Document Type

Article

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship of phonological awareness in the spelling and reading skills in bilingual language development to improve speech and language services. This study sought out to reach the research goal of understanding whether or not phonological awareness skills improve reading and spelling abilities in bilingual children. Method: Nine universities with speech and language programs were chosen. Three of which were from the Midwest, three from the East, and the remaining three from the South. In total, eight speech language pathologists who have worked with bilingual children completed an online survey regarding their demographics, opinions, and experiences in working with this population. Results: Overall, the speech language pathologists that have integrated phonological awareness intervention in therapy with bilingual children have noticed an improvement in spelling and reading skills. The speech language pathologists noticed these improvements in both of the child’s languages rather than in only one language. Many respondents, including those who did not target phonological awareness for reading and spelling deficits, recommended using this method with bilingual children. Conclusion: The limited sample size created the challenge to generalize the information found to the overall population. A correlation between increased phonological awareness and improvements in spelling and reading was still found, however. Using phonological awareness intervention may be an important first step for speech language pathologists in working with bilingual children. It may be important that teachers stay informed on this intervention as well and possibly use more phonological awareness tasks in the classroom. Rhyming, segmenting, and blending are tasks that participating speech language pathologists recommend.

Publication Date

2-1-2023

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