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Spelling Morphology in Hebrew: Comparing Monolingual and Bilingual Children

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Title: Spelling Morphology in Hebrew: Comparing Monolingual and Bilingual Children
Language: English
Authors: Tamar Michaly (ORCID 0000-0002-1441-3661), Anat Prior (ORCID 0000-0001-8026-2825)
Source: Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. 2025 38(7):1875-1900.
Availability: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 26
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Early Childhood Education
Grade 2
Primary Education
Grade 4
Intermediate Grades
Descriptors: Monolingualism, Bilingualism, Hebrew, Spelling, Elementary School Students, Morphology (Languages), Accuracy, Age Differences, Phonological Awareness, Predictor Variables, Russian, Grade 2, Grade 4, Foreign Countries
Geographic Terms: Israel
DOI: 10.1007/s11145-024-10582-z
ISSN: 0922-4777
1573-0905
Abstract: Bilingual children are at risk for gaps in literacy in the societal language compared to monolingual peers. However, most research has focused on reading achievement, and only few studies have investigated spelling abilities, with contradictory findings. Here, we compare Hebrew spelling skill and its predictors in bilingual and monolingual elementary school children, immersed in Hebrew as a societal language. Specifically, we examined the morphological elements in Hebrew spelling. Monolingual children outperformed bilingual children in spelling accuracy, in both 2nd and 4th grade. In addition, phonological awareness and morphological awareness were significant predictors of spelling for both groups, but their relative contribution differed across the groups. Finally, even though bilingual children had lower morphological knowledge than monolingual peers, both groups showed the expected developmental pattern of spelling function letters more accurately than root letters. This pattern in Hebrew spelling acquisition is driven by the morpho-orthographic regularities of the language. These results support previous findings emphasizing the role of morphology in Hebrew spelling acquisition, extending them to bilingual children. We suggest that examining the linguistic backgrounds of children and the unique characteristics of the language and orthography are crucial for reaching a nuanced understanding of bilingual spelling acquisition.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1482334
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0187667270;2ap01sep.25;2025Sep03.06:43;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0187667270-1">Spelling morphology in Hebrew: Comparing monolingual and bilingual children </title> <p>Bilingual children are at risk for gaps in literacy in the societal language compared to monolingual peers. However, most research has focused on reading achievement, and only few studies have investigated spelling abilities, with contradictory findings. Here, we compare Hebrew spelling skill and its predictors in bilingual and monolingual elementary school children, immersed in Hebrew as a societal language. Specifically, we examined the morphological elements in Hebrew spelling. Monolingual children outperformed bilingual children in spelling accuracy, in both 2nd and 4th grade. In addition, phonological awareness and morphological awareness were significant predictors of spelling for both groups, but their relative contribution differed across the groups. Finally, even though bilingual children had lower morphological knowledge than monolingual peers, both groups showed the expected developmental pattern of spelling function letters more accurately than root letters. This pattern in Hebrew spelling acquisition is driven by the morpho-orthographic regularities of the language. These results support previous findings emphasizing the role of morphology in Hebrew spelling acquisition, extending them to bilingual children. We suggest that examining the linguistic backgrounds of children and the unique characteristics of the language and orthography are crucial for reaching a nuanced understanding of bilingual spelling acquisition.</p> <p>Keywords: Spelling; Morphology; Phonology; Bilingual; Language minority; Psychology and Cognitive Sciences Psychology Cognitive Sciences Language; Communication and Culture Linguistics</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-2">Introduction</hd> <p>Bilingualism is a complex phenomenon involving an individual's proficiency in speaking, reading, or writing in two or more languages, with possible variations in the level of proficiency across the different languages. The increase in globalization and migration worldwide has led to a growing number of bilingual children. In the current research, we study bilingual children who speak a language at home that differs from the language of their society due to having an immigrant background (Volante et al., [<reflink idref="bib91" id="ref1">91</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib92" id="ref2">92</reflink>]). Such children have also been called second language learners (Geva & Wiener, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref3">26</reflink>]) or heritage language speakers (Polinsky & Scontras, [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref4">56</reflink>]). While bilingualism offers cognitive benefits in various areas (Arredondo et al., [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref5">4</reflink>]; Fan et al., [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref6">23</reflink>]; Prior et al., [<reflink idref="bib58" id="ref7">58</reflink>]; Schroeder, [<reflink idref="bib71" id="ref8">71</reflink>]), it can also present academic challenges. Thus, bilingual children often lag behind their monolingual peers in vocabulary knowledge (Bialystok et al., [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref9">12</reflink>]; Droop & Verhoeven, [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref10">20</reflink>]; Hoff, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref11">31</reflink>]; Proctor et al., [<reflink idref="bib60" id="ref12">60</reflink>]; Schwartz & Katzir, [<reflink idref="bib72" id="ref13">72</reflink>]; Shahar-Yames et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref14">76</reflink>] Shahar-Yames & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref15">76</reflink>]) and literacy skills and achievements (Bratlie et al., [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref16">15</reflink>]; Chachashvili-Bolotin & Kreiner, [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref17">17</reflink>]; Chiappe et al., [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref18">18</reflink>]; Gottardo & Mueller, [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref19">29</reflink>]; Kieffer & Thompson, [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref20">39</reflink>]; Lesaux & Kieffer, [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref21">44</reflink>]; Levin & Shohamy, [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref22">48</reflink>]; Shahar-Yames & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref23">77</reflink>]). However, much less is known specifically about the spelling abilities of bilingual children.</p> <p>Spelling is an essential skill which plays a crucial role in the development of reading and writing, particularly during the primary school years (Daffern et al., [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref24">19</reflink>]). Effective and accurate spelling also has a unique and significant role in supporting higher processes in structuring and composing high-quality texts (Berninger, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref25">9</reflink>]; Kim & Park, [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref26">41</reflink>]; Kim, [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref27">42</reflink>]; see also meta-analysis, Kent & Wanzek, [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref28">38</reflink>]), and in ensuring clear comprehension and maintaining the reader's positive perception of the writer's arguments (Treiman, [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref29">87</reflink>]). Thus, good spelling abilities, which include understanding the writing system for producing accurate spellings of unfamiliar words, can be a key tool in helping bilingual children overcome some of the inherent challenges in language acquisition and literacy development (Vettori et al., [<reflink idref="bib90" id="ref30">90</reflink>]). This is doubly important since society places significant value on accurate spelling. To wit, texts written by second language learners that included spelling errors were rated less favorably by teachers (Jansen et al., [<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref31">32</reflink>]), and the presence of spelling errors in written documents may negatively impact individuals' ability to obtain employment (Sawyer & Joyce, [<reflink idref="bib70" id="ref32">70</reflink>]).</p> <p>Despite the importance of accurate spelling, there are inconsistent findings in the literature regarding the spelling abilities of bilingual children's in general, and no research to date on bilingual children spelling in Hebrew. Further, there is only limited evidence on whether monolingual and bilingual children recruit similar linguistic abilities for spelling. In the present study we therefore examine the spelling skills of bilingual children, as an important component in literacy development.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-3">Linguistic abilities necessary for correct spelling</hd> <p>As mentioned, spelling is a complex skill that relies on several linguistic abilities. First, in order to spell, one must understand the sounds that make up the word to be spelled. Therefore, phonological awareness—the ability to analyze spoken language sounds (Liberman & Shankweiler, [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref33">49</reflink>])—is vital for spelling. When children begin learning to spell, they develop an emergent understanding of how spoken sounds correlate with written forms. They learn to identify the phonemes in words and match them with the corresponding graphemes (Treiman, [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref34">87</reflink>]).</p> <p>Another linguistic dimension associated with spelling is vocabulary knowledge (Apel et al., [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref35">3</reflink>]). Thus, children with larger vocabulary knowledge tend to be more accurate spellers in their L1 (Kim et al., [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref36">40</reflink>]) and in their L2 (Suárez‐Coalla, et al., [<reflink idref="bib83" id="ref37">83</reflink>]). Notably, the relationship between spelling and vocabulary is reciprocal (Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref38">21</reflink>]), wherein spelling skills also aid in expanding vocabulary (Ocal & Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref39">54</reflink>]). This is because visualizing a word's spelling helps with pronouncing and memorizing the meaning of unfamiliar words (Ehri, [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref40">21</reflink>]).</p> <p>Morphological knowledge, the ability to reflect on and modify the morphemes in spoken words (Carlisle, [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref41">16</reflink>]), is also an essential component supporting proficient spelling (Shalhoub-Awwad & Cohen-Mimran, [<reflink idref="bib79" id="ref42">79</reflink>]). This is because, in many languages, spelling is not always directly represented by surface phonological segments (Frost & Bentin, [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref43">25</reflink>]), but rather reflects both phonological and morphological units (Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref44">61</reflink>]).</p> <p>Notably, the acquisition of spelling abilities, as well as the relative contribution of linguistic underlying skills, such as phonological and morphological awareness to spelling, can vary. Thus, children's spelling development might be impacted by their linguistic background, and specifically by whether they are exposed to an additional language. Indeed, studies found variability in the factors that predict spelling abilities among monolingual and bilingual children (Affranti et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref45">1</reflink>]; Bonifacci et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref46">14</reflink>]; Guimaraes & Parkins, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref47">30</reflink>]; Jongejan et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref48">34</reflink>]; Yeong & Rickard Liow, [<reflink idref="bib93" id="ref49">93</reflink>]). Specifically, phonological awareness has been identified as a predictor of spelling for both monolingual and bilingual children (Guimaraes & Parkins, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref50">30</reflink>]; Jongejan et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref51">34</reflink>]; Vataja et al., [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref52">88</reflink>]), whereas non-verbal intelligence seems to be linked to spelling only for bilinguals (Affranti et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref53">1</reflink>]; Guimaraes & Parkins, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref54">30</reflink>]). Due to the relatively small number of studies examining this question to date, there is of yet no comprehensive theoretical framework addressing this important issue. One aim of the current study is to expand the empirical database necessary for such theory development.</p> <p>In addition, spelling development can also be influenced by the specific characteristics and regularities of the language in which children are learning to spell, such as writing system, orthography and phonology (Sammour-Shehadeh et al., [<reflink idref="bib69" id="ref55">69</reflink>]). Below, we elaborate on each of these issues and how they relate to the current study, which focused on monolingual and bilingual children's spelling in Hebrew.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-4">Spelling abilities of Bilingual children</hd> <p>According to usage-based theoretical frameworks, language acquisition in children is mediated through their individual interactions with the linguistic conventions prevalent in their environment (Lieven et al., [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref56">50</reflink>]; Tomasello, [<reflink idref="bib85" id="ref57">85</reflink>]). Bilingual children tend to receive less exposure to each of their languages compared to their monolingual peers, potentially leading to more limited linguistic repertoires (Hoff, [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref58">31</reflink>]; Thordardottir, [<reflink idref="bib84" id="ref59">84</reflink>]). Michaly and Prior ([<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref60">52</reflink>]) found that bilingual Hebrew speaking children are less fluent than monolingual children in reading texts, attributing this to reduced exposure to the societal language, Hebrew. This finding raises questions about the impact of reduced exposure on spelling proficiency as well. Studies conducted in English have found bilingual children's spelling abilities to be similar to, or sometimes better than, those of their monolingual peers (August & Shanahan, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref61">5</reflink>]; Geva & Wiener, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref62">26</reflink>]; Jongejan et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref63">34</reflink>]; Zhao et al., [<reflink idref="bib96" id="ref64">96</reflink>]; see also Vataja et al., [<reflink idref="bib88" id="ref65">88</reflink>] for similar results in Swedish). However, Zhao and colleagues (2016) in their meta-analysis found that monolinguals generally outperformed bilinguals in pseudo-word spelling. They argue that pseudo-word spelling tasks are designed to assess an individual's ability to apply phoneme-to-grapheme correspondence rules, a skill that monolinguals appear to demonstrate more effectively. This difference in performance highlights the distinct linguistic strengths and challenges faced by bilingual and monolingual learners in mastering English spelling.</p> <p>In contrast to similar word spelling outcomes for monolingual and bilingual children in English, results in other languages demonstrate lower spelling abilities for bilingual children (for Dutch, Verhoeven, [<reflink idref="bib89" id="ref66">89</reflink>]; for German, Zhang et al., [<reflink idref="bib95" id="ref67">95</reflink>]; for Italian, Affranti et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref68">1</reflink>]; Bonifacci et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref69">14</reflink>]; Vettori et al., [<reflink idref="bib90" id="ref70">90</reflink>]). Affranti and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref71">1</reflink>]) argue that these differences can be ascribed to the type of writing system. Thus, monolingual English speaking children make more spelling errors than monolingual children learning more transparent languages, due to the complexity of the English writing system (Treiman, [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref72">86</reflink>]). Consequently, the bilingual gap in writing skills might be more pronounced for transparent versus opaque ortographies.</p> <p>In Hebrew, research on this subject is limited. Leikin and colleagues (2010) investigated spelling abilities in first-grade children among three groups: bi-literate Russian-Hebrew bilinguals, mono-literate Russian-Hebrew bilinguals (who acquired literacy only in the societal language, Hebrew), and Hebrew-speaking monolinguals. They found that the bi-literate bilingual group outperformed both the mono-literate bilingual and Hebrew-speaking monolingual groups in all Hebrew spelling measures. However, mirroring findings in English, the mono-literate bilingual and monolingual groups achieved comparable results. To our knowledge, no studies have examined older Hebrew speaking children. In the current study, we investigate Hebrew spelling performance among bilingual children at older ages, in light of the challenges posed by the Hebrew writing system.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-5">The challenges of Hebrew spelling and the role of morphology</hd> <p>One of the principal challenges in Hebrew spelling lies in its non-transparent mapping of phonology to orthography (Bolozky, [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref73">13</reflink>]; Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref74">63</reflink>]). A notable feature of Hebrew is the presence of homophonic letters, where a single phoneme can be represented by more than one orthographic symbol. For instance, the phoneme /t/ can be represented by two letters, either 'ת' (tav) or 'ט' (tet). This multiplicity necessitates that spellers discern the correct letter from the two possible options, despite the absence of a phonological distinction, a task that can be particularly challenging for novice spellers (Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref75">62</reflink>]). For example, the word 'delet' (door, דלת), is correctly spelled with 'ת' but could phonologically be mistaken for 'ט'. The existence of such homophonic letters implies that spellers cannot solely rely on phonology; in Hebrew, spelling predominantly reflects morphology rather than phonology (Frost, [<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref76">24</reflink>]; Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref77">64</reflink>]), and spelling errors are less likely to occur if they disrupt a morphological unit (Bar-On & Kuperman, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref78">6</reflink>]). Indeed, morphology plays a role in Hebrew spelling from as early as kindergarten (Levin et al., [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref79">47</reflink>]) and persists into adulthood (Ravid & Bar-On, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref80">65</reflink>]).</p> <p>Hebrew's morphological structure is notably rich. Words in Hebrew consist of several morphological elements: roots, patterns, and occasionally, affixes or clitics. The root, typically comprising three or four letters, forms the phonological and semantic core of a word, linking it to its 'morphological family' (Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref81">61</reflink>]; Ravid & Bar-on, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref82">65</reflink>]). For example, words such as 'tɑLMiD' (student, ת<bold>למ</bold>י<bold>ד</bold>), 'LeMiDɑ' (learning, <bold>למ</bold>י<bold>ד</bold>ה), 'liLMoD' (to study, ל<bold>למ</bold>ו<bold>ד</bold>), and 'LɑMɑDnu' (we studied, <bold>למד</bold>נו) all share the root L.M.D and are semantically related. Children are aware of the Semitic root and have the ability to make use of their knowledge of lexical and morphological organization in learning to spell (Ravid & Bar-on, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref83">65</reflink>]). The pattern, composed of vowels and consonants, imparts specific connotations and grammatical information (Berman, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref84">8</reflink>]; Levie et al., [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref85">45</reflink>]; Ravid & Malenky, [<reflink idref="bib66" id="ref86">66</reflink>]; Ravid & Schiff, [<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref87">67</reflink>]). Meanwhile, affixes and clitics at the beginning or end of a word add grammatical or syntactic information.</p> <p>In Hebrew, while all letters can serve as root letters (illustrated in capital or bolded letters in the previous examples), only 11 letters are used as function letters (illustrated in lowercase or non-bolded letters) and are used in patterns, affixes and clitics. This distinction is crucial in resolving ambiguities posed by homophonic letters since there are phonemes that possess two orthographic representations, yet a single representation as a function letter. For instance, in the word 'JeLɑDot' (girls, <bold>ילד</bold>ות), the phoneme /t/ can be spelled using either 'ת' or 'ט'. Morphological cues assist in determining the correct spelling; the suffix /ot/ (ות) indicates the plural form of feminine nouns, and the knowledge that 'ת' is a function letter (while 'ט' cannot be) leads to the correct spelling.</p> <p>Ravid's extensive research (2001, 2002) into the morphological aspects of spelling in monolingual Hebrew speaking children reveals that children's spelling proficiency is enhanced by the presence of morphological cues, and the effectiveness of these cues increases with age. Furthermore, the spelling of function letters is typically mastered before the spelling of root letters. Spelling root letters poses a greater challenge due to several reasons: First, the extensive range of roots, approximately 2,000 to 3,000 (Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref88">62</reflink>]), results in each root having a lower token frequency. Second, correctly spelling root letters often relies on the ability to identify the morphological family of the relevant root, which requires considerable linguistic knowledge and exposure (Ravid & Bar-on, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref89">65</reflink>]). By contrast, spelling function letters is relatively straightforward due to the limited number of letters involved. Furthermore, the structure of the language—consisting of around 100 nominal patterns, seven verb patterns, and a small number of suffixes and clitics means that these elements appear with higher frequency.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-6">Morphological knowledge in Hebrew among bilingual children</hd> <p>In the previous section, we indicated the importance of morphology in the spelling development in Hebrew. Therefore, we will provide a brief overview of research on the morphological knowledge of bilingual children in Hebrew.</p> <p>In inflectional morphology, which has a highly regular system acquired early by children and pertains to grammatical properties like tense, number, and gender (Park et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref90">55</reflink>]; Schwarzwald, [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref91">75</reflink>]), bilingual and monolingual children recruit morphological knowledge to the same extent (Prior & Pedael, [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref92">57</reflink>]; Reznick & Armon-Lotem, [<reflink idref="bib68" id="ref93">68</reflink>]; Schwartz et al., [<reflink idref="bib73" id="ref94">73</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib74" id="ref95">74</reflink>]). In derivational morphology, which involves creating new words and meanings in the lexicon (Park et al., [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref96">55</reflink>]; Schwarzwald, [<reflink idref="bib75" id="ref97">75</reflink>]), research indicates that bilingual Hebrew-speaking children display weaker knowledge compared to their monolingual peers, particularly in language production tasks (Altman et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref98">2</reflink>]; Michaly & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref99">51</reflink>]). Furthermore, Shahar-Yames et al. ([<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref100">76</reflink>]) found that while bilinguals perform comparably to monolinguals in tasks with pseudo-words requiring abstract morphological knowledge, they lag behind in tasks involving real words that necessitate lexical knowledge. Michaly and Prior ([<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref101">51</reflink>]) argued that gaps in overall exposure to the societal language, Hebrew, between bilingual and monolingual children can be reflected in their consolidation of abstract morphological patterns. This suggests that bilingual children have less exposure to root and pattern information, and that representations of derivational patterns are less robust than those of their monolingual peers. Both inflectional and derivational morphology are involved in spelling in Hebrew, through affixes and patterns, respectively. Thus, it is important to investigate how bilingual children's pattern of morphological knowledge might impact their spelling abilities.</p> <p>For an illustration of how gaps in morphological knowledge can impact literacy, it is instructive to examine research describing bilingual children's reading in Hebrew. Modern Hebrew script is presented in two orthographic versions: pointed and unpointed (Shimron, [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref102">82</reflink>]). The pointed script is generally transparent, making it easier to decipher. In contrast, the unpointed script is opaque, as it lacks representation for most vowel information in its written form, allowing words to be interpreted in various phonological forms (Shimron, [<reflink idref="bib82" id="ref103">82</reflink>]). Consequently, readers are required to infer the missing phonological information, increasingly relying on morphological strategies over phonological strategies (Share & Bar-On, 2018). Bilingual children encounter challenges in adopting the morphological strategy necessary for reading the unpointed, opaque Hebrew script (Michaly & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref104">52</reflink>]; Shahar-Yames & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib77" id="ref105">77</reflink>]). In light of these findings, here we ask whether gaps in morphological knowledge of bilingual children might also pose challenges in spelling.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-7">The current study</hd> <p>We investigate the spelling skills of bilingual children compared to monolingual peers, in Hebrew. Our study addresses three issues:</p> <p> <bold>1. Mapping spelling skills in bilingual children</bold>: The first goal is to compare general spelling proficiency between bilingual Russian-Hebrew speaking children and monolingual Hebrew speaking children in 2nd and 4th grades. We predict that both groups will improve with age, but that monolingual children will be more accurate than bilingual children due to the complexity and depth of the Hebrew language and orthography.</p> <p> <bold>2. Predicting spelling proficiency:</bold> The second goal is to explore the factors predicting spelling proficiency in bilingual and monolingual children. Specifically, we examine the contributions of phonological awareness, vocabulary, and morphological knowledge to spelling accuracy. In light of scant extant evidence, we cannot at this stage hypothesize whether the contribution of these factors will be the same or vary across the two groups.</p> <p> <bold>3. Mapping morphological elements in spelling of bilingual children:</bold> We examine the spelling of root and function letters. By comparing the performance of bilingual children to that of their monolingual peers, we aim to uncover how bilingualism influences the mastery of these essential morphological components. For monolingual children, we expect to replicate previous findings of advantages in spelling function letters. For bilingual children, we once again predict lower accuracy over all. In addition, reduced morphological knowledge may lead to larger differences between the spelling of root and function letters, with greater difficulty for the latter.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-8">Method</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187667270-9">Participants</hd> <p>Informational letters outlining the study and seeking parental consent were circulated among parents to identify appropriate participants. These letters solicited responses about the family's language environment at home, the parents' and their children's proficiency in Hebrew and Russian (both oral and written), and other demographic details. Excluded from the study were children who had immigrated to Israel less than four years prior to the study, those who spoke languages at home other than Hebrew and Russian, and children reported by their parents to have atypical development (especially those on the autism spectrum), with the exception of those diagnosed with ADHD.</p> <p>For the 2nd grade cohort, 66 parents gave consent. On the days scheduled for testing, six children were absent and another six chose not to participate. In the 4th grade cohort, 86 parents gave consent. Of these, four children were absent on the testing days and five opted out of participation. Consequently, the study included 54 children in the 2nd grade and 77 in the 4th grade. All participating children were in regular classes, from six different public elementary schools in central Israel, predominantly from similar classrooms and neighborhoods, characterized by a middle to low socio-economic status (see Table 1 for participant characteristics). The language background groups were well matched on demographic variables.</p> <p>Table 1 Participant characteristics</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>2nd− grade</p></th><th align="left" colspan="2"><p>4th− grade</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>Monolingual</p></th><th align="left"><p>Bilingual</p></th><th align="left"><p>Monolingual</p></th><th align="left"><p>Bilingual</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>N</p></td><td align="left"><p>30</p></td><td align="left"><p>24</p></td><td align="left"><p>35</p></td><td align="left"><p>42</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Age (in years)</p></td><td align="left"><p>8.00</p><p>(.43)</p></td><td align="left"><p>7.98</p><p>(.34)</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.75</p><p>(.37)</p></td><td align="left"><p>9.68</p><p>(.56)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Maternal education<sup>a</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>3.70</p><p>(.99)</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.50</p><p>(.98)</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.06</p><p>(1.06)</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.64</p><p>(1.03)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Paternal education<sup>a</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>3.10</p><p>(1.15)</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.35</p><p>(1.03)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.66</p><p>(1.08)</p></td><td align="left"><p>3.24</p><p>(1.14)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Income<sup>b</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>2.63</p><p>(.72)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.63</p><p>(.71)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.80</p><p>(.68)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.76</p><p>(.76)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Born in Israel</p></td><td align="left"><p>100%</p></td><td align="left"><p>83%</p></td><td align="left"><p>100%</p></td><td align="left"><p>78%</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Reading habits<sup>c</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>3.03</p><p>(.77)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.83</p><p>(.82)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.83</p><p>(.66)</p></td><td align="left"><p>2.86</p><p>(.65)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Kaufman<sup>d</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>22.83</p><p>(7.96)</p></td><td align="left"><p>23.91</p><p>(6.49)</p></td><td align="left"><p>26.40</p><p>(7.32)</p></td><td align="left"><p>27.50</p><p>(6.02)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Phonological awareness<sup>e</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>8.23</p><p>(4.40)</p></td><td align="left"><p>6.43</p><p>(4.40)</p></td><td align="left"><p>10.71</p><p>(3.99)</p></td><td align="left"><p>10.76</p><p>(3.89)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Morphology PCA Score<sup>f</sup></p></td><td align="left"><p>−18</p><p>(.86)</p></td><td align="left"><p>− 1.00</p><p>(.86)</p></td><td align="left"><p>.49</p><p>(.80)</p></td><td align="left"><p>.29</p><p>(.90)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Hebrew Vocabulary<sup>g</sup></p><p>(out of 35 items)</p></td><td align="left"><p>20.00</p><p>(5.61)</p></td><td align="left"><p>12.61</p><p>(5.88)</p></td><td align="left"><p>21.31</p><p>(5.24)</p></td><td align="left"><p>15.83</p><p>(6.50)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Russian vocabulary</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>21.59</p><p>(8.01)</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>24.12</p><p>(5.69)</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <sups>a</sups>Parent education is based on a self-reported education scale between 1–5: (1 – Less than high school, 2—High school, 3- Professional certificate, 4—Academic education/BA, 5- Academic education/MA or Ph.D.) No group difference (F(1,127 = 1.13, <emph>p</emph> =.29) <sups>b</sups>Family income included a self-reported scale between 1–5: (1 – No income, 2 – Below average, 3- Average, 4—Above average, 5—Well above average) No group difference (F(1,127 =.03, <emph>p</emph> =.86) <sups>c</sups>Reading habits are based on parental responses to the question "Do you read or have you read books to your child?" on a scale between 1–4: (1- Never, 2- Rarely, 3- Sometimes, 4- Often) No group difference (F(1,127 =.03, <emph>p</emph> =.86) <sups>d</sups>No group difference (F(1,126 =.76, <emph>p</emph> =.38) <sups>e</sups>No group difference (F(1,125 = 1.37, <emph>p</emph> =.24) <sups>f</sups>The difference between the groups was significant (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref106">1</reflink>, 124) = 10.53, <emph>p</emph> =.002, η<sups>2</sups> =.08) <sups>g</sups>The difference between the groups was significant (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref107">1</reflink>, 124) = 36.82, <emph>p</emph> <.001, η<sups>2</sups> =.23)</p> <p>In the 2nd grade, out of the participating children, 30 (60% girls) indicated that their sole language of communication at home was Hebrew, hence they were identified as monolingual Hebrew speakers. Conversely, 24 children (67% girls) reported Russian as their primary language, thus being preliminarily classified as Russian-Hebrew bilinguals. Among these, the parents of three children (2 bilinguals, 1 monolingual) disclosed that their children had been diagnosed with ADHD.</p> <p>In the 4th grade, 35 children (40% girls) reported exclusive use of Hebrew at home, categorizing them as monolingual Hebrew speakers. A group of 42 students (51% girls) identified Russian as their mother tongue, leading to their initial classification as Russian-Hebrew bilinguals. Within this cohort, parents of three children reported an ADHD diagnosis (2 bilinguals and 1 monolingual).</p> <p>The majority of the bilingual participants were second-generation immigrants born in Israel (see Table 1), whose parents had migrated from the former USSR. Based on parental reports, most of these children were introduced to Hebrew between the ages of 2 and 4 years. Every child in the study had attended Hebrew-speaking public schools from the first grade onwards. The linguistic home environment for most bilingual children involved exclusive use of Russian or a combination of Russian and Hebrew. In addition, most of the parents reported that their children's Russian literacy abilities were either nonexistent or very low (see parental reports in Table 7 in the Appendix). Bilingual children's Russian receptive vocabulary knowledge was assessed using the Elul test (see below). The bilingual children had higher scores on the vocabulary test in Russian than in Hebrew, however this finding cannot be easily interpreted as we do not know if the tasks are equated on difficulty.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-10">Materials</hd> <p> <emph>Spelling</emph>—Designed by Gillis and Ravid ([<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref108">27</reflink>]), this task examines the role of morphology in spelling in two categories: root or function letters. The test includes 24 items, consisting of 12 pairs of items sharing homophonic elements and differing in orthographic features:</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> The /v/ phoneme has two orthographic representations in Hebrew 'ב' (bet) and 'ו' (vav). It appears as a function letter (as a conjunction clitic) only with the letter 'ו', which appears four times in the task. On the contrary, as a root letter, the /v/ phoneme can be represented by either of the two letters: 'ב' and 'ו' and was present in this task four times (2 times as a 'ו' and two times as a 'ב').</item> <p></p> <item> The /x/ phoneme has two representations: 'ח' (chet) and 'כ' (kaf). In this task, the letter represents only the root letters (each appeared four times).</item> <p></p> <item> The /t/ phoneme has two representations: 'ת' and 'ט'. The letter 'ת' appeared four times as a function letter, and the phoneme /t/ appeared four times as a root letter (twice as a 'ת' and twice as a 'ט'; see Gillis & Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref109">27</reflink>] and Table 8 in the Appendix)</item> </ulist> <p>Each target letter was placed in a word or a short phrase, which was then embedded within a meaningful sentence. The word was read three times: in isolation, the word embedded in the sentence, and, once again, the word itself. The participant was then asked to write the word. One example item was given, with no feedback. No instructions were given regarding writing with or without diacritics, and most of the children wrote without them. The task was scored twice. The first score was overall spelling accuracy. Here, of the 24 items each correctly spelled word received 1 point. The second score was calculated to distinguish between function letter and root letter spelling. Thus, we analyzed the spelling of only two phonemes (/v/ and /t/, 16 items), which could represent either root or pattern spelling. We coded accuracy separately for spelling these phonemes as a root letter and as a function letter – each accurate letter gained one point. Internal consistency in the current sample (α Cronbach) is 0.70.</p> <p> <emph>Phonological awareness</emph>—A subtest from the standardized Alef Ad Taf test (Shany et al., [<reflink idref="bib80" id="ref110">80</reflink>]). Participants are instructed to repeat a real word produced by the experimenter and then produce the word a second time, after deleting a requested phoneme, creating a non-word. The task includes 16 items. Percent of correct responses was calculated. Internal consistency in the current sample (α Cronbach) is 0.90 in 2nd and 0.85 4th grade.</p> <p> <emph>Morphological Knowledge Tasks:</emph> The study included several morphological knowledge tasks, that were then reduced to reach a single morphological score for each participant (more on this below). Here we describe the tasks briefly. More detailed descriptions, examples and coding guidelines can be found in the online supplementary materials, https://osf.io/a3zqk/?view%5fonly=00645e5a0fc242f7a1ca20e6f28c8465. A full description of the performance of the current sample on these tasks can be found in Michaly and Prior ([<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref111">51</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref112">52</reflink>]).</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> Morphological Analogies (MAT) for words and Pseudowords (PMAT)—based on a task used by Ravid and Schiff ([<reflink idref="bib67" id="ref113">67</reflink>]). Each task included 21 written vowelized analogy sets, targeting morphological knowledge. The PMAT included analogies based on pseudo-roots<emph>,</emph> and thus allows us to separate lexical from morphological knowledge. Internal consistency in the current sample (α Cronbach) is 0.92 for MAT and 0.93 for the PMAT.</item> <p></p> <item> Real-word sentence completion (based on Ben-Zvi & Levie, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref114">10</reflink>]; see also Shahar-Yames et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref115">76</reflink>])—Participants were presented with an oral sentence, and were requested to respond to a question, using a derivation of a stimulus word included in the sentence. Internal consistency in the current sample (α Cronbach) is 0.87.</item> <p></p> <item> Coining new words task (Michaly & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref116">51</reflink>])—This task examines whether children recruit morphological knowledge when they are required to coin a novel word. Internal consistency in the current sample (α Cronbach) is 0.90.</item> <p></p> <item> Reading unpointed pseudo-words (Bar-On & Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref117">7</reflink>])—The task examines whether participants assimilate unpointed pseudo-words to existing morphological patterns. Internal consistency in the current sample (α Cronbach) is 0.83.</item> </ulist> <p>Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was employed to reduce the dimensionality of the dataset and identify underlying patterns in the observed variables related to morphological knowledge. Scores on all five morphological tasks were included in the PCA, conducted using the Principal Component Analysis module in SPSS (version 27). The extracted factor accounted for 62.1% of the variance, with a 0.778 Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and <emph>p</emph> < 0.001 in Bartlett's test of sphericity. Factor loadings are presented in Table 2</p> <p>Table 2 Loading of components in the principal component analysis</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Task</p></th><th align="left"><p>Eigenvalue</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Morphological analogies task</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.804</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Pseudo-word morphological analogies task</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.857</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Real-word sentence completion</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.730</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Coining new words task</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.700</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Reading unpointed pseudo-words</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>0.774</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p> <emph>Hebrew Vocabulary knowledge</emph>—the Elul Receptive Vocabulary Test was adapted by Shany, Prior, and Blicher (2019) based on Shatil, Nevo & Breznits ([<reflink idref="bib81" id="ref118">81</reflink>]). Children were required to select one out of four illustrations that most accurately depicted the meaning of a word, presented both in writing and aurally. The test comprised 35 items, arranged from less to more challenging (Cronbach α = 0.708; Katzir et al., [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref119">36</reflink>]). It was conducted on a computer and was terminated after the occurrence of three successive errors.</p> <p> <emph>Russian Vocabulary knowledge</emph> (for the bilingual children)—a Russian adaptation of the Elul Receptive Vocabulary Test was employed (Yosefi, [<reflink idref="bib94" id="ref120">94</reflink>]). The format and administration mirrored that of its Hebrew counterpart. Internal consistency in the current sample (α Cronbach) is 0.67.</p> <p> <emph>Non-verbal ability</emph>—the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test, Second Edition (KBIT-2) (Kaufman & Kaufman, [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref121">37</reflink>]). This task was included to rule out group differences. The test includes a preliminary training item followed by 46 abstract or figural problem-solving questions, organized sequentially from simpler to more complex. Presented in a multiple-choice format, each question offers five or six possible answers from which participants must choose the most appropriate one. The assessment concluded when participants made four consecutive errors. The entire test was administered via computer. Internal consistency for the original test is reported as between 0.85 and 0.90.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-11">Procedure</hd> <p>The current study was a component of a broader research project that also measured additional language abilities and reading. Testing occurred from October to May for 4th graders and from March to July for 2nd graders, over three sessions, each approximately 30 min long, at least 3 days apart. Two sessions were conducted on an individual basis, including: Session 1 with tasks in Vocabulary (either in Hebrew or Russian), Non-verbal Ability, three reading tasks (not analyzed here), and a morphological task. Session 2 involved Vocabulary testing in the alternate language for bilingual students, along with a morphological task and four literacy tests (also not analyzed here). The third session, conducted in small groups of 5–8 children, included a morphological task and the spelling task. The sequence of sessions was varied among participants from both groups, but the order of tasks within each session remained constant. All assessments were carried out during school time in a quiet environment, either by the primary researcher or by experienced graduate students. Due to data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic, in a few cases, not all children participated in all three sessions.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-12">Results</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187667270-13">Overall spelling accuracy</hd> <p>Spelling accuracy was assessed using a two-way ANOVA with grade (2nd, 4th) and language group (monolingual, bilingual) as between participant variables. Older children were more accurate than younger children (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref122">1</reflink>, 127) = 41.08, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.24), and monolingual children were more accurate than bilingual children (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref123">1</reflink>, 127) = 23.23, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.16). The interaction was not significant (F (<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref124">1</reflink>, 127) = 0.09, <emph>p</emph> = 0.760, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.001; see Table 3).</p> <p>Table 3 Spelling accuracy</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>Range</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Monolingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>2nd grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>16.7–95.8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>51.4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>21.4</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4th grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>29.2–95.8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>73.1</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>15.9</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Bilingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>2nd grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>12.5–66.7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>33.2</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>12.8</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4th grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4.2–95.8</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>57.0</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>24.5</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0187667270-14">Predicting Spelling ability</hd> <p>We first report first order correlation coefficients (see Table 4) between spelling, non-verbal ability, phonological awareness, vocabulary and morphological knowledge. All variables were significantly correlated with each other.</p> <p>Table 4 Correlation coefficients between measures</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>2</p></th><th align="left"><p>3</p></th><th align="left"><p>4</p></th><th align="left"><p>5</p></th><th align="left"><p>6</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>1. Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>.304**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.332**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.216*</p></td><td align="left"><p>.481**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.483**</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>2. Non-verbal ability</p></td><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.300**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.313**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.477**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.317**</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>3. Phonological awareness</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.183*</p></td><td align="left"><p>.535**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.510**</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4. Vocabulary</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.479**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.453**</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>5. Morphology</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td><td align="left"><p>.770**</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>6. spelling</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left"><p>–</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>* <emph>p</emph> <.05; ** <emph>p</emph> <.01</p> <p>Hierarchical regressions were conducted to examine the contributions of the component skills. Predictor variables were entered into the model based on their established relevance in previous research for contributing to accurate spelling, with non-verbal ability included as a control variable. Based on previous research, age and phonological skills are known to have significant impacts on spelling accuracy (Treiman, [<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref125">87</reflink>]), and thus were entered earlier in the model. Subsequently, the variables under investigation in the current study, namely vocabulary and morphological knowledge, were added to the model. The order was: age and non-verbal ability (Step 1), group (monolingual, bilingual) (Step 2), phonological awareness (Step 3), vocabulary (Step 4), and morphology (Step 5; see Table 5). Given that non-verbal ability did not emerge as a significant predictor in the initial analysis, subsequent analyses excluded this variable to more accurately assess the impact of the linguistic variables under investigation.</p> <p>Table 5 Hierarchical regression analyses evaluating predictors of spelling</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Variable</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Full sample</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Monolingual</p></th><th align="left" colspan="3"><p>Bilingual</p></th></tr><tr><th align="left"><p>R<sup>2</sup></p></th><th align="left"><p>ΔR<sup>2</sup></p></th><th align="left"><p>β</p></th><th align="left"><p>R<sup>2</sup></p></th><th align="left"><p>ΔR<sup>2</sup></p></th><th align="left"><p>β</p></th><th align="left"><p>R<sup>2</sup></p></th><th align="left"><p>ΔR<sup>2</sup></p></th><th align="left"><p>β</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left"><p>Age</p></td><td align="left"><p>.25</p></td><td align="left"><p>.25***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.50***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.34</p></td><td align="left"><p>.34***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.59***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.26</p></td><td align="left"><p>.26***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.51***</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Group</p></td><td align="left"><p>.36</p></td><td align="left"><p>.11***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.34***</p></td><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /><td align="left" /></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Phonological awareness</p></td><td align="left"><p>.45</p></td><td align="left"><p>.10***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.33***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.48</p></td><td align="left"><p>.14***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.39***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.34</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08*</p></td><td align="left"><p>.31*</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Vocabulary</p></td><td align="left"><p>.49</p></td><td align="left"><p>.04***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.22***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.49</p></td><td align="left"><p>.01</p></td><td align="left"><p>-.08</p></td><td align="left"><p>.42</p></td><td align="left"><p>.08**</p></td><td align="left"><p>.30**</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Morphology</p></td><td align="left"><p>.65</p></td><td align="left"><p>.17***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.58***</p></td><td align="left"><p>59</p></td><td align="left"><p>.10***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.47***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.66</p></td><td align="left"><p>.25***</p></td><td align="left"><p>.68***</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>* <emph>p</emph> <.05; ** <emph>p</emph> <.01; ***<emph>p</emph> <.005</p> <p>We first included the entire sample in the analysis, in order to examine whether language group accounted for significant variability in spelling performance. Results showed that all the component skills contributed significantly to variability in spelling ability, after controlling for children's age. Language background and phonological awareness explained similar proportions of the variance (~ 10%), whereas vocabulary emerged a somewhat weaker contributor (4%) and morphological knowledge accounted for a somewhat larger percent of the variance (17%).</p> <p>Next, we conducted hierarchical regression models for each participant group separately, to examine whether the contributions of linguistic skills to spelling in monolingual and bilingual children would differ. Because we analyzed the contribution of these factors in separate regression models for monolinguals and bilinguals, the weights of the variables cannot be directly compared, or formally statistically analyzed. However, we wish to point out some interesting differences, based on a visual inspection of the values in the models (see Table 5 and Fig. 1). First, phonological awareness was more strongly associated with spelling performance in monolingual (14%) than in bilingual (8%) children. Second, vocabulary knowledge contributed significantly to spelling performance only for bilingual children (8%), but not for monolingual children (1%). Finally, morphological knowledge accounted for more than twice as much variability for bilingual children (25%) than for monolingual children (10%). Both models explained a large percentage of the variance in spelling ability (59% for monolinguals, 66% for bilinguals). Despite the shared variance due to the correlations between the variables examined here (phonological awareness entered first, followed by vocabulary and then morphology), vocabulary and morphology each provide unique contributions to the overall explained variance.</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 1 Predictors of spelling performance by language group</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-15">Morphological spelling: root and function letters</hd> <p>To examine the third research question, we analyzed the morphological elements in spelling, based on the second coding scheme of the dictation task. To investigate potential group differences in morphological processes in spelling, we conducted a three-way repeated measures ANOVA with grade (2nd, 4th), language group (monolingual, bilingual) as between participant factors, and morphological element (root, function) as a within participant factor. All main effects were significant. As expected, performance improved with grade (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref126">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib127" id="ref127">127</reflink>) = 24.93, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.16). In addition, children were more accurate in spelling function letters than root letters (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref128">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib127" id="ref129">127</reflink>) = 153.12, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.55). Finally, monolinguals were more accurate than bilinguals (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref130">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib127" id="ref131">127</reflink>) = 14.65, <emph>p</emph> < 0.001, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.10). The interaction between morphological element and grade was marginally significant (F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref132">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib127" id="ref133">127</reflink>) = 3.60, <emph>p</emph> = 0.06, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.03). Visual inspection of the results suggests a greater improvement in spelling root than function letters from 2nd to 4th grade. All remaining interactions were not significant (Grade by Language group F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref134">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib127" id="ref135">127</reflink>) = 2.41, <emph>p</emph> = 0.123, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.02; Morphological element by Language group, F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref136">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib127" id="ref137">127</reflink>) = 0.41, <emph>p</emph> = 0.52, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.003; the three-way interaction, F(<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref138">1</reflink>,<reflink idref="bib127" id="ref139">127</reflink>) = 0.15, <emph>p</emph> = 0.704, η<sups>2</sups> = 0.001; See Fig. 2 and Table 6).</p> <p>Graph: Fig. 2 Root and function spelling accuracy</p> <p>Table 6 Root and function spelling accuracy</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left" /><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>Range</p></th><th align="left"><p>Mean</p></th><th align="left"><p>SD</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>Root</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Monolingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>2nd grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>37.5–100</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>71.7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>18.6</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4th grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>62.5–100</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>82.1</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>13.3</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Bilingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>2nd grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>25.0–87.5</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>59.9</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>14.7</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4th grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>25.0–100</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>75.9</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>18.8</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="4"><p>Function</p></td><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Monolingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>2nd grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>62.5–100</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>91.3</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>10.5</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4th grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>75.0–100</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>95.4</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>6.8</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="2"><p>Bilingual</p></td><td align="left"><p>2nd grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>50.0–100</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>80.2</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>13.3</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>4th grade</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>50.0–100</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>91.9</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>13.2</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <hd id="AN0187667270-16">Discussion</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187667270-17">Spelling ability of monolingual and bilingual children</hd> <p>The first aim of the current study was to explore general spelling achievement, in order to determine if there are differences between bilingual and monolingual children. We observed the expected progression in overall spelling abilities, with significant improvements from 2nd to 4th grade. Notably, monolingual children outperformed bilingual children in overall spelling proficiency at both grade levels. These findings diverge from studies conducted on spelling English, which reported that bilingual children's spelling abilities were similar to, or sometimes better than, those of their monolingual peers (August & Shanahan, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref140">5</reflink>]; Geva & Wiener, [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref141">26</reflink>]; Zhao et al., [<reflink idref="bib96" id="ref142">96</reflink>]). The current results are better aligned with studies conducted on spelling in transparent orthographies (Affranti et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref143">1</reflink>]; Bonifacci et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref144">14</reflink>]; Guimaraes & Parkins, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref145">30</reflink>]). One explanation could be the language that was tested. In transparent orthographies such as Italian, bilingual children fell behind monolingual children in spelling tasks (Affranti et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref146">1</reflink>]; Bonifacci et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref147">14</reflink>]). Bonifacci ([<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref148">14</reflink>]) argued that the bilingual gap in spelling skills in highly transparent orthographies such as Italian, arises because bilinguals might rely more on phonological skills than on lexical processing, due to their limited vocabulary in the societal language. Conversely, spelling in English presents a significant challenge due to various factors contributing to the complexity of the English writing system (Joshi et al., [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref149">35</reflink>]; Treiman, [<reflink idref="bib86" id="ref150">86</reflink>]), posing difficulties for monolingual children as well.</p> <p>However, Hebrew features an opaque orthography characterized by homophonic letters, precluding a straightforward explanation based on transparency of orthography. A more plausible explanation is that morphology plays a crucial role in spelling in Hebrew, and bilingual children lag behind monolingual peers in their development of morphological knowledge (Altman et al., 2017). Indeed, a recent comparison of the morphological abilities of the monolingual and bilingual participants in the current study found that the bilingual children had less well-developed morphological knowledge (Michaly & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref151">51</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref152">52</reflink>]). Consequently, we endorse the conclusion by Affranti and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref153">1</reflink>]), that the specific patterns of bilingual versus monolingual spelling abilities vary across languages and writing systems. However, we expand this account by demonstrating that orthographic transparency is not the only determining factor, but additional characteristics of the language and the writing system also must be considered.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-18">What predicts spelling?</hd> <p>The second goal was to explore the factors contributing to spelling proficiency for bilingual and monolingual children. Our initial analyses found that language group accounted for 11% of the variance. Therefore, we analyzed the two groups separately, and aligned with previous studies (Affranti et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref154">1</reflink>]; Bonifacci et al., [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref155">14</reflink>]; Guimaraes & Parkins, [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref156">30</reflink>]; Jongejan et al., [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref157">34</reflink>]; Yeong & Rickard Liow, [<reflink idref="bib93" id="ref158">93</reflink>]), we found that the constellation of predictors varied across the two groups.</p> <p>Both phonological awareness and morphological knowledge were significant contributors in both groups. Notably, in the overall sample morphology was a stronger contributor to spelling than phonological awareness. This finding supports the development of literacy and spelling in Hebrew, which relies heavily on morphology (Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib63" id="ref159">63</reflink>]). This finding also supports the explanation offered above, namely that differences between monolingual and bilingual children's Hebrew spelling may be at least partially driven by gaps in morphological knowledge (Altman et al., 2017; Michaly & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref160">51</reflink>]). Further supporting this possibility, morphological knowledge accounted for almost twice as much variance in the spelling of bilingual than of monolingual children. The role of morphological knowledge is further elaborated below.</p> <p>Interestingly, vocabulary contributed to spelling only in the bilingual group. Here, too, it is possible that the variability in general spelling abilities is partially due to the gap in vocabulary of the bilingual children. It is plausible that the bilingual children were not familiar with some of the words they were required to spell compared to the monolingual group, and thus this feature manifested only in the bilingual group.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-19">Morphological elements in hebrew spelling across monolingual and bilingual children</hd> <p>The third aim of the current study was mapping the use of morphological elements such as root and function letters in the spelling of monolingual and bilingual children. As in previous studies (Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref161">61</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref162">62</reflink>]), here as well function letters were spelled more accurately than root letters, in both grades, by both groups. As mentioned, spelling root letters is challenging due to the large number of roots and the need for significant linguistic knowledge (Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref163">62</reflink>]; Ravid & Bar-On, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref164">65</reflink>]). In contrast, function letters are easier to spell due to their limited number and higher frequency. Thus, while bilingual children are less accurate than their monolingual peers, they exhibit a similar developmental morphological trend, wherein the spelling of function letters is acquired more readily than that of root letters, albeit at a delayed pace. Therefore, bilingual children's acquisition of morphological elements in spelling is delayed.</p> <p>According to models of spelling development outlined by Treiman ([<reflink idref="bib87" id="ref165">87</reflink>]), and Ravid ([<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref166">61</reflink>]), morphological elements play a crucial role and are essential for accurate spelling. The observed delay in the integration of morphological elements into the spelling practices of bilingual children in this study may suggest a postponement in the progression of spelling development among bilingual learners.</p> <p>The presence of delayed morphological elements in the spelling of bilingual children corroborates prior findings regarding the deferred acquisition of abstract morphological knowledge (Michaly & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref167">51</reflink>]; Shahar-Yames et al., [<reflink idref="bib76" id="ref168">76</reflink>]), and can be explained by the limited exposure to morphological information, leading to less robust representations compared to monolingual peers. Consequently, bilingual children might not have accumulated the requisite exposure necessary for effective morphological processing, as suggested by Nicoladis and colleagues ([<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref169">53</reflink>]). This gap in exposure potentially hinders their ability to employ productive morphological strategies in spelling.</p> <p>However, the impact of limited morphological knowledge may manifest differently in reading and spelling. Michaly and Prior ([<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref170">52</reflink>]) found that in reading, bilingual children struggle to use morphological strategies to decode unpointed script. In contrast, for spelling, bilingual children rely more on morphology than monolingual children to navigate homophonic ambiguity. An explanation for these observations could be the salience of morphological elements. While in Hebrew spelling morphological elements are explicit and are therefore more readily available for use, in reading the unpointed Hebrew script morphological regularities might be less obvious, and thus it may require more time and exposure for bilingual children to identify and apply morphological strategies. Consequently, bilingual children in early elementary school can leverage morphology in spelling as evident in the current study, but may require more exposure to effectively utilize morphology in reading (Michaly & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref171">52</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-20">Educational implications</hd> <p>The findings of the current study reinforce those of previous research, emphasizing the significance of morphology in Hebrew spelling (Bar-On & Kuperman, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref172">6</reflink>]; Ravid, [<reflink idref="bib61" id="ref173">61</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib62" id="ref174">62</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib64" id="ref175">64</reflink>]; Ravid & Bar-on, [<reflink idref="bib65" id="ref176">65</reflink>]). This study adds an important dimension to our understanding, demonstrating that bilingual children can successfully recruit their morphological knowledge to resolve the ambiguity of homophones in Hebrew to achieve correct spelling, despite previous research demonstrating gaps in their morphological knowledge compared to their monolingual peers (Altman et al., [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref177">2</reflink>]; Michaly & Prior, [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref178">51</reflink>]). Therefore, direct instruction of morphological elements can potentially serve bilingual children well in supporting their spelling development and raising awareness of the differences between root and function letters.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-21">Limitations and future research</hd> <p>In this study, we employed a single experimental task to assess spelling ability, utilized in prior research. Future studies should examine additional spelling tasks to gain a broader understanding. Further research should also examine older children and adolescents, to continue tracking the trajectory of spelling development, and determine whether group differences may be eliminated with further schooling and exposure. Finally, data for this study were gathered amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, an unprecedented situation that inevitably introduced several limitations. Primarily, the sample size obtained was moderate and fell short of the intended number, a direct result of challenges such as recurring school shutdowns and inconsistent student attendance. Thus, the current results may exhibit unique patterns not typically representative of standard educational settings.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-22">Conclusion</hd> <p>The current study highlights the necessity of considering several factors when examining spelling skills. First, it is important to examine the linguistic background of the children, since we found that bilingual children were less accurate spellers than monolingual children, and moreover had different predictors for spelling than monolingual children. Second, unique characters of language and orthography must also be taken into account. Our findings support the claim that in Hebrew, morphological factors are critical for correct spelling, as they help to deal with the ambiguity presented by homophonic letters and the depth of the script. Combining these two factors, linguistic background and language characteristics, provides a nuanced understanding of spelling development. Bilingual children, who are less exposed to the societal language, are delayed in developing their abstract morphological knowledge relative to monolingual peers. This gap then affects their spelling abilities; despite relying significantly on morphology to spell, they are still less accurate spellers compared to monolingual peers.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-23">Acknowledgements</hd> <p>TM was supported by an excellence scholarship from the Graduate School at the University of Haifa. This study was partially funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) grant 398186468, awarded to AP.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-24">Funding</hd> <p>Open access funding provided by University of Haifa.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-25">Declarations</hd> <p></p> <hd id="AN0187667270-26">Conflict of interest</hd> <p>The authors declare none.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-27">Appendix</hd> <p>See Table</p> <p>Table 7 Language habits of the bilingual children</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left" /><th align="left"><p>2nd-grade(%)</p></th><th align="left"><p>4th-grade(%)</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>Age of exposure to Hebrew</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Under a year</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>11</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Between 1–3 years</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>68</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>33</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Between 3.5- 5.5</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>23</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>49</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Six and above</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>2</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>The main language spoken at home</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Russian</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>63</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>51</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Russian and Hebrew</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>30</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>40</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Hebrew</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>7</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>9</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>Language of watching television programs</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Russian</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>30</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>19</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Russian and Hebrew</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>59</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>65</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Hebrew</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>11</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>16</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>Percentage of daily time using Russian (based on parental report)</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Under 15%</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>11</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>9</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>16%- 50%</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>22</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>58</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Above 50%</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>67</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>33</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" colspan="3"><p>Russian literacy abilities</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>None</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>41</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>12</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Low</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>15</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>33</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Fairly good</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>11</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>21</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Good</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>19</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>26</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Very good</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>11</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p>Excellent</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>3</p></td><td char="." align="char"><p>4</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>7 and</p> <p>Table 8 Spelling task description</p> <p> <ephtml> <table frame="hsides" rules="groups"><thead><tr><th align="left"><p>Category</p></th><th align="left"><p>Word</p></th><th align="left"><p>ipa</p></th><th align="left"><p>Function / Root letter</p></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td align="left" rowspan="8"><p>/v/ phonem</p></td><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figa_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>kɑfɑt͡s <bold><underline>v</underline></bold>eʔɑlɑ</p></td><td align="left"><p>function</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figb_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>be<bold><italic>v</italic></bold><italic><underline>e</underline></italic>hɑlɑ</p></td><td align="left"><p>root</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figc_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>kfɑʁ̞ <bold><underline>v</underline></bold>ɑʔiʁ̞</p></td><td align="left"><p>function</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figd_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>nɑʔe u<bold><underline>v</underline></bold>ɑhiʁ̞</p></td><td align="left"><p>root</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Fige_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>mɑheʁ̞ <bold><underline>v</underline></bold>eʁ̞ed</p></td><td align="left"><p>function</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figf_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p><bold><underline>v</underline></bold>eʁ̞ed</p></td><td align="left"><p>root</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figg_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>nesiχɑ <bold><underline>v</underline></bold>ɑʔɑdɑʃɑ</p></td><td align="left"><p>function</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figh_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p><bold><underline>v</underline></bold>ɑʔɑdɑt kiʃut</p></td><td align="left"><p>root</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="7"><p>/x/ phonem</p></td><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figi_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>lɑdeʁ̞e<bold><underline>χ</underline></bold></p></td><td align="left" rowspan="7"><p>root</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figj_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>hɑkeʁ̞ɑ<bold><underline>χ</underline></bold></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figk_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>ʔoʁ̞e<bold><underline>χ</underline></bold>et</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figl_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>ʔoʁ̞ɑ<bold><underline>χ</underline></bold>ɑt</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figm_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>hole<bold><underline>χ</underline></bold></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Fign_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>ʃoleɑ<bold><underline>χ</underline></bold></p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figo_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>ne<bold><underline>χ</underline></bold>eʃɑv</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left" rowspan="8"><p>/t/ phonem</p></td><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figp_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p><bold><underline>t</underline></bold>ɑʁ̞im</p></td><td align="left"><p>function</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figq_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p><bold><underline>t</underline></bold>ɑʔim</p></td><td align="left"><p>root</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figr_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>kɑʃo<bold><underline>t</underline></bold></p></td><td align="left"><p>function</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figs_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>hɑmɑʃo<bold>t</bold></p></td><td align="left"><p>root</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figt_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>bimhiʁ̞u<bold><underline>t</underline></bold></p></td><td align="left"><p>function</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figu_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p>hekeʁ̞u<bold><underline>t</underline></bold></p></td><td align="left"><p>root</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figv_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p><bold><underline>t</underline></bold>ɑpil</p></td><td align="left"><p>Function</p></td></tr><tr><td align="left"><p><graphic href="MediaObjects/11145_2024_10582_Figw_HTML.gif" content-type="Graph" /></p></td><td align="left"><p><bold><underline>t</underline></bold>ɑkin</p></td><td align="left"><p>root</p></td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>8.</p> <hd id="AN0187667270-28">Publisher's Note</hd> <p>Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.</p> <ref id="AN0187667270-29"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref45" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Affranti A, Tobia V, Bellocchi S, Bonifacci P. 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Header DbId: eric
DbLabel: ERIC
An: EJ1482334
AccessLevel: 3
PubType: Academic Journal
PubTypeId: academicJournal
PreciseRelevancyScore: 0
IllustrationInfo
Items – Name: Title
  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: Spelling Morphology in Hebrew: Comparing Monolingual and Bilingual Children
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Tamar+Michaly%22">Tamar Michaly</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1441-3661">0000-0002-1441-3661</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Anat+Prior%22">Anat Prior</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8026-2825">0000-0001-8026-2825</externalLink>)
– Name: TitleSource
  Label: Source
  Group: Src
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Reading+and+Writing%3A+An+Interdisciplinary+Journal%22"><i>Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal</i></searchLink>. 2025 38(7):1875-1900.
– Name: Avail
  Label: Availability
  Group: Avail
  Data: Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://link.springer.com/
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 26
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Audience
  Label: Education Level
  Group: Audnce
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Elementary+Education%22">Elementary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Early+Childhood+Education%22">Early Childhood Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+2%22">Grade 2</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Primary+Education%22">Primary Education</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Grade+4%22">Grade 4</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="EL" term="%22Intermediate+Grades%22">Intermediate Grades</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Monolingualism%22">Monolingualism</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Bilingualism%22">Bilingualism</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Hebrew%22">Hebrew</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Spelling%22">Spelling</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Elementary+School+Students%22">Elementary School Students</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Morphology+%28Languages%29%22">Morphology (Languages)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Accuracy%22">Accuracy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Age+Differences%22">Age Differences</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Phonological+Awareness%22">Phonological Awareness</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Predictor+Variables%22">Predictor Variables</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Russian%22">Russian</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+2%22">Grade 2</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Grade+4%22">Grade 4</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink>
– Name: Subject
  Label: Geographic Terms
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Israel%22">Israel</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1007/s11145-024-10582-z
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0922-4777<br />1573-0905
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Bilingual children are at risk for gaps in literacy in the societal language compared to monolingual peers. However, most research has focused on reading achievement, and only few studies have investigated spelling abilities, with contradictory findings. Here, we compare Hebrew spelling skill and its predictors in bilingual and monolingual elementary school children, immersed in Hebrew as a societal language. Specifically, we examined the morphological elements in Hebrew spelling. Monolingual children outperformed bilingual children in spelling accuracy, in both 2nd and 4th grade. In addition, phonological awareness and morphological awareness were significant predictors of spelling for both groups, but their relative contribution differed across the groups. Finally, even though bilingual children had lower morphological knowledge than monolingual peers, both groups showed the expected developmental pattern of spelling function letters more accurately than root letters. This pattern in Hebrew spelling acquisition is driven by the morpho-orthographic regularities of the language. These results support previous findings emphasizing the role of morphology in Hebrew spelling acquisition, extending them to bilingual children. We suggest that examining the linguistic backgrounds of children and the unique characteristics of the language and orthography are crucial for reaching a nuanced understanding of bilingual spelling acquisition.
– Name: AbstractInfo
  Label: Abstractor
  Group: Ab
  Data: As Provided
– Name: DateEntry
  Label: Entry Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: AN
  Label: Accession Number
  Group: ID
  Data: EJ1482334
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=eric&AN=EJ1482334
RecordInfo BibRecord:
  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1007/s11145-024-10582-z
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 26
        StartPage: 1875
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Monolingualism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Bilingualism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Hebrew
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Spelling
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Elementary School Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Morphology (Languages)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Accuracy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Age Differences
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Phonological Awareness
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Predictor Variables
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Russian
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 2
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Grade 4
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Israel
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: Spelling Morphology in Hebrew: Comparing Monolingual and Bilingual Children
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Tamar Michaly
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Anat Prior
    IsPartOfRelationships:
      – BibEntity:
          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 09
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0922-4777
            – Type: issn-electronic
              Value: 1573-0905
          Numbering:
            – Type: volume
              Value: 38
            – Type: issue
              Value: 7
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal
              Type: main
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