(Pre)Literacy acquisition in a shallow orthography. Longitudinal evidence from mono and bilinguals

Many cognitive and neuropsychological studies have emphasized the foundational role of language, metalanguage, and executive functions in literacy development. A debate about whether bilingual children have an advantage in some cognitive and metalinguistic areas has also emerged. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research on preliteracy skills, their relationship with writing, and their bilingual acquisition, particularly in shallow-orthography languages. This study addresses this gap.

The aim is to investigate longitudinally how diverse preliteracy skills contribute to early literacy development in a shallow-orthography language (Italian), the possible acquisitional differences between monolingual and bilingual children, and the effects of different interventions on typical reading development.

A cohort of 172 children (96 Italian monolinguals+76 mono-literate bilinguals speaking different heritage languages, matched for age, gender, and SES) was monitored from the last year of kindergarten to the 2nd/3rd grade of primary school. Fifteen abilities involving language, metaphonology, RAN, working memory, and literacy were tracked through 5 testing sessions. Three subgroups received two cycles (kindergarten+1st grade) of 3 different interventions [metaphonology(N=18), RAN(N=11), or graphics(N=11)]. The others were used as controls.

Reading and writing showed their multi-component nature. A three-step acquisitional pattern emerged, where different preliteracy skills predict specific literacy portions in distinct developmental times. Two (meta)phonological measures emerged that can be used as possible testing tools for (meta)phonology since kindergarten, regardless of children’s language dominance. RAN revealed itself as a measure of phonological automaticity. (Pre)Literacy acquisition proceeded similarly in monolinguals and bilinguals, with some variations in acquisition pace attributed to the reduced amount of Italian input received by bilinguals. Bilinguals did not outperform monolinguals in any measure, suggesting that the putative bilingual advantage reported by someone has no cognitive nature or has not developed at this age. The three interventions revealed positive effects on the same reading skills in mono and bilinguals, with differences in how they affect accuracy and speed attributable to the different Italian vocabulary sizes of the two groups.