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Orthographic learning and self-teaching in a
bilingual and biliterate context
Mila Schwartz
a,b,
⇑
, Janina Kahn-Horwitz
a,b
, David L. Share
c
a
Department of Research and Evaluation Authority, Oranim Academic College of Education, Tivon 36006, Israel
b
Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities, Department of Learning Disabilities,
Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
c
Department of Learning Disabilities, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel
article info
Article history:
Received 28 November 2012
Revised 13 August 2013
Keywords:
Biliterate
Bilingualism
English foreign language
Orthographic learning
Self-teaching
Script dependence
abstract
The aim of this study was to examine self-teaching in the context of Eng-
lish as a foreign language literacy acquisition. Three groups comprising
88 sixth-grade children participated. The first group consisted of Rus-
sian–Hebrew-speaking bilinguals who had acquired basic reading skills
in Russian as their first language (L1) and literacy and who were literate
in Hebrew as a second language. The second groupconsisted of Russian–
Hebrew-speaking bilinguals who had not learned to read in their native
Russian but had acquired Hebrew as their first literate language. The
third group consisted of Hebrew-speaking monolingual children who
were literate in Hebrew. This design facilitated examining the effect of
biliteracy and bilingualism on basic English reading skills. We hypothe-
sized that due to the proximity betweentheRussianandEnglishorthog-
raphies as opposed to the Hebrew–English ‘‘distance,’’ the Russian–
Hebrew-speaking biliterate group who acquired basic reading and spell-
ing skills in L1 Russian would have superior self-teaching in English as
opposedtothetwoothergroups.Thestandard two-session self-teach-
ing paradigm was employed with naming (speed and accuracy) and
orthographic choice as posttest measures of orthographic learning.
Results showed that after 4 years of English instruction, all three groups
showed evidence of self-teaching on naming speed and orthographic
recognition. The Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterate group, moreover,
showed a partial advantage over the comparison groups for initial
decoding of target pseudowords and clear-cut superiority for measures
of later orthographic learning, thereby showing self-teaching while
supporting the script dependence hypothesis.
Ó2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
0022-0965/$ - see front matter Ó2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2013.08.008
⇑
Corresponding author at: Department of Research and Evaluation Authority, Oranim Academic College of Education, Tivon
36003, Israel. Fax: +972 4 9539617.
E-mail address: milasch@bgu.ac.il (M. Schwartz).
Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jecp
Introduction
There is growing concern among social scientists that conclusions from studies based on highly
educated populations from wealthy industrialized Western cultures (especially native speakers of
English and other Indo-European languages) may have limited generalizability regarding human
behavior in general (Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). These reservations also extend to the field
of language and literacy (Beveridge & Bak, 2012; Evans & Levinson, 2009; Share, 2008a). Share (2008a),
for example, argued that the idiosyncracies of English orthography have confined reading science to an
insular Anglocentric research agenda addressing theoretical and applied issues with only limited rel-
evance for a universalistic science of reading (see also Frost, 2012).
Despite the fact that nearly all models of reading are exclusively Anglocentric, most languages are
not like English (Evans & Levinson, 2009). Furthermore, more individuals in the world learn to read in
additional language literacy than in their first language literacy (Gunderson, Odo, & D’Silva, 2011).
Even in the English-speaking world, the majority of those learning to read English are no longer native
English speakers (Crystal, 1997). Therefore, it behooves researchers to test their models and theories
beyond the confines of monolinguals learning to read in their native tongue.
The aim of the current study was to examine a popular theory of reading acquisition, the self-teach-
ing hypothesis (Share, 1995, 2008b), among children who are acquiring literacy in a non-native tongue.
In view of the fact that many studies of literacy learning in a foreign or additional language often con-
found bilingualism and biliteracy, our study sought to disentangle these two factors. We also wished
to avoid the potential confounds associated with studying native and non-native languages that be-
long to the same language subfamily or share a common orthography. Our study focused on English
because this is the most commonly learned non-native language in the world (Crystal, 2008). Our
sample comprised English language learners who are confronted with the task of learning to read
and write in a structurally unrelated language and dissimilar orthography (as are the majority of Eng-
lish language learners worldwide). Our study took into account the influence of both biliteracy and
bilingualism in three distinct languages (English, Russian, and Hebrew) and three distinct orthogra-
phies (Roman, Cyrillic, and Hebrew). To this end, three groups were recruited. All three groups were
learning to read and write in English in the same instructional context but differed in their prior lan-
guage and literacy background. The first group comprised Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilinguals who
had acquired basic reading skills in alphabetic (Cyrillic) Russian as their first language (L1) and literacy
and who were literate in Hebrew as a second language (L2) and were in the process of acquiring Eng-
lish as a foreign language (EFL) literacy where English was the third sequential language (L3). The sec-
ond group comprised Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilinguals who had not learned to read in their native
Russian but had acquired Hebrew as their first literate language and were also in the process of acquir-
ing EFL literacy in English as their second sequential language. The third group comprised Hebrew-
speaking monolingual children who had acquired literacy in their native Hebrew and were in the pro-
cess of acquiring EFL literacy in English, which was their second sequential language. This design en-
abled us to distinguish the effect of biliteracy and bilingualism. If bilingualism per se is the critical
factor in English language learning, then both Russian–Hebrew bilingual groups (monoliterates and
biliterates alike) will be superior to the Hebrew monolinguals. If biliteracy per se is the crucial ingre-
dient, then only the biliterates will enjoy an advantage in English literacy learning compared with the
two monoliterate groups (Russian–Hebrew bilinguals and Hebrew monolinguals).
Returning to the overarching goals of this study, two issues were examined: (a) the self-teaching
hypothesis in the context of learning to read in a non-native context and (b) the challenges of acquir-
ing EFL literacy among non-native English language learners from different L1 orthographic back-
grounds within the framework of the script-dependent hypothesis.
The self-teaching hypothesis
To become a skilled reader, recognition of individual words must be fluent and near effortless in
order to free the reader’s attention to meaning. It is widely agreed that the skilled reader is able to
46 M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58
recognize words almost instantly on the basis of the printed word form (i.e., orthographic knowledge)
without laboriously translating graphemes to phonemes and synthesizing these to form known pro-
nunciations. Although skilled readers resort to this decoding mechanism only when encountering a
new word, Share (1995) emphasized that every word is a novel letter string at some point in reading
development. The self-teaching hypothesis maintains that to attain fluent word identification, begin-
ner readers need efficient phonological recoding (i.e., decoding) to independently develop both word-
specific and general orthographic knowledge (Share, 1995, 2008b). In this way, phonological recoding
functions as a self-teaching mechanism or built-in teacher. After a relatively small number of success-
ful decoding attempts with a novel word, a child is able to rely on rapid memory retrieval mechanisms
for word identification based on a newly acquired word-specific orthographic representation. Thus,
the precondition for acquiring new orthographic representations using the self-teaching mechanism
is accurate and fluent decoding of these words (Bowey & Muller, 2005; Share, 1999).
A number of studies have examined the self-teaching hypothesis among L1 children (see Share,
2008b, for a review). These studies have used a similar experimental design. This design involves
exposing children to pseudowords representing names of novel content words such as places, animals,
and fruit embedded within short texts. After a break of between 3 days and 1 week, orthographic
learning is typically assessed in the following ways: homophonic orthographic choice between target
and control (foil) items (e.g., yait vs. yate as the name of a place; Cunningham, Perry, Stanovich, &
Share, 2002), reading aloud lists of targets versus homophonic foils, and (in many studies) also spelling
of targets (Shahar-Yames & Share, 2008). Evidence for L1 self-teaching has been obtained in English
(e.g., Bowey & Miller, 2007; Bowey & Muller, 2005; Cunningham et al., 2002; Nation, Angells, & Cas-
tles, 2007), in Dutch (de Jong & Share, 2007), and in pointed (fully voweled) Hebrew (e.g., Share, 1999,
2004). Self-teaching occurs in both oral and silent reading (e.g., Bowey & Miller, 2007; Bowey & Mul-
ler, 2005; de Jong & Share, 2007). Orthographic learning is rapid and robust, emerging within a few
exposures to a novel letter string (Share, 2004) and being maintained for a considerable period of time
(weeks or months; Hogaboam & Perfetti, 1978; Share, 2004). There are several lines of evidence that
support the self-teaching notion that orthographic learning is the product of decoding (phonological
recoding). First, levels of orthographic learning appear to be closely tied to levels of decoding success,
whether induced experimentally (Kyte & Johnson, 2006; Share, 1999) or naturally occurring as in the
case of disabled readers (Ehri & Saltmarsh, 1995; Manis, 1985; Reitsma, 1983, 1989; Share & Shalev,
2004). Second, at the individual level, the data have been quite consistent in showing a significant po-
sitive association between target decoding success and orthographic learning—a relation that, further-
more, does not appear to be simply the by-product of the general relation between preexisting
decoding ability and orthographic learning (Cunningham, 2006; Cunningham et al., 2002; Kyte & John-
son, 2006). Third, the role of context in reducing attention to orthographic detail (see, e.g., Cunning-
ham, 2006; Ehri & Roberts, 1979; Ehri & Wilce, 1980) and spelling in enhancing it (Ouellette, 2010;
Shahar-Yames & Share, 2008) also confirms the basic self-teaching premise that phonological recoding
contributes to orthographic learning by drawing attention to letter detail and word-specific spelling–
sound relations.
As reviewed above, the role of self-teaching in orthographic learning has now been supported in a
number of studies of L1 literacy acquisition (Cunningham et al., 2002; de Jong & Share, 2007). The
question addressed in the current study was whether self-teaching extends beyond a child’s mother
tongue.
Challenges of acquiring English as a foreign language
English has spread throughout the world, capturing the status of the primary world language (Crys-
tal, 2008). Israel is no exception in using English as a universal lingua franca. English, which does not
have the status of an official language in Israel (as do Hebrew and Arabic), is widely used in higher
education and in many other fields of life and is a mandatory subject taught from early elementary
school (Spolsky & Shohamy, 1999). Success in English literacy acquisition is a precondition for aca-
demic studies in Israel. For many Hebrew-speaking students, however, English literacy acquisition
constitutes a serious obstacle (Ressissi & Kahn-Horwitz, 2007). There are several reasons for this.
M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58 47
First, there is wide agreement that English is an unusually challenging orthography to acquire due
to its orthographic complexity even for native-speaking students (Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003;
Share, 2008a). Although there may be more than one dimension of orthographic complexity (see,
e.g., Borgwaldt, Hellwig, & de Groot, 2005), English is a deep orthography primarily owing to the com-
plexity of grapheme–phoneme correspondences, with multiple phonemic possibilities for nearly all
graphemes that depend on complex positional and morphemic constraints. Thus, grapheme–phoneme
translation alone might not ensure accurate pronunciation of a word (Coltheart, 1978, 2005). Addi-
tional morphological, orthographic, and contextual (semantic and syntactic) resources are necessary
to ensure accurate decoding (Nation & Snowling, 1998, 2004; Ouellette, 2006; Ricketts, Nation, &
Bishop, 2007; Tunmer & Chapman, 1998).
Given that English as a deep orthography is especially challenging even for native English speakers
(Seymour et al., 2003), it is even more challenging for non-native learners. In considering the non-na-
tive context of English literacy learning, it is noteworthy that vocabulary knowledge, in addition to
phonological and orthographic knowledge, has been found to contribute significantly to orthographic
learning (Ricketts, Bishop, Pimperton, & Nation, 2011), especially in the case of irregular words (Nation
& Snowling, 1998; Ouellette & Beers, 2010; Ricketts et al., 2007). For foreign language literacy acqui-
sition, phonological, orthographic, and vocabulary knowledge may be severely limited, particularly
during the early stages of literacy acquisition when elementary school children are not studying
EFL on a daily basis.
In addition, EFL literacy acquisition may be challenging because of the limited scope of instruction
(e.g., instructional methods, time allocated for instruction). Whereas L1 literacy instruction starts with
home language and literacy input from the time a child is born and is an integral and daily part of the
preschool and elementary curriculum, EFL literacy instruction in many countries, including Israel, is
not scheduled on a daily basis and must compete with EFL oral acquisition.
Finally, another consideration is the orthographic proximity between the native and non-native
languages. This dimension is well conceptualized by the script-dependent hypothesis (Geva & Siegel,
2000; Geva & Wade-Woolley, 1998), which maintains that L1 orthographic structure and features will
affect L2 literacy acquisition due to cross-linguistic transfer (as elaborated below). Most previous stud-
ies supported this hypothesis by focusing on examples of negative transfer from L1 to L2 English
orthography within a ‘‘contrastive analysis’’ framework. This was based on the assumption that differ-
ences in grapho-phoneme and phoneme–grapheme mappings between first and second languages
interfere with decoding and spelling in English (see Dressler & Kamil, 2006). However, Schwartz, Lei-
kin, and Share (2005) demonstrated a positive effect of L1 literacy beyond the well-known deep–shal-
low contrast (i.e., the orthographic depth hypothesis;Frost, 2005). Specifically, the differences between
a fully fledged (plene) alphabet as in Russian’s Cyrillic script and a primarily consonantal alphabet (or
abjad) such as Hebrew’s pointed script can facilitate the spelling of certain distinctive features in He-
brew. The current study was designed to examine self-teaching within the constraints of script depen-
dence. This might enable a better understanding of the positive effect of previous literacy experience
in L2 on L2 literacy acquisition within the framework of the script-dependent hypothesis.
The current study
This study investigated self-teaching among sixth-grade EFL children who had 4 years of exposure
to English. Previous studies on L1 self-teaching have investigated children in first, second, and third
grades (Bowey & Muller, 2005; Cunningham et al., 2002; Shahar-Yames & Share, 2008; Share,
1999). A period of 1 to 3 years is considered a time length whereby intensive exposure to L1 phonol-
ogy and orthography lays the foundation for effective orthographic learning. Participants in the cur-
rent study had been exposed to the English language and orthography for 3 h per week over
4 years, and our first overall aim was to determine whether this period is sufficient to enable func-
tional decoding and self-teaching. More specifically, we were interested in investigating the interac-
tion between experience with different languages and orthographies and EFL orthographic learning.
We examined the extent to which previous orthographic knowledge and oral knowledge in Russian
as opposed to mostly oral language skills might contribute to English orthographic learning. This is
because the Russian orthography is alphabetic (representing both consonants and vowels), making
48 M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58
it more similar to the English orthography (as opposed to Hebrew, which is a consonantal writing sys-
tem, or abjad, primarily representing consonants).
Russian uses a Cyrillic alphabet that was westernized by Peter the Great, czar of Russia during the
18th century. The Russian alphabet has 13 uppercase letter shapes that, although similar to the Latin
alphabet, have only 6 phonemes in common with English. There are 12 lowercase Russian letters (a, d,
e, r,v,y,o,p,c,n, y, and [) that are similar in shape to English letters and that share the phonemes /a/, /
k/, /m/, /o/, /s/, and /t/. The Russian and English orthographies have many other common characteris-
tics, including a fully fledged alphabetic writing system (consonants and vowels are accorded the same
graphemic status) and the facts that writing direction is from left to right and uppercase versus low-
ercase letters are distinguished (see Appendix A). All of these orthographic similarities would be ex-
pected to facilitate orthographic learning in English.
In contrast to the Russian and English orthographies, the Hebrew orthography is a Semitic orthog-
raphy that is primarily consonantal. In the pointed script, vowels in the form of diacritical marks ap-
pear within, above, or below the consonants (e.g., /d
K
/ as in the word /d
K
g/ ‘fish’). Pointed Hebrew
consists mainly of a succession of syllable ‘‘blocks,’’ each comprising a consonant with attached vowel
diacritic. In this way, pointed Hebrew resembles the akshara unit of South and South-East Asian alpha-
syllabaries (which developed from Semitic scripts via Brahmi). The fully vowelized Hebrew orthogra-
phy is shallow in that all phonemic information is provided. Fully vowelized Hebrew appears in
beginning reader texts, poetry, and biblical texts. During the first 3 years of elementary school, chil-
dren are gradually exposed to more and more unpointed texts and are required to use orthographic,
morphological, semantic, and contextual information in order to decode this deeper form of the He-
brew orthography. As opposed to the Russian and English orthographies, the Hebrew orthography
has different (more square-shaped) letter shapes, is written from right to left, and does not differen-
tiate between uppercase and lowercase letters.
In our study, the sixth-grade Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking
monoliterates, and the Hebrew-speaking monoliterates were expected to be experienced readers in
the pointed Hebrew script and were expected to transfer their orthographic skills from Hebrew (L1
or L2) to EFL. At the same time, the script-dependent hypothesis predicts that, owing to the proximity
between the Russian and English orthographies as opposed to the Hebrew–English ‘‘distance,’’ the
Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterate group who acquired basic reading and spelling skills in L1 Rus-
sian would have superior self-teaching in EFL. The reason for their superiority is based on the head
start that these children received in acquiring literacy in their L1, alphabetic Russian.
Taking into account that support has been found for self-teaching in L1 English and L1 Hebrew, we
sought to examine the self-teaching hypothesis within the context of acquiring a non-native orthog-
raphy. Thus, we posed the following question: After 4 years of EFL study (3 h of study per week), is
self-teaching observed and, if so, how does this mechanism operate within the context of EFL reading?
In addition, we questioned whether different orthographic backgrounds influence self-teaching in
EFL. On the basis of the script-dependent hypothesis, we predicted that Russian–Hebrew-speaking
biliterates would show superiority on EFL self-teaching tasks due to their previous experience with
an orthography that shares many features with the English orthography as opposed to their Rus-
sian–Hebrew-speaking and Hebrew-speaking monoliterate peers. In this case, the Russian–Hebrew-
speaking monoliterate group who had only oral Russian experience was used as a control or compar-
ison group. This design permitted us to distinguish the contribution of bilingualism per se (by compar-
ing established bilinguals with monolinguals) as opposed to biliteracy (comparing the biliterates with
the monoliterates).
Method
Participants
A sample of 88 sixth-grade children were recruited from a group of 99 fifth-grade children who
participated in a previous study (Kahn-Horwitz, Schwartz, & Share, 2011). Eleven children who had
switched schools were dropped from the original sample of 99. The participants came from five
M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58 49
socioeconomically middle-rank elementary schools in the north of Israel. A school’s socioeconomic
status (SES) index is based on parental reports of income, occupation, and ranking of family residential
area and is rated on a 10-point scale ranging from 1 to 10, with higher scores indicating lower SES. In
the current study, the SES index for the schools ranged from 4.7 to 5.1 (M= 4.96).
The sample consisted of three groups of children. The first group comprised 31 Russian–Hebrew-
speaking biliterates. Their Russian literacy skills were reported previously in Kahn-Horwitz and col-
leagues (2011). The second group comprised 16 Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilinguals with L1 oral
Russian but only very rudimentary knowledge of the Russian alphabet. In other words, these children
had knowledge of approximately half of the letter–sound correspondences of the Russian alphabet,
knew a few letter names, and could write their first names in Russian. The reason for the smaller size
of this group was that a majority of Russian–Hebrew-speaking children learn to read Russian. The
third group was a monolingual Hebrew-speaking group (n= 41).
Both groups of Russian–Hebrew-speaking participants were children of Russian Jewish immi-
grants. In response to their consent forms, which included a home language use questionnaire, parents
uniformly reported that the dominant language between parents and children was Russian at home.
Measures
General nonverbal ability
Raven’s Colored Matrices. Participants were required to choose one of five possible options (Set A, B, C,
D, or E) to identify a missing segment in a geometric array (Raven, Raven, & Court, 1976).
English phoneme analysis. Participants analyzed words into constituent phonemes (Kahn-Horwitz,
Schwartz, & Share, 2009). The experimenter pronounced a target word, and participants repeated
the word and were then asked to segment the word. Two examples were given before the 20 target
monosyllabic items were presented. All items in this test had a closed CVC (consonant–vowel–conso-
nant) syllabic structure. There were 5 CVC items (e.g., dog), 5 items with an initial CCVC consonant
cluster (e.g., trip), 5 CVCC items with a final consonant cluster (e.g., milk), and 5 items with both initial
and final consonant clusters (CCVCC; e.g., stand). Two scores were calculated. First, an overall score
was computed by allocating 1 point for each correctly analyzed word (maximum score of 20 for this
task). Second, 1 point was allocated for correctly analyzing medial vowels (maximum score of 20 for
this task). Internal consistency (coefficient alpha) was .87.
Self-teaching task
We employed the standard two-session self-teaching paradigm (Share, 1999) with naming (speed
and accuracy) and orthographic choice as posttest measures of orthographic learning.
During the first session, children were exposed to 12 short texts. These texts were adapted to be
suitable for EFL learners at the elementary level. Each text contained approximately five sentences
each with a simple syntactic structure and basic vocabulary. Two versions of each text were created
(see Appendix B for both versions), each with two alternate spellings of a target pseudoword. Thus, 12
pairs of pseudowords were presented across the 24 texts: 6 homophonic pairs such as roo/rew and 6
non-homophonic pairs (e.g., snup/frup) sharing the same rime pairs (e.g., -up) but different onset con-
sonant clusters (e.g., sn-fr-) The reason why only half of the items were homophones was that prior
work had shown that elementary school EFL learners have not yet acquired many of the more complex
orthographic conventions, especially vowel digraphs that are commonly used to construct homopho-
nic pairs in L1 self-teaching investigations. For each pair, half of the sample was exposed to one spell-
ing (e.g., roo,snup) and the other half was exposed to the alternative spelling (e.g., rew,frup). These
target pairs were based on prior work (Kahn-Horwitz et al., 2011) and were structured to comply with
English orthographic conventions. The current study focused on a selection of orthographic conven-
tions appearing in four elementary school English textbooks. Twelve experienced elementary school
teachers ranked each orthographic convention on a scale of 1 (no exposure or instruction)to5(high lev-
els of exposure and instruction). Spelling patterns assigned a ranking of 4 or 5 by at least 80% of teachers
were included as target items for the current study. The following patterns were included: the vowel
digraphs (oo as in roo,ew as in rew,ee as in een or jeet,ei as in ein,oa as in zoam,ow as in smown,ea as
50 M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58
in jeat, and ai as in raim), consonant digraphs (sh as in shesk and ch as in charn), split digraphs (a–e as in
rame and o–eas in smone or zome), closed syllables with short vowels (vaps,faps,frup,snup,hesk,shesk,
sneg,freg,vab, and fab), and r-controlled syllables (ar as in harn or charn). The target homophones
(containing these spelling patterns) and the non-homophonic onset-switched pairs were presented
as novel letter strings representing fictitious names for places, names, animals, colors, and the like.
Target pseudowords each appeared four times per text.
Measures of posttest orthographic learning
Measures of posttest orthographic learning were administered during a second session 1 week
later.
Naming. Children were presented with two printed lists of 12 pseudowords. One list was made up of
the target pseudowords presented in randomized order. The parallel list consisted of the 12 alternative
target words presented in the same way. Naming for each list was recorded on a voice file for later
error analysis. Both accuracy and speed of reading was recorded.
Orthographic choice. Children were presented with each of the six homophonic word pairs, one at a
time. One member of the pair was the original target word spelling read 7 days earlier, and the other
was the alternate homophonic spelling. Children were asked to identify the target spelling to which
they had been exposed 1 week earlier (see examples above). The location of these alternatives was ro-
tated across trials. This orthographic choice task did not include the 6 non-homophonic onset rime
alternatives because these pairs were not phonologically equivalent.
Procedure
As noted above, all children participated in two sessions, each lasting approximately 40 min. Dur-
ing the initial presentation session, children completed the Raven’s Colored Matrixes and the pho-
neme analysis task and were exposed to the 12 texts with embedded target words. During the
posttest orthographic learning session, children completed the two self-teaching tasks with order
counterbalanced. Testing was conducted individually in a quiet room by EFL teachers who were study-
ing in a graduate program. Instructions were administered in Hebrew to avoid misunderstandings.
Results
Background biosocial measures and nonverbal intelligence
Table 1 presents the background data for biosocial, nonverbal ability, and phonemic analysis mea-
sured in English for the three groups.
The role of bilingualism and biliteracy can be evaluated only if the groups are of comparable ability.
No significant differences were found between groups in age, nonverbal IQ, or measures of English
phoneme analysis. However, there was a significant gender difference, with boys outnumbering girls
in the Russian–Hebrew-speaking monoliterate group and girls outnumbering boys in the Russian–He-
brew-speaking biliterate group,
v
2
(1) = 7.69, p= .05. We return to this difference below.
Target decoding during initial presentation
Target decoding success is displayed in Table 2. It can be seen that overall performance levels were
relatively low—approximately 50%. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) indicated significant between-group
differences, F(2,83) = 2.72, p< .05, and post hoc follow-up comparisons showing that the bilinguals
were significantly more accurate than the Hebrew-speaking monolinguals. Although the biliterate bil-
inguals scored higher than the monoliterate bilinguals, this difference did not reach significance,
t(1,45) = 1.37, ns. The Russian–Hebrew-speaking monoliterate bilinguals and the Hebrew-speaking
monolinguals obtained similar results.
M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58 51
There were no significant differences among the three groups in reading comprehension,
F(2,83) = 0.01, ns. In addition, the analyses were rerun with only the boys to examine the potential
confound of gender. We obtained a similar pattern of results, with no significant difference among
the three groups for initial decoding accuracy, F(2, 42) = 2.14, ns, or for reading comprehension,
F(2,42) = 0.23, ns.
Posttest orthographic learning
For each of our posttest measures (naming accuracy, naming speed, and orthographic choice), we
performed three separate (2 3) ANOVAs with repeated measures on the target/non-target items to
examine the within-participant effect, and between-participant effect with planned analyses (compar-
ison among Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates, Russian–Hebrew-speaking monoliterates, and He-
brew-speaking monolinguals on the same self-teaching measures), and finally the effect of
interaction between self-teaching and group. Table 2 summarizes the children’s performance on all
measures.
The analysis revealed a significant main effect of orthographic learning (targets vs. non-targets) for
naming speed, F(2,83) = 10.33, p< .01, but no differences in accuracy, F(2, 83) = 0.02, ns. Overall, target
pseudowords were read more quickly than homophonic non-target pseudowords, and this effect was
consistent across groups, with the group by target interaction being nonsignificant, F(2,83) = 1.14, ns.
A significant between-group effect was observed for naming accuracy, F(2, 83) = 7.78, p< .001, and
naming speed, F(2,83) = 3.53, p< .05, with the biliterates outperforming both of the other two groups.
Table 1
Means and standard deviations for background biosocial factors and nonverbal intelligence.
Variable Russian–Hebrew-
speaking biliterates
(n= 31)
Russian–Hebrew-
speaking monoliterates
(n= 16)
Hebrew-speaking
monolinguals
(n= 39)
F
v
2
Age (years:months) 10:7 (0.53) 10:7 (0.45) 10:6 (0.53) 0.53 –
Gender (boys:girls) 12:19 13:3 20:19 – 7.69
*
Nonverbal IQ (% success) 66.5 (18.27) 71.7 (14.18) 68.0 (11.19) 0.65 –
English phoneme analysis
(% overall success)
62.7 (29.87) 42.8 (34.25) 56.5 (32.27) 2.07 –
Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.
*
p< .05.
Table 2
Means and standard deviations for initial target decoding and posttest orthographic learning.
Variable Russian–Hebrew speaking
biliterates (n= 31)
Russian–Hebrew-speaking
monoliterates (n= 16)
Hebrew-speaking
monolinguals (n= 39)
Target Non-target Target Non-target Target Non-target
First session
Initial decoding (% success) 55.4 (19.34) – 47.8 (15.09) – 44.9 (19.75) –
Comprehension (% success) 83.6 (21.35) – 83.3 (17.48) – 84.0 (23.37) –
Second posttest session
Naming accuracy (%
success)
70.4
a
(16.51)
69.4
a
(18.05)
58.9
b
(15.05)
58.3
b
(13.94)
53.0
b
(22.25)
54.9
b
(19.56)
Naming speed (s) 16.0
a
(5.82) 18.1
a
(6.42) 20.7
b
(9.14) 21.1
b
(7.25) 20.4
b
(8.30) 22.6
b
(8.66)
Orthographic choice
a
(% success)
76.9
a
(15.32)
– 61.5
b
(4.13) – 64.1
b
(24.64)
–
Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses. Significant group differences are indicated by the use of superscript letters, with
different superscripts indicating statistically significant differences; groups sharing superscripts are not significantly different
from one another.
52 M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58
No interaction was found between orthographic learning and group for either naming accuracy or
naming speed.
For orthographic choice, an ANOVA with a planned post hoc analysis showed that there was again
evidence for orthographic learning among all three groups, with results reliably above the 50% chance
level of success. In addition, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates demonstrated a significant
advantage over the Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilingual and Hebrew-speaking monolingual groups,
F(2,83) = 3.97, p< .05. A significant advantage was found for the bilingual biliterates as opposed to
the bilingual monoliterates, t(1,45) = 2.33, p= .03, and the monolinguals, t(1, 70) = 2.80, p= .007,
whereas no significant differences were found between the two monoliterate groups,
t(1,55) = 0.33, ns.
We also ran analyses for boys only. Here too, the same pattern of results emerged as in the com-
bined analysis. There was a significant main effect of orthographic learning (targets superior to non-
targets) for naming speed, F(2,42) = 4.20, p< .05, but not for accuracy, F(2, 42) = 1.50, ns. Orthographic
choice in all three groups of boys was above the 50% chance level (Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliter-
ates: M= 80.5, SD = 11.96; Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilinguals: M= 61.5, SD = 25.81; Hebrew-speak-
ing monolinguals: M= 61.7, SD = 23.57).
Discussion
This study adds to the existing self-teaching literature in two ways. First, this study showed that
after 4 years of EFL instruction, all three groups showed evidence of self-teaching on all measures
of orthographic learning; targets were read more quickly than homophonic non-target spellings,
and target spellings were recognized more accurately. To our knowledge, this is the first study to
examine self-teaching in a non-native EFL/ESL (English as a second language) literacy learning context.
Second, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterate group showed a numerical superiority over the
Russian–Hebrew-speaking monoliterates and a significant advantage over the Hebrew-speaking
monolingual group for initial decoding of target pseudowords. In addition, as predicted by the
script-dependent hypothesis, the Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates showed a significant advan-
tage over the Russian–Hebrew-speaking monoliterates and the Hebrew-speaking monoliterates for
measures of subsequent orthographic learning. The following discussion elaborates on these findings.
Self-teaching in EFL
The current study highlights two salient characteristics that differentiate L1 as opposed to EFL
orthographic learning. First, in EFL, overall decoding accuracy for the target pseudowords was rela-
tively low (50%) for all three groups; Cunningham and colleagues (2002) reported a figure of 74%
for second-grade English L1 children. Despite this relatively poor decoding accuracy for all three
groups, results in the current study showed significant self-teaching. This supports findings obtained
by Share and Shalev (2004), who found that despite lower initial decoding accuracy results (68%
decoding accuracy), L1 Hebrew-speaking second graders performed well above chance (74%) on ortho-
graphic choice after two exposures to the targets. In the current study, all three groups were also faster
on posttest naming speed of target pseudowords.
Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates’ success on the orthographic choice task, and the speed of
naming target pseudowords compared with non-target homophonic foils, may partly reflect the appli-
cation of a visual–orthographic learning strategy for acquiring new words in English. In this study, our
results seem to point to evidence that when self-teaching in English as a foreign language takes place
with a background of a similar orthography, this facilitates the acceleration of visual–orthographic
learning strategies that contributes to self-teaching. Support for this finding can be found in Cunning-
ham and colleagues’ (2002) finding that over and above decoding, orthographic processing also contrib-
utes independently to self-teaching. In the case of our Israeli EFL children, the results may reflect
teaching practices whereby after initial acquisition of grapheme–phoneme correspondence of the Eng-
lish alphabet, less emphasis is placed on independent decoding and more emphasis is placed on a lar-
ger unit identification strategy (Kahn-Horwitz, Sparks, & Goldstein, 2012).
M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58 53
To summarize, EFL orthographic learning was observed in the current study despite relatively low
levels of initial decoding. Low decoding accuracy can possibly be explained by the complexities of the
English spelling system as well as possible instructional limitations in EFL settings as opposed to L1
literacy instruction. It could be that in the case of acquiring a more transparent L2 orthography such
as Spanish or Italian, orthographic learning may be more rapid. In a recent self-teaching study by Van
Daal, Rønneberg, and Wass (2013), readers of Danish, a relatively deep orthography, evinced poorer
target decoding and lower subsequent levels of orthographic learning compared with readers of Nor-
wegian and Swedish, which are much more consistent orthographies.
Biliteracy versus bilingualism
No significant differences were found between the groups on initial decoding accuracy and reading
comprehension. This was strengthened when analyses were rerun with the boys only to examine the
potential confound of gender. Here, a similar pattern of results was found, with no significant differ-
ences among the three groups for either initial decoding accuracy or reading comprehension. How-
ever, our findings pointed to numerical superiority of the Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates over
the Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilingual monoliterates and significant superiority of the Russian–He-
brew-speaking biliterates over the Hebrew-speaking monolinguals on initial target pseudoword
decoding. This superiority was also significant for all three self-teaching measures.
Over and above the extreme difficulty of accurate English as a foreign language decoding after
3 years of English instruction, a possible explanation for the lack of a statistically significant advantage
for initial decoding between the Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates and the Russian–Hebrew-
speaking monoliterates could be a result of the relatively small numbers of participants in the Rus-
sian–Hebrew-speaking monoliterate group, which is a limitation that could be addressed in future
studies. Adding participants to this Russian–Hebrew-speaking monoliterate group might have re-
sulted in a significant difference in initial pseudoword decoding. At the same time, the orthographic
learning measures showed clear-cut advantages of the Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates over
the two monoliterate groups and, as a result, showed a self-teaching effect.
This superiority suggests that experience in another alphabetic orthography provides a head start
in orthographic learning in English. These findings are consistent with the script-dependent hypoth-
esis (Geva & Siegel, 2000; Geva & Wade-Woolley, 1998), which explains the advantages in both target
decoding and subsequent self-teaching as a result of the orthographic proximity between Russian and
English, in contrast to between Hebrew and English (e.g., letter architecture, writing direction, full vo-
wel representation). This explanation is strengthened by the fact that the Russian–Hebrew-speaking
monoliterates were no different from the Hebrew-speaking monoliterates on any measures of self-
teaching. In other words, it was not oral (bilingual) skills that made the difference; rather, it was
the literacy experience with the Russian alphabetic script that resulted in a higher level of ortho-
graphic learning in English for the Russian–Hebrew-speaking biliterates. Additional support for the
script-dependent and orthographic proximity hypotheses was reported in a recent study (Faris,
2012) whereby Arab–Hebrew-speaking biliterates showed a linguistic and orthographic advantage
over Hebrew-speaking monoliterates in their decoding and spelling of English pseudowords that in-
cluded both short and long vowel sounds. The Arabic orthography represents both long and short vo-
wel sounds, whereas this distinction does not exist in Hebrew. Our data are also consistent with
Cunningham and colleagues’ (2002) claim that orthographic processing is an independent factor con-
tributing to self-teaching. In other words, children who have acquired the orthographic conventions of
alphabetic Russian find it easier to learn alphabetic English and show superior orthographic learning
in English.
Further support for this assumption comes from a Dutch study by Bekebrede, van der Leij, and
Share (2009), who investigated the role of native language orthographic abilities in EFL. The research-
ers compared a subgroup of dyslexic students with stronger orthographic abilities (in their native
Dutch) with a subgroup of dyslexics with weaker orthographic scores. Both groups had comparable
difficulties with phonological recoding. The group with stronger orthographic skills experienced great-
er success with English reading, and this was explained by these students’ ability to process larger
units in the English orthography.
54 M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58
To recap, this first study in English as a foreign language indicates that, as in the case of L1 (e.g.,
English, Hebrew, Dutch), evidence was found for orthographic learning. In addition, results from the
current study point to a slower and more laborious process for EFL orthographic learning. Part of
the problem, as alluded to in the Introduction, may also stem from the non-native speakers’ impover-
ished vocabulary and, specifically, the lack of well-specified phonological and semantic representa-
tions that may help to secure spellings, and irregular spellings in particular, in long-term memory
(Hilte & Reitsma, 2011; McKay, Davis, Savage, & Castles, 2008; Nation & Snowling, 1998, 2004; Ouel-
lette & Beers, 2010; Ricketts et al., 2007; Wang, Castles, Nickels, & Nation, 2011). A growing number of
studies of orthographic learning (in L1 English) have now demonstrated that phonological knowledge
aids orthographic learning, although evidence for the role of semantic knowledge over and above pho-
nology is still mixed (Chalmers & Burt, 2008; Cunningham, 2006; Duff & Hulme, 2012; Hilte & Reitsma,
2011; McKague, Pratt, & Johnston, 2001; Nation et al., 2007; Ouellette, 2010; Ouellette & Fraser, 2009).
It may be the case that phonological (and perhaps semantic) knowledge may be especially important
for English reading development given the complexities of English letter–sound correspondence and
the large number of exceptions that oblige readers to rely on additional sources of information to
bridge the gap between a partially decoded or approximate form and a known pronunciation (Elbro,
de Jong, Houter, & Nielsen, 2012; Share, 1995; Tunmer & Chapman, 2012). Here, knowledge of the
form of the spoken words may be crucial, and of course the non-native reader is at a considerable dis-
advantage owing not only to a smaller phonological lexicon and but probably also to imprecise forms
of even known words.
Limitations and future research directions
Further studies integrating L2 self-teaching and orthographic proximity should include a posttest
pseudoword spelling task as a measure of orthographic learning. An additional measure in future stud-
ies would be an L2 vocabulary measure that could assist in understanding the link between vocabulary
and self-teaching in a second language.
An additional direction for future research is to explore the interaction between L2 self-teaching
and orthographic proximity within different language and literacy dyads and triads. It would also
be of interest to examine foreign language self-teaching in the context of two shallow Roman-
based orthographies such as Spanish and Italian or two Semitic orthographies such as Arabic
and Hebrew. This would enable an understanding of self-teaching that extends beyond the limita-
tions of the deep English orthography with its complex grapheme–phoneme correspondence
(Share, 2008a). All of the above would broaden our understanding of the self-teaching mechanism
in a second language.
To further investigate evidence regarding the linguistic and orthographic proximity hypothesis, it
would be of value to examine diverse language and literacy combinations that are linguistically and
orthographically distant to differing extents such as Japanese versus Russian L1 bilingual biliterates
versus Japanese and Russian L1 bilingual monoliterates. A research design of this nature would enable
a stronger claim to be made for the role of linguistic and orthographic proximity versus the general
advantage of being biliterate before literacy acquisition in the third language.
In sum, this first study of L2 English self-teaching supports the script-dependent hypothesis ow-
ing to the fact that a different magnitude of orthographic learning was shown for children with dif-
ferent literacy backgrounds. Prior experience with an orthography that is more similar to English
seems to facilitate orthographic learning as opposed to an orthography that is more remote from
English.
Acknowledgments
This research was jointly funded a grant from the MOFET Institute and the Department of Teacher
Education at the Ministry of Education, Israel, awarded to the second author (2009–2010) and by a
grant from the Oranim College M.Ed. Program awarded to the first two authors.
M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58 55
Appendix A.
Differences and similarities in orthographic characteristics in Russian, English, and Hebrew orthog-
raphies.
Orthographic convention
or pattern
English Russian Hebrew
Letter shapes 13 shared letter
shapes
13 shared letter
shapes
X
Writing direction Left to right Left to right Right to left
Cursive writing X
Uppercase and lowercase
letters
John Mbka X
All vowels represented by
letters
Some vowels represented
by letters
Appendix B.
Texts for testing the self-teaching paradigm with target words italicized
1. This is the Snup/Frup family. The Snup/Frup family lives in a house in the country. There are
three children in the Snup/Frup family, two girls and a boy. The Snup/Frup family has a pet cat.
2. Freg/Sneg likes shopping. It is five o’clock and Freg/Sneg is in the candy shop. Freg/Sneg is in the
book shop at six o’clock. Freg/Sneg buys two new books and then she sees her friend, Tamar.
Tamar says, ‘‘Hello Freg/Sneg’’.
3. A chesk/hesk is a fruit that you find in South America. A chesk/hesk is big, yellow, and sweet. Chil-
dren in South America take a chesk/hesk with them to school to eat with lunch. Last week I saw a
chesk/hesk in a supermarket.
4. A Jeet/Jeat is a small car. A Jeet/Jeat has four doors and it doesn’t use gas. A Jeet/Jeat does not cost
a lot of money. Many people want to buy a Jeet/Jeat because it saves money and it keeps the air
clean.
5. The een/ein is a big animal that lives in the jungle. The een/ein lives in groups and eats plants and
leaves from the trees. The een/ein is a friendly animal. The een/ein lives for up to 30 years.
6. Zome/Zoam is a small city in Canada. It is very cold in Zome/Zoam, and people who live in Zome/
Zoam wear very warm clothes. In the short summer, people from Zome/Zoam swim outdoors
every day.
7. My favorite TV program is Roo/Rew.Roo/Rew is about three children who travel around Africa.
Every week there is a new adventure on Roo/Rew.Roo/Rew is on TV at seven o’clock on Monday
evenings.
8. The color rame/raim is beautiful. The color rame/raim is orange–red and looks like fire. I have a
rame/raim shirt. I see many rame/raim clothes in the shops now.
9. Every summer holidays we visit Smone/Smown.Smone/Smown is a small town near Eilat. It is
very hot in Smone/Smown. We stay awake at night and sleep during the day. It gets dark very
late in Smone/Smown.
10. Faps/Vaps are pretty flamingos, and they live near the water. Faps/Vaps are tall and pink. Faps/
Vaps run very fast. Faps/Vaps drink water and eat small fish.
11. Vab/Fab is in a band. She plays a guitar and sings. Vab/Fab sings many songs. Vab/Fab has a new
CD. Lots of children see Vab/Fab singing on TV.
12. Harn/Charn likes to help at home. Harn/Charn feeds the dog. Harn/Charn waters the flowers.
Harn/Charn makes his bed, and then he rides his bike with his friends.
56 M. Schwartz et al. / Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 117 (2014) 45–58
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