigorenko, 2003; Inshakova,

2004; Kerek & Neimi, 2009) compared with decoding, which reflects relatively

consistent phoneme–grapheme correspondence. Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging

triliterates may have also had more practice with reading as opposed to spelling as

they reported informally to the researchers.

For English phoneme analysis, all three groups reached close to the ceiling effect for

initial consonant clusters and high scores were obtained for final consonant cluster

analysis. Numerically, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates outperformed

the two emerging biliterate groups on vowel analysis as predicted. However, significant

differences were only found between the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates

(M 5 67.9, SD 5 27.86) who were at an advantage to the Russian–Hebrew-speaking

emerging biliterates (M 5 46.6, SD 5 32.75), whereas Hebrew-speaking emerging

biliterates (M 5 57.3, SD 5 33.35) fell in between these two, F (2, 96) 5 2.92, po.05.

The performance of the three groups on English pseudoword spelling is reported in

Table 6.

As predicted, there were no significant differences between groups on the novel

orthographic conventions in English that were considered a challenge for all participants.

Table 5. Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) on baseline spoken and written English, Hebrew

and Russian language measures as percentage values.

Variables (range) RHS emergent

triliterate (n 5 34)

RHS emergent

biliterate (n 5 19)

HS emergent

biliterate (n 5 46)

F

English

Phoneme deletion – Rosner (1–20) 91.3 (9.72) 89.0 (11.38) 84.7 (15.29) 2.70

Phoneme analysis – initial

consonant clusters (1–10)

95.6 (8.23) 94.7 (13.48) 95.6 (11.28) 0.05

Phoneme analysis – final consonant

cluster (1–10)

81.8 (30.00) 89.5 (13.93) 89.8 (22.75) 1.19

Phoneme analysis – medial vowel

(1–20)

67.9a (27.85) 46.6b (32.75) 57.3a,b (33.35) 2.92*

Phoneme analysis – overall (1–20) 63.7 (29.27) 43.7 (31.53) 55.8 (33.37) 2.43

Hebrew

Phoneme deletion (1–20) 87.5 (12.87) 79.0 (12.76) 84.0 (14.93) 2.33

Word recognition accuracy (1–38) 93.8 (5.38) 91.8 (6.20) 93.0 (5.12) 0.82

Pseudoword decoding accuracy

(1–24)

87.5 (10.81) 86.8 (12.37) 82.3 (15.28) 1.75

Spelling accuracy (1–20) 82.7b (22.87) 79.7b (17.83) 90.7a (9.17) 3.80*

t

Russian

Phoneme deletion (1–20) 96.2 (5.31) 90.3 (7.90) – 3.25*

Word recognition accuracy (1–20) 95.0 (6.12) – – –

Pseudoword decoding accuracy (1–20) 92.9 (9.10) – – –

Spelling accuracy (1–10) 65.8 (22.48) – – –

Note: RHS 5 Russian–Hebrew speaking; HS 5 Hebrew speaking.Because of close to significant p value, we conducted a one-way analysis of variance with LSD post-testresulting in significant differences between groups which are marked by means of Latin superscripts (a, b).*po.05.



However, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates outperformed both

comparison groups on spelling of short vowels, which, as we expected, is considered a

challenge for emerging biliterates. At the same time, there were no significant differences

between the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates and the two other groups on

consonant cluster spelling.

For the pseudowords decoding measure (see Table 7), the Russian–Hebrew-speaking

emerging triliterates outperformed both comparison groups on the decoding of consonant

clusters. For short vowel decoding, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates

were significantly superior to the Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates. In addition, they

Table 6. Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for pseudoword spelling in English as percentage

values and w2 values for nonparametric comparisons between the groups.

Variables RHS

emergent

triliterate

(n 5 34)

RHS

emergent

biliterate

(n 5 19)

HS emergent

biliterate

(n 5 45)

F w2 Number

of test

items

Pseudoword spelling (overall) 41.4 (13.81) 37.8 (13.38) 37.7 (19.03) 0.56 – 1–34

Consonant clusters spelling 92.3 (10.02) 91.5 (10.22) 87.5 (17.38) 1.29 0.85 1–13

Short vowels spelling 60.5a (13.07) 47.4b (20.79) 48.9b (24.32) 5.45* 6.06* 1–14

Foreign consonants spelling 69.4 (25.22) 66.3 (26.71) 72. 9 (27.02) 0.45 1.29 1–5

Consonant digraphs (‘ch’, ‘sh’) 82.4 (31.05) 82.1 (28.20) 66.7 (35.42) 2.78 8.2* 1–5

Consonant digraphs (‘th’) 30.0 (35.93) 34.7 (39.35) 26.2 (35.37) 0.38 0.6 1–5

Vowel digraphs (‘ee’, ‘oo’) 33.5 (27.29) 22.1 (22.99) 34.7 (25.01) 1.74 3.58 1–5

Split digraph (silent ‘e’) 21.2 (29.10) 23.2 (26.05) 22.2 (24.58) 0.04 0.59 1–5

‘r’ controlled 83.5 (15.15) 69.5 (23.45) 78.7 (25.37) 2.50 4.87 1–5

Note: RHS 5 Russian–Hebrew speaking; HS 5 Hebrew speaking. Superscripts (a,b) are used to show significantdifferences between groups.*po.05.

Table 7. Means and standard deviations (in parentheses) for pseudoword decoding and word recognition

accuracy in English as percentage values and w2 values for nonparametric comparisons between the groups.

Variables RHS emergent

triliterate

(n 5 34)

RHS emergent

biliterate

(n 5 19)

HS emergent

biliterate

(n 5 45)

F w2 Number

of test

items

Woodcock word recognition 61.0a (11.96) 56.0a,b (14.60) 51.6b (13.75) 4.87* – 1–65

Pseudoword decoding (overall) 63.7a (15.96) 55.4a,b (17.49) 52.2b (21.82) 3.58* – 1–34

Consonant clusters decoding 95.7a (5.42) 88.7b (14.59) 90.5b (12.89) 3.07*c

3.60* 1–13

Short vowels decoding 75.8a (14.29) 68.4a,b (14.74) 63.8b (18.89) 5.08* 8.30* 1–14

Foreign consonants decoding 96.1 (9.23) 93.0 (16.02) 93.8 (11.31) 0.54 1.12 1–5

Consonant digraphs (‘ch’, ‘sh’) 88.2a (15.66) 85.3a,b (21.95) 73.5b (35.79) 3.05*c

1.97 1–5

Foreign consonant digraphs (‘th’) 38.2 (39.19) 36.8 (33.51) 34.4 (35.16) 0.11 2.5 1–5

Vowel digraphs (‘ee’, ‘oo’) 80.0 (25.11) 68.4 (30.78) 68.7 (30.30) 1.76 3.22 1–5

Split digraph (silent ‘e’) 56.5 (35.67) 46.3 (30.59) 38.7 (33.84) 2.69 5.04 1–5

‘r’ controlled 87.7 (13.94) 79.0 (22.58) 77.4 (24.44) 2.46 3.26 1–5

Note: RHS 5 Russian–Hebrew speaking; HS 5 Hebrew speaking.cBecause of close to significant p value, we conducted one-way analysis of variances with an LSD post-testresulting in significant differences between groups which are marked by means of Latin superscripts (a, b).*po.05.



showed close to significant differences with the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging

biliterates. As both emergent biliterate groups showed similar results on short vowel

decoding, it was decided to create a new emergent biliterate group by combining these

two groups. This was carried out in order to examine the effect of triliteracy on the

decoding of short vowels. The results of the t test with a set at .01 showed that as

hypothesised the emerging triliterates outperformed the combined emergent biliterate

group, F(1, 97) 5 1.49, p 5 .003.

The Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates showed a significant advantage

over the Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates on the overall measure of pseudowords

decoding and word recognition accuracy. Finally, there was a marginally significant

difference between the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates and the Hebrew-

speaking emerging biliterates on the decoding of consonant digraphs. These data could be

attributed to the fact that one of the two target phonemes , which is represented by

the digraph ‘ch’, does not exist in the Hebrew language and therefore is novel for the

Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates but not for Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging

triliterates.

Because of the different number of items for spelling and decoding of short vowels as

opposed to other orthographic conventions, we ran nonparametric comparisons (Kruskal–

Wallis tests) to examine whether we would find that the differences we observed for the

parametric tests remained consistent for the w2 results (see Tables 6 and 7). We found a

similar pattern of results for nonparametric tests. In addition, because the previous

analyses had identified a significant difference in the gender composition of the groups,

the analyses of Tables 6 and 7 were rerun with boys only. These analyses yielded the

same pattern of results. To summarise, this research points to clear-cut evidence that

Russian may facilitate spelling and decoding in English.

Discussion

This study, which was inspired by the script-dependent hypothesis, aimed to check the

following two hypotheses. The first hypothesis examined whether Russian–Hebrew-

speaking emerging triliterates were superior to Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging

biliterates and Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates in the spelling and reading of short

vowels and consonant clusters. The second hypothesis examined whether all three groups

would experience similar challenges regarding their spelling and reading of English:

foreign consonants, consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs and foreign digraphs as novel

orthographic conventions.

Our first hypothesis was fully supported with regard to spelling and decoding of

English short vowels. Because of similarities between the Russian and English

orthographies, in the present study, we expected and indeed observed a more direct

interaction between the target scripts. The advantage of Russian–Hebrew-speaking

emergent triliterates over the two emergent biliterate groups may be explained by the

facilitating effect of knowledge of the Russian orthography. It is notable, however, that

even the most advantaged group, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates did

not achieve anywhere close to ceiling results for either spelling or decoding of short

vowels after 3 years of English literacy instruction. This clearly reflects objective

challenges presented by the English orthography (Wimmer & Landerl, 1997; Young,

2007).



Our results that all three groups obtained relatively high scores for consonant cluster

decoding and spelling were unexpected. These results reflect the ceiling effects obtained

by all for phoneme analysis of initial and final consonant clusters. For decoding

consonant clusters, there was a marginally significant advantage for Russian–Hebrew

emerging triliterates over the other two groups; however, no difference was observed for

consonant cluster spelling. We may have observed our originally expected advantage for

Russian–Hebrew emerging triliterates had we examined their reading and spelling at the

very beginning of their English literacy acquisition in third grade. Another explanation

could be that the Hebrew syllabic structure also includes consonant clusters albeit

consisting only of two consonants. To complete the picture, as a result of globalisation

and English being a lingua franca internationally there has been a continual influx of

English words into languages around the world of which Hebrew is no exception

(Lundberg, 2010). These borrowed words that children are exposed to daily and in

different contexts include brand names (e.g. Sprite, McDonalds), commercial words (e.g.

bank) and particularly words connected to the Internet (e.g. Skype). It could be that a

combination of exposure to consonant clusters from the aforementioned sources coupled

with experience with English over 3 years may have boosted their abilities to decode and

spell consonant clusters. The three groups’ success with consonant clusters may also

reflect that this aspect of the English orthography is less challenging as opposed to the

multiple graphemic and phonemic vowel patterns.

Despite the similar high scores by all three groups for initial and final consonant cluster

analyses, they showed a notably lower result for medial vowel analysis. The significant

advantage for the Russian–Hebrew-speaking emergent triliterates over the other two

groups on vowel analysis reflects that biliterates were less sensitive to vowels. We

supposed that this might be due to the fact that children who were exposed only to

Hebrew before English had less experience with an orthography that demands phonemic

sensitivity and which distinguishes between consonants and vowels. This does not occur

for Hebrew literacy instruction where CV blocks are the most basic phonological and

orthographic unit. This advantage converges with spelling and decoding advantages

shown by the Russian–Hebrew-speaking triliterates, which was supported by correlations

of around .45, po.05 between phonological analysis, reading and spelling.

The second hypothesis predicted equal difficulties for all three groups in their reading

and spelling of foreign and novel consonants, consonant digraphs, vowel digraphs and

foreign digraphs. Digraphs contribute to English grapheme complexity and have been

found to impact significantly on the correct spelling and decoding of English L1 children

of different ages (Davis & Bryant, 2006; Spencer, 2007). It seems that this complexity

impacts similarly and has greater delaying effects on young children acquiring EL2

literacy who have not had L1 experience with these novel phonemes and the concept of a

digraph.

Our study found that the foreign consonant digraph th was extremely challenging for

all three groups and this could be because for all participants, /y/ and /j/ are novel

phonemes and th is a novel orthographic pattern. All three groups also experienced

difficulty reading and spelling the split digraph (silent ‘e’), which appears to be a

challenging digraph for English L1 speakers as well (Davis & Bryant, 2006). In addition,

all three groups had difficulty spelling vowel digraphs ee and oo, yet experienced greater

success reading these digraphs. At the same time, the consonant digraphs sh and ch were

easier for reading for the Russian–Hebrew emerging triliterates and biliterates as opposed

to the Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates and for spelling for all three target groups.



The differences in decoding may be a result of the fact that the digraphs ch and sh exist in

Russian as phonemes, even though they are represented by single graphemes and

not digraphs. As for Hebrew, there is only the phoneme , which is also represented

by a single grapheme. It appears that when EL2 students have exposure to a phoneme in

their L1s, it is easier to acquire its grapheme correspondence. This seems to be the case

despite them not having experience with digraphs in their L1 literacy. When they have

neither experience with a novel phoneme nor its orthographic representation in the

additional language, for example ch in the case of Hebrew, or th and the split digraph

(silent e) in the case of both Russian and Hebrew, then this appears to be a very

significant obstacle in literacy acquisition in the additional language even after 3 years of

exposure. In contrast to digraphs, our results found that singleton consonants even when

they were novel as in the case of foreign consonants w and j as well as ‘r-controlled’

syllables with or and ar did not appear to challenge these emerging bi- and triliterate

children.

Within a broader theoretical context, our findings regarding trilinguals support existing

evidence from bilinguals where differences and interactions between not only

orthographic but also linguistic features (e.g. syllable structure and novel phonemes)

impacted acquisition of the L2 or L3 orthography. This supports proposing that the script-

dependence hypothesis be viewed in a broader sense, which includes linguistic

dimensions as well as emphasising the impact of linguistic and orthographic proximity

between target languages. For example, the case of the phoneme represented

orthographically by ch. In the present study, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking children were

exposed to this phoneme, although it is not represented in the Russian script by a digraph

as in English. They exhibited an advantage because of this linguistic proximity as

opposed to the Hebrew-speaking emerging biliterates. In Hebrew, the phoneme only

appears in a few borrowed words. These findings lead us to suggest the linguistic and

orthographic proximity hypothesis that should be explored experimentally between

different linguistic and orthographic contexts. This kind of research would examine

languages and scripts that have phonemic properties in common but greater orthographic

representation differences and vice versa.

Concerning a triliteracy advantage, it might be asked whether the gains observed

among our Russian–Hebrew-speaking emerging triliterates are attributable to their access

to two orthographic systems when acquiring L3 literacy. Alternatively, perhaps these

gains are due to the fact that the two orthographies in question were typologically related

(Russian and English) versus rather distant scripts (Hebrew and English). In other words,

does triliteracy represent a unique and complex phenomenon, which differs qualitatively

from biliteracy? We conclude that the specific advantage of emerging Russian–Hebrew-

speaking triliterates on short vowel decoding and spelling is a result of the similar way

the Russian and English scripts graphically represent vowels and not due to a triliteracy

experience per se. In order to further investigate the proposed language and orthographic

proximity hypothesis, additional research within a triliteral context is needed to examine

the languages that are linguistically and orthographically distant (e.g. Arabic [L1],

Hebrew [L2] versus English [L3]).

With regard to implications for the field, our results suggest that teachers might stress

similarities and differences between the scripts and use children’s knowledge of L1

literacy to enhance their cross-linguistic awareness (Cummins, 2008). Teachers could

assist multiliterate students in exploring their L1 literacy as a supporter language due to

typological closeness (in the case of Russian literacy) with English as a lingua franca.



The identification of orthographic patterns, which are difficult for both emerging

triliterate and biliterate children and which we have evidence for being challenging for

L1 English children, should be taught in a very much more explicit and gradual manner.

This would involve repetition of the target phonemes, identification of key lexical items

that would act as a mnemonic for these patterns, practice writing the target graphemes as

well as reading and spelling of words that include target patterns until automatic

recognition is achieved. This type of research-based teaching may serve to combat

students reaching seventh grade without being able to decode and encode effectively in

EL2 (Kahn-Horwitz & Ressissi, 2008).

Acknowledgements

This research was jointly supported by a grant from The MOFET Institute and the

Department of Teacher Education at the Ministry of Israel, 2009–2010, to the first author,

and a grant from Oranim College of Education Graduate Department to the first two

authors.

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Janina Kahn-Horwitz, PhD, is a lecturer at Oranim and Gordon Colleges of Education. Herresearch interests include individual differences in language learning and their impact on English as



10.1348/000712606X123002

http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/Mazkirut_Pedagogit/English/Publications/

http://cms.education.gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/Mazkirut_Pedagogit/English/Publications/

a Foreign Language (EL2) acquisition, EL2 reading and spelling development, development of EL2assessment measures and intervention studies in EL2.

Mila Schwartz, PhD, is a senior lecturer at Oranim College of Education. Her research interestsinclude studying of biliteracy; early bilingual education; language and cognitive development ofearly sequential bilinguals; family language policy; and immigrant teachers’ pedagogicaldevelopment.

David L. Share gained his PhD in Psychology at Deakin University in Australia. He is currentlyfull professor at the Department of Learning Disabilities, and Edmond J. Safra Brain ResearchCenter for the Study of Learning Disabilities at the Faculty of Education, University of Haifa,Israel. His main areas of research are reading acquisition and reading disabilities with a specialemphasis on the role of writing systems in literacy learning.

Received 6 October 2010; revised version received 19 November 2010.

Address for correspondence: Janina Kahn-Horwitz, Manof 46, D.N. Misgav, 20184,

Israel. E-mail: [email protected]



mailto:[email protected]

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Kahn-Horwitz, Schwartz & Share (2011)