Spelling morphology in Hebrew: Comparing monolingual and bilingual children

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.