Phonological and Morphological Skills In

PHONOLOGICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL SKILLS IN

EMERGING ENGLISH-HEBREW BILINGUALS

Inbal Gral-Azulay

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department Applied Psychology and Human Development. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto

PHONOLOGICAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL SKILLS IN EMERGING ENGLISH- HEBREW BILINGUALS

Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Inbal Gral-Azulay Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development University of Toronto

Abstract

Metalinguistic abilities such as phonological and morphological awareness are important language proficiency components. Three interrelated studies, based on a longitudinal project, investigated the development of phonological and morphological skills in children with English as the home language and Hebrew as an emerging second language. Two cohorts were followed for two years: The first (N= 48) was followed from junior kindergarten (JK) to Grade 1, the second (N= 38) was followed from senior kindergarten (SK) to Grade 2. Order of acquisition of phonological and morphological skills was explored longitudinally and processes of transfer from the strong to the weak language were examined. Data were analyzed by using General

Estimating Equations.

Findings indicated improvement across grades on final phoneme and syllable deletion tasks and a decline between SK to Grade 1 on initial phoneme task in Hebrew. The decline may reflect a growing exposure to the Hebrew orthography and to its body + coda construct.

Performance on final phoneme isolation and syllable deletion was predicted by English phonological awareness, but not initial phoneme isolation performance.

In English and Hebrew, a gradual development from SK to Grade 2 was noted on different morphological components (inflections, derivations and compounds). Transfer of inflectional morphology from English to Hebrew was also noted. In Hebrew, children demonstrated the ability to produce nouns spontaneously followed by the ability to produce

adjectives and verbs in a learning process that was more sequential than parallel, and that may reflect the method of instruction. The process of learning how to inflect words followed by the ability to derive words was demonstrated in both languages on parallel experimental measures and on the Hebrew narrative task. The children figured out the morphological combinations that were more frequent, consistent, or salient. This explains the relationship between English and

Hebrew in terms of order of acquisition.

The findings support the effect of cogintive universal processes and language specific characteristics on the developemt of English (L1) and Hebrew (L2). The findings bear theoretical implications and practical implications for school instruction methods, particularly among teachers who work with young bilingual children.

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Acknowledgements

Like life, the course of doctoral studies has its ups and downs, and its unique junctures and challenges, accompanied always with development and continuous learning. I would like to express my most sincere thanks to my supervisor, Prof. Esther Geva, who opened for me the gate for an amazing cultural, intellectual and emotional experience in Canada. As a married mother with two daughters I learned from Esther to juggle and balance my various roles. I learned from you to face difficulties and figure out how to cope. Thanks you, Esther, for your support during my difficult moments, in which I did not have to tell you anything- you immediately knew, understood and helped. You expanded my horizons in the domains of language, history, culture, and geography. Thanks you for your advice and guidance not only throughout progress on my doctoral dissertation, but also during the process of making career decisions.

I wish also to express my thanks to Prof. Eunice Jang, for her kindness, continuous support and invaluable insights. I was privileged to work with a talented scholar whose knowledge and dedication are a great inspiration. I learnt from you about statistical methods and other issues related to reliability and validity. Thanks you for sharing with me your wisdom and your insights.

My gratitude also extends to Prof. Michal Perlman, Prof. Patricia Ganea and Prof. Becky

Chen-Bumgardner. Your insightful feedback, throughout my Ph.D studies and the dissertation writing process have been extremely valuable. I will always appreciate your intelligence, warmth, and constructive feedback.

Thank you to my external examiner, Prof. David Share, for devoting the time to thoughtfully challenge my thinking and provide me with valuable feedback and questions to ponder.

What would I have done without Dr. Gabi Liberman, the statistical advisor, and Barbara

Reid who helped me to edit and format my dissertation. Thanks you both for dedicating the time to improve my thesis and make it look more professional. Nancy Mayes, thanks you for your kind presence, for your constant smile, for being always ready to help, and for your friendship.

A huge thanks to my professional lab mates who have been so understanding, supportive and helpful. Thanks for your company and your precious advice: Dr Marcus Benayon, Dr. Dana

David, Dr. Adrian Pasquarella, Prof. Fataneh Farnia, Dr. Mahshid- Atzimi, Christine Fraser,

Joyce Mak, Amily Safronsky, Linda Iwenofu, Tamara Kornacki, Sharon Pauker and Sun Baek.

Thanks to the “Bialik school” team, to Dr. Amy platt, Asher Barnea, and especially the children, parents and teachers, without whom the study could not have been carried out.

Last but not least, I want to thank my family - Hay, my husband, and my daughters. You have been my foundation from the onset. You kept me standing through the challenges and crises. You are the most important people in my life. Thanks to my parents – Loving and believing in me in the way that you do is why I have been able to get to this point.

Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………………...ii v

List of Tables ...... xi

List of Figures ...... xiv

List of Appendices ...... xvv

Chapter One: Introduction...... 1

Chapter Two: Literature Review...... 7

Phonological and Morphological Awareness and their Role in Literacy Acquisition...... 7

Phonological awareness...... 7

Morphological awareness...... 9

The link between phonological and morphological awareness...... 11

Key Features of English Phonology and Morphology ...... 12

Phonology and phonology-orthography relations...... 12

Morphology...... 14

The link between phonology and morphology in English...... 15

Phonological awareness development and its role in literacy acquisition in English

(L1)...... 16

Morphological awareness development and its role in literacy acquisition in English

(L1)...... 17

Key Features of Hebrew Orthography and Morphology ...... 23

Background…...... 23

The relation between phonology and orthography...... 23

Morphology ...... 26

Phonological awareness development and its role in literacy acquisition in Hebrew

(L1)...... 27

The development of morphological awareness and its role in Hebrew (L1)...... 31

Meta-Linguistic Awareness in Bilingual Contexts and Cross-Linguistic Influences...... 37

Theoretical frameworks of transfer………….………...,…………………………..….37

Cross-linguistic transfer of meta-linguistic knowledge...... 41

Meta-linguistic development and its role in literacy acquisition in English (L2)…... .. 44

Phonological and morphological development among English (L2) children: The role

of L1 characteristics ...... 46

Phonological and morphological development among English (L2) children: The role

of cognitive processing...... 48

Meta-linguistic development and its role in Hebrew as a second language...... 49

phonology……………………………………………………….………………….49

Morphology...... 51

Key Issues in the Investigation of Cross-Language Transfer of Phonological and

Morphological Awareness ...... 53

The Present Research…………………………………………………………………...…....54

Research Questions...... 54

Chapter Three: Method ...... 56

Participants ...... 56

Measures ...... 57

Child measures...... 59

Background characteristics ...... 59

vii

Cognitive processing ...... 59

Digit span ...... 59

Phonological awareness syllable deletion...... 59

Initial consonant isolation ...... 59

Final consonant isolation ...... 60

English Phonological awareness ...... 60

Languge ...... 61

Recetive vocabulary: PPVT ...... 61

Productive vocabulary: Narrive production ...... 61

Morphological awareness ...... 62

Inflection awareness - Analogies…………...…………………...………………….62

Inflection awareness - Sentences…...…………………...………………………….63

Derivational awareness - English and Hebrew………..…………………...……….64

Derivational awareness - Hebrew………..…………………...…………………….64

English compounds……………………….....……..……………………………….65

Hebrew compounds………...………...……..……..……………………………….65

Teachers' interview about the Hebrew Program……..……..………………………….68

Procedure………..…...…..………….....…………...... ……………………………….69

Chapter Four: Data Analysis...... 71

Preliminary Analyses……………………...…………………………………………………71

Chapter Five: Study 1 ...... 87

The Emergence of Morphemic Components in the Spontaneous Speech of Hebrew L2

Narratives ...... 87

Method...... 90 viii

Participants...... 90

Measures...... 90

Narrative production in Hebrew...... 90

Results...... 90

Discussion...... 95

Morphological structures in Hebrew (L2)...... 95

Chapter Six: Study 2...... 99

Order of Acquisition of Phonological Awareness in Hebrew (L2)……………….………..99

Method...... 102

Participants...... 102

Measures...... 102

Results...... 103

Discussion...... 113

The development of phonological awareness elements in Hebrew (L2)...... 113

Syllable deletion...... 113

Final phoneme isolation...... 115

Initial phoneme isolation...... 117

Summary...... 120

Predictors of phonological awareness in Hebrew ...... 121

Chapter Seven: Study 3 ...... 125

Comparison of English and Hebrew Performance on Morphological Components……..…125

Method ...... 130

Participants ...... 130

Measures ...... 130 ix

Results ...... 131

Discussion ...... 148

The development of morphological awareness in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2)...... 148

Inflectional awareness- analogies……...... ……...…………………………….…148

Inflectional awareness- sentences…………...... …………..…………………..…149

Derivational awareness- structure...…………...... ………………….…151

Derivational awareness- decomposition……………..………...... …..………..…151

Compounds………………...…….……………………………...... …………..…152

Comparisons between different tasks assessing the same morphological constructs

within each language separately...... 154

Inflectional morphology...... 155

Derivational morphology…...……..………………...………………………….…155

Comparisons of the same inflectional morphological tasks between English (L1) and

Hebrew (L2)...... 157

Predictors of Hebrew morphology-related skills...... 157

Chapter Eight: General Discussion and Conclusion ...... 161

Limitations and Future Directions ...... 165

Conclusions ...... 167

References ...... 171

Appendices ...... 199

List of Tables

Table 1. Measures Collected per Time Point...... 58

Table 2. Summary of Morphological Tasks in English and Hebrew ...... 67

Table 3. Comparison between Cohorts on the Task Battery ...... 73

Table 4. CTOPP Frequency within Each Quartile from JK to Grade 2...... 78

Table 5. Descriptive Statistics for Language Skills in English and Hebrew in JK...... 79

Table 6. Descriptive Statistics for Language Skills in English and Hebrew in SK...... 80

Table 7. Descriptive Statistics for Language Skills in English and Hebrew in G1...... 81

Table 8. Descriptive Statistics for Language Skills in English and Hebrew in G2...... 82

Table 9. Correlations among English and Hebrew Phonological Awareness Measures in JK....83

Table 10. Correlations among English and Hebrew Phonological and Morphological Awareness

Measures in SK...... 84

Table 11. Correlations among English and Hebrew Phonological and Morphological Awareness

Measures in G1...... ,,...... 85

Table 12. Correlations among English and Hebrew Phonological and Morphological Awareness

Measures in G2...... ,...... 86

Table 13. Frequency of Morpheme Categories and Words in Hebrew Narratives ...... 91

Table 14. Regression Results for Words and Morphemes in Hebrew Narratives Predicted by

Grade ...... 92

Table 15. Regression Results of Phonological Awareness in Hebrew Predicted by Grade and

Phonological Awareness Components in Hebrew (Initial Phoneme, Final Phoneme,

Syllable)……………………………………………………...... 105

Table 16. Phonological Components in Hebrew: Pairwise Comparisons between Grades...... 106

Table 17. Pairwise Comparisons between the Phonological Components in Hebrew by Grade ....

...... 107

Table 18. Regression Results of Sub-Syllable Responses in Hebrew (L2) Predicted by

Grade……………………...…………………….……………………………...... 109

Table 19. The Contribution of Digit Span Backwards to Hebrew Phonological Awareness

Components at SK ...... 111

Table 20. Interactions’ sources between Hebrew Phonological Components and Digit Span

Backwards ...... 112

Table 21. Regression Results for Hebrew (L2) Phonology Predicted by Grade, Phonological

Awareness in English (L1) and Number of Hebrew (L2) morphemes ...... 112

Table 22. Regression Results for English (L1) Morphology Predicted by Grade ...... 133

Table 23. Regression Results for Hebrew (L2) Morphology Predicted by Grade ...... 136

Table 24. Success Ratio in English and Hebrew across Morphological Measures ...... 137

Table 25. Regressions of Performance on English Morphological Tasks Predicted by Grade and

Task (Domain of Morphology)...... 140

Table 26. Regression of Hebrew Inflectional Tasks Predicted by Grade and Task (Analogies and

Sentences) ...... 142

xii

Table 27. Regression of Inflectional Analogies and Inflectional Sentences Tasks Predicted by

Grade and Language...... 144

Table 28. Regression Results for Hebrew (L2) Morphology Predicted by Grade, Phonological

Awareness in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2), Hebrew (L2) Morphological

Proficiency and English (L1) Morphology ...... 147

xiii

List of Figures

Figure 1. Interactions between grade level and components of phonological awareness in

Hebrew (L2) ...... 108

Figure 2. Hebrew versus English Performance on Morphological Measures Across Grades....138

Figure 3. Source of Interaction between Grade and Task (Derivation vs. Decomposition) on

English Morphology...... 141

Figure 4. Source of Interaction between Grade and Language Performance on Inflectional

Sentences Tasks...... 145

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List of Appendices

Appendix A: Parent Questionnaire ...... 199

Appendix B: Digit Span Forward/Backward ...... 214

Appendix C: Initial Phoneme Isolation, Final Phoneme Isolation and Syllable Deletion (in

Hebrew) ...... 216

Appendix D: English Elision CTOPP ...... 225

Appendix E: PPVT – English Receptive Vocabulary Measure (Individual) ...... 228

Appendix F: Hebrew Narrative, Birthday Party Script ...... 235

Appendix G: Hebrew Inflectional Morphology - Word Analogies ...... 237

Appendix H: English Inflectional Morphology - Word Analogies ...... 238

Appendix I: English Inflectional Morphology – Sentences ...... 239

Appendix J: Hebrew Inflectional Morphology – Sentence ...... 241

Appendix K: Hebrew Test of Morphological Structure (receptive) ...... 242

Appendix L: Test of Morphological Structure ...... 244

Appendix M: Hebrew Test of Morphological Structure (productive) ...... 246

Appendix N: Compound Structure Task ...... 247

Appendix O: Hebrew Compounds ...... 250

Appendix P: Semi-Structured Interview – Teachers ...... 252

Appendix Q: An Information & Invitation Letter to School Principals ...... 254

Appendix R: An Information & Invitation Letter to School Teachers ...... 256

Appendix S: Teacher Consent Form...... 258

Appendix T: Information & Invitation Letter to parents or guardians ...... 259

Appendix U: Parent Consent Form ...... 262 xv

Chapter One

Introduction

The term metalinguistic awareness refers to the “ability to reflect on and manipulate the structural features of language” (Nagy & Anderson, 1995, p.2), such as phonological awareness

(PA) and morphological awareness (MA) (Proctor & Silverman, 2011). Both PA and MA are crucial for the development of various language skills including reading acquisition, vocabulary, spelling, and reading comprehension (Wang, Perfetti, & Liu, 2005). The development of these skills is dependent on the ability to produce distinct phonological segments from online continuous speech (Cheung, Chen, Lai, Wong, & Hills, 2001; Durgunoglu & Oney, 2000) and to understand relations between the internal components of words (Ravid, 2012). It has been established that the relation between these metalinguistic abilities and literacy skills is reciprocal, that is, being exposed to more vocabulary and reading improves and enhances metalinguistic skills and vice versa (Geva, 2014).

Metalinguistic awareness plays an important role in bilingual contexts in explaining cross- language transfer in the domain of reading development (Koda, 2008). The Transfer Facilitation

Model proposed by Koda (2008) emphasizes the potential of metalinguistic awareness (e.g., PA,

MA) that develops in one language to enhance the development of reading skills in other languages. For example, PA evaluated in the home-language (L1) can predict word reading skills in the second language (L2) when the two languages are typologically similar (Comeau,

Cormier, Grandmaison, & Lacroix, 1999, for English-French; Durgunoğlu, Nagy, & Hancin-

Bhatt, 1993, for English-Spanish) and when they are typologically different (Wade-Woolley &

Geva, 2004, for English and Hebrew; Wang et al., 2005, for English and Chinese).

MA may represent a metalinguistic construct that is more language-specific than PA,

and therefore may be less robust in predicting reading performance cross-linguistically (Geva,

2014). In addition, According to Koda (2008) and Saiegh-Haddad and Geva (2008), the cross- linguistic transfer of MA relies heavily on the extent of shared morphological structures between the L1 and L2 and on language proficiency (Geva, 2014). In other words, it is also important to consider typological commonalities and differences between the L1 and L2 when studying cross-language transfer. According to the Contrastive Analysis Theory (Lado, 1957),

L2 learners are dependent on their native language when they learn the target language, and their difficulties and ease in L2 acquisition can also be determined based on a systematic analysis and comparison of specific features of each language (Lado, 1957). Along similar lines, according to Frost et al (2013), cognitive capacity for statistical learning explains second language acquisition and is influenced by the degree of similarity or dissimilarity between the statistical properties of the first and second language (Byalystok, McBride-Chang, & Luk,

2005). According to this theoretical approach language learning is primarily a process of picking up and implicitly assimilating the statistical properities of a linguistic environment. In this view, learning a language draws on the general cognitive ability to preceive and identify systematic structures and correlations (Frost et al, 2013).

Research on phonological and MA among emerging bilingual children provides an opportunity to explore in-depth the order of phonological and morphological development in each language and identify parallel and language-specific processes. Accordingly, the current longitudinal study focuses on young children who speak English as their home language (L1) and have just started to be exposed to Hebrew (L2). This line of study is important from a theoretical perspective because English and Hebrew are typologically different languages, as well as from a developmental perspective. In addition, issues related to transfer from the L1 to the L2 or vice versa have important educational implications for instruction in Hebrew day

schools. Examining universal and typological aspects of phonological and morphological components may contribute to a model of language development in the bilingual context in general, and particularly in the English (L1)-Hebrew (L2) educational environment. In practice, such a model is expected to contribute to knowledge related to instruction of phonological and morphological skills in the English (L1)-Hebrew (L2) bilingual context.

In sum, this research aims to explore issues pertaining to PA and MA skills among young emergent bilinguals. The study participants are children whose home language is English and who are acquiring English and Hebrew literacy skills in a partial immersion context. The following chapters describe the background literature that underlies the research rationale

(chapter two), the research procedures including a detailed description of the measures used and participants' demographic characteristics (chapter three), and the methodology and preliminary analyses (chapter 4). Subsequently, three related studies are presented (chapters five, six, and seven).

The first study targeted the development of Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency, examining specific Hebrew morphological structures from Junior Kindergarten (JK) to Grade

(G) 2. The aim was to investigate whether these structures mirror the structures that are known to develop in the early years of life among Hebrew L1 children. It was hypothesized that

Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency would increase with age and systematic exposure to

Hebrew (L2) at school. Also, it was hypothesized that young emerging bilingual children would first demonstrate awareness for gender and number inflections in Hebrew, and that they would figure out the morphological combinations that are more frequent, consistent or salient. In addition, it was hypothesized that there would be a gap in morphological development between the emerging bilingual children and native Hebrew speakers. By the end of their third year, native Hebrew speakers are able to efficiently use in parallel all kinds of inflections that can be

connected to nouns, verbs and adjectives (Berman 1981, 1983; Ravid & Malenky, 2001). In contrast, the emerging bilingual children in the present study, in the context of the specific style of instruction in the Hebrew day school in Toronto may first show knowledge of nouns, and only later would they demonstrate knowledge of adjectives and verbs (see chapter three for details on the school’s instruction method). Accordingly, it was hypothesized that unlike the reported parallel acquisition process among native Hebrew speakers, the order of acquisition among emerging bilingual children would be more sequential.

The second study tracked the order of acquisition of PA components in Hebrew (L2), and examined whether Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency and PA in English (L1) predict

PA in Hebrew (L2). Morphological proficiency was measured by the number of morphemes that were produced spontaneously in a "birthday party" narrative (see chapter three). Cross- language correlations between phonemic awareness tasks in English and Hebrew support the notion that PA is a metalinguistic general skill that needs to be acquired only once (Durgunoglu,

2002; Geva, 2008). In addition, in a review of studies that addressed metahlinguistic awareness and reading in Hebrew, Geva (2008) points out that MA has mutual and facilitating relationships with other linguistic components, including PA. Accordingly, it was hypothesized that both PA in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) morphological skills would predict PA in

Hebrew (L2). In addition, in line with the research literature on phonemes (Anthony et al, 2002;

Anthony et al., 2003; Share & Bloom, 2005; Branum-Martin et al., 2012; Cisero & Royer, 1995;

Schatschneider et al., 1999; Stanovich, 1992; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005), it was hypothesized that the ability to manipulate large units (syllables) in Hebrew would develop earlier than the ability to manipulate small units (i.e., phonemes).

The third study compared the order of acquisition and development of MA in children’s

L1 (English) and L2 (Hebrew). It was hypothesized that children would show positive

development on components of MA in both languages. Also, based on previous research, it was hypothesized that children would acquire inflections before derivations in both languages. In addition, it was hypothesized that performance on comparable morphological tasks would be higher in English when compared to Hebrew, because English is the children's native language and they just started to be exposed to Hebrew (L2).

An additional hypothesis in Study 3 was that parallel tasks (i.e., that measure the same morphological component) of varying difficulty levels would yield different results in both

English and Hebrew. Specifically, it was hypothesized that performance on the inflectional sentences task in both languages would be lower when compared to that of the inflectional analogies task. This is due to the fact that in the former task, children were required to produce the correct form of the inflection, while in the latter task, the children were given an example of the analogy, to which they were required to apply another pair of words. In addition, it was hypothesized that performance differences between these two tasks would be greater in Hebrew

(L2) in comparison to English (L1). This was based on the premise that the high level of English proficiency would enable children to express their morphological knowledge in a more flexible way, with less dependency on task structure, while the lower level of proficiency in Hebrew would limit performance on more demanding tasks. Relatedly, it was hypothesized that children would perform better on the derivational decomposition task than on the derivational structure task in both languages. Again, this was based on the different linguistic demands of these two tasks. Namely, while the derivational structure task requires deep and accurate knowledge of the different forms of derivations, the decomposition task poses simpler demands, in that if one identifies the basic root word, one is more likely to infer which morpheme was tied to it.

The final hypothesis in Study 3 was that PA in English would correlate with PA in

Hebrew, and that both would predict morphological skills in Hebrew (L2). This hypothesis is

based on evidence of the mutual and facilitating relationships between phonological skills and

MA (Geva, 2008). The rationale underlying this hypothesis was that general linguistic knowledge, which is common across both languages and was examined in the same way in both languages, would transfer from the strong language to the weak language. It was also assumed that transfer of MA would occur between English and Hebrew on comparable tasks (inflectional analogies and inflectional sentences) with parallel linguistic components.

Chapter Two

Literature Review

This dissertation is concerned with the order of acquisition of components of two metalinguistic skills - phonological and morphological awareness in Hebrew as a second language (L2) and the order of acquisition of aspects of morphological awareness in English as first language (L1) and in Hebrew (L2). This chapter begins by addressing different aspects of meta-linguistic skills, such as PA and MA. Some relevant features of the English and Hebrew languages are then briefly discussed, along with research findings on the developmental order of phonological and morphological skills in each language. Special attention is given to research involving English and Hebrew languages and orthography structures to provide context for the research conducted in this study. Next, the literature on phonological and morphological development is reviewed from the perspective of second language acquisition with a specific emphasize on the English-

Hebrew bilingual context. This literature provides the theoretical context for the three studies that form this dissertation.

Phonological and Morphological Awareness and their Role in Literacy Acquisition

PA and MA are pre-literacy constructs that both facilitate and are facilitated by learning to read and write through the consolidation of connections among phonemes, syllables and morphemes and their written representations (Levin, Ravid, & Rapaport, 2001; Ravid & Geiger, 2009).

Phonological awareness. Phonological components are part of a linguistic area that represents knowledge about the sound system of a language and deals with language-distinctive sound units (phonemes), unit phoneme combinations (e.g., syllables) and patterns of combinations. These components play a significant role in the lexicon and grammar of a 7

language (Ravid, 2012). PA involves the ability to detect and manipulate sounds (phonemes) at three levels of sound structure: (1) syllables, (2) onsets and rimes, and (3) phonemes. Awareness of these sounds can be demonstrated through various tasks. Although the tasks vary, they share the basic requirement that some operation (e.g., generating, separating, identifying, comparing, combining) be performed on the phonemes. The individual performing these tasks should have awareness of the units of sound in order to perform the operation (Ravid, 2012). PA is the foundation of learning to read and write in different writing systems (Wang et al., 2005), and is critical in alphabetic orthographies, which require the outlining and mapping of grapheme- phoneme correspondences (Friend & Olson, 2008; Goswami, 1999). It is a universal sub-skill of reading an alphabetic language (Bekebrede, Van der Leij, & Share, 2009). The interaction of phonological processing with an alphabetical notational system facilitates the creation of phonological representations, and phonemes do not exist explicitly in the child’s mind before exposure to literacy (Ravid, 2012). The acquisition of explicit phonological representations is a continuous process, accompanied by a gradual ability to produce abstract and distinct phonological segments from online continuous and co-articulated speech (Cheung et al., 2001;

Durgunoglu & Oney, 2000).

Children’s phonological categorization abilities are directly related to their progress in literacy. This has been noted in languages with different alphabetical orthographies such as

French (Casalis & Louis-Alexandre, 2000), Finnish (Lehtonen & Bryant, 2004), English

(Bradley & Bryant, 1983; Snowling, Adams, Bishop & Stothard, 2001), Dutch (Notenboom &

Reitsma, 2007), Swedish (Lundberg, Olofsson, & Wall, 1980), Portuguese (Sucena, Castro, &

Seymour, 2009), and Turkish (Babayigit & Stainthorp, 2010) and in different abjads

(consonantal) languages, such as Arabic (Mohamed, Elbert, & Landerl, 2010 ; Saiegh-Haddad,

2004, 2007a), Persian (Rahbari, Senechal, & Arab-Moghaddam, 2007) and Hebrew (Berent,

Shimron, & Vaknin, 2001; Share, 1999). The strong connection between early reading skills and

PA goes beyond vocabulary knowledge, individual differences in intelligence, chronological age, and even beyond reading experience, and has been observed in diverse alphabetic orthographies. This connection exists across a variety of measures from kindergarten to adulthood (Adams, 1990; Liberman, Shankweiler, & Liberman, 1989; Pratt & Brady, 1988;

Rack, Snowling, & Olson, 1992; Stanovich, 1988). Phoneme awareness is a necessary, though not sufficient, requirement for normal reading acquisition (e.g., Gough & Tunmer, 1986; Juel,

1988). For example, English orthography represents both phonology and morphology; therefore, it is reasonable to expect that an explicit awareness of these two pre-linguistic and linguistic constructs should be necessary for reading, understanding and spelling success.

Morphological awareness. MA is also an important component of reading success

(Fowler & Liberman, 1995). Morphology is cocerned with ways in which words are related to each other by their internal components, which are called morphemes. Grammatical morphology

(inflection) deals with the ways in which syntactic units are influenced by morphology, such as linguistic principles regarding verbs and number-gender-person, and with word forms that are created by inflecting different lexical words in a grammatical way (e.g., plural marking on nouns). Lexical morphology (derivation) has to do with the creation of new lexical words by combining derivational morphemes such as stems and suffixes, and in the case of Semitic languages, it involves command of word patterns and roots (Ravid, 2012).

MA is a crucial construct for word identification, reading comprehension and spelling.

Learners are able to use their morphological knowledge to discover the meaning of new words.

For instance, Nagy and Anderson (1984) found that 60% of the words that are new for children are morphologically transparent complex words. The literature suggests that language learners encounter complex words at early stages of their language development. With a growth in MA,

learners can understand new morphemes and morphemic boundaries by breaking complex words into meaningful components (e.g. childhoods= child + hood + s), understanding the meanings of roots and affixes (child=baby, hood= the state of being, s= to indicate plural nouns), and reconstructing the meaningful components into new meanings (motherhood, fatherhood, brotherhood). Morphological analysis is the action of breaking and reconstructing of morphemes (Carlisle & Stone, 2003; Gordon, 1989).

MA has an important role in the acquisition of reading. The reading process draws on phonological processing, but is also dependent on other aspects of children’s language knowledge and awareness, such as semantics and syntax. It has been argued that MA may serve as a general index of metalinguistic capability, because it is based on a variety of aspects of linguistic knowledge (Carlisle, 1995). The ability to generate word derivations relies on the understanding of phonological relations, syntactic rules, and semantic connections. Therefore, it might serve as a better predictor of reading achievement than the ability to create inflections.

Over the school years, children acquire new words that are composed of derived forms. In turn, this new vocabulary fosters reading achievement further (Anderson & Freebody, 1985; Anglin,

1993; Nagy & Anderson, 1984).

In a pivotal longitudinal study, Carlisle (1995) examined the relationships among MA,

PA, and linguistic knowledge of English monolinguals assessed in kindergarten and again in

G2. It was found that while MA and PA tapped common, similar metalinguistic capabilities and both predicted reading, MA was more strongly related to reading comprehension than was PA.

MA has an important role among older students. Morphological analysis and problem-solving provide a chance to understand and learn the large number of derived words which are used in the books read (Nagy & Anderson, 1984).

MA makes a unique contribution to the variance in early vocabulary acquisition, and its contribution is distinct from the contribution made by phonological processing skills and reading ability among kindergarteners and second graders (McBride-Chang & Ho, 2005). This point appears to apply both to monolingual and L2 learners. For example, in their study involving young ESL children in Hong Kong (whose L1 was Cantonese), McBride-Chang and

Ho (2005) found that MA, measured with inflectional grammar and lexical compounding tasks, explained 10% of the unique variance in vocabulary knowledge over and above phonological processing and reading related variables (McBride-Chang & Ho, 2005).

The link between phonological and morphological awareness. There is agreement that even though they correlate with one another, PA and MA constitute two separate sets of abilities that enhance reading (Carlisle, 1995; Casalis & Colé, 2009; Fowler & Liberman,

1995). The link between PA and MA is complicated and plays a significant role in reading, particularly in the early school years (Carlisle, 1995). With regard to English, Nagy, Berninger, and Abbott (2006) emphasized two distinct types of relationships between phonology and morphology: phonologically transparency, where the pronunciation of the stem is not modified by the addition of a suffix (e.g., dark/darkness; act/active); and phonological shift, where the pronunciation of the stem is altered (e.g., please/pleasure; create/creation; Nagy et al., 2006).

Competence in MA assignments using items with phonological shifts is more strongly related to reading development than competence displayed on tasks involving phonologically transparent items (Carlisle, 2000; Fowler & Liberman, 1995). Deacon and Kirby (2004) pointed out that

MA has a significant role in reading achievement beyond that of PA: “Morphological awareness is more than just ‘more phonological’” (p. 236). Studies involving English monolingual children suggest that the relations between morphology and phonology are best assessed at a developmental stage when morphology begins to make a significant independent contribution to

reading and writing, some time around grade 2 (Nagy, Berninger, Abbott, Vaughan, &

Vermeulen, 2003). However, the unique contribution of MA to other literacy skills, such as decoding rate, is evident only by Grades 8 or 9 (Nagy et al., 2006).

It is important to note that the contribution of PA and MA to reading development and vocabulary is not identical across different language typologies, and across different bilingual contexts. Readers of different languages are confronted with different cognitive and metalinguistic challenges when they read and write, and these differences are based on typological differences in orthographic and language features (see for example, Akamatsu, 1999, regarding

Japanese-English; Wang & Koda, 2005, regarding Chinese, Korean and English; Ramirez,

Chen, Geva & Luo, 2011, regarding Spanish-Chinese; Schiff & Calif, 2007, regarding English-

Hebrew; Commissaire, Pasquarella, Chen, & Deacon, 2014, regarding French-English; Saiegh-

Haddad & Geva, 2008 regarding English-Arabic).

The description of two different typological languages, English and Hebrew, which follows, will highlight aspects of PA and MA in these languages and the order of acquisition of these elements among native speakers in each language. This literature will provide the context for the three research studies forming this dissertation.

Key Features of English Phonology and Morphology

Phonology and phonology-orthography relations. English has 26 letters that are mapped onto approximately 44 speech sounds (phonemes). The phonemic values of some letters

(graphemes) are dependent on their position in relation to other letters, and on their position in the word (Wade-Woolley & Geva, 2000). For example, the silent “e” lengthens the previous vowel within a word (e.g., do-doe; not-note), and the grapheme “g” is pronounced as /g/ when followed by “i” (e.g., girl), but is pronounced as /dj/ when followed by “e” (e.g., geography). In addition, vowel distinctions usually mark basic morphemic contrasts, and the graphemic 12

representation of vowels is usually crucial for meaning (consider but, bet, bat, bit, boat, beat, etc.). On the whole, there is no systematic and simple one-to-one correspondence between the system of writing and the system of pronunciation. The stop consonants are universally shared phonological segments, such as /p/ and /t/, as are the vowels “ah” as in father, “ee” as in see and “oo” as in boot. However, the /l/- /r/ contrast found in the inventory of English vocabulary does not exist in many Asian languages. Indeed, the English /r/ is quite uncommon across languages. In the same way, the English vowel distinctions between “oo” /hook/ and “aw” in

/hawk/ do not exist in other languages, nor does the /t/-/th/ contrast in tank-thank.

There are two phonology-based frameworks of reading acquisition in the literature in

English. One framework explains that word reading acquisition is based on small grapheme-to- phoneme correspondences (GPCs). This perspective emphasizes analysis of all constituent phonemes of a syllable (e.g., back segmented into b-a-ck; Coltheart et al, 1993). According to

GPC- based theories reading acquisition is marked by qualitative changes in the representation of spelling knowledge of GPCs in words (Ehri, 1992, 2005; Savage & Stuart, 2006).

The second framework includes rime-based models of early reading acquisition

(Goswami, 1993, 1999; Goswami & Bryant, 1990). These models emphasize analysis of a syllable into the initial consonant or consonants (onset) and "rimes" (the subsyllabic unit containing the vowel and terminal consonant/s of syllable). In the "Interactive analogy model" first proposed by Goswami (1993) the onset-rime PA comes to represent a distinct pathway to reading in English independent of spelling knowledge or use of GPC rules.

The two perspectives differ in the developmental sequence of children's mastery of the two types of linguistic units. Rime-based models admit the important role of GPC units in learning to read once children have been taught and learned them. Many phoneme-based models acknowledge the role of rime use, but only after reliable GPC decoding has first been

established (Duncan, Seymour & Hill, 1997; Ehri & Robbins, 1992; Seymour, Duncan & Bolik,

1999; Savage et al, 2011).

Morphology. In different languages, words are formed by compounding (e.g., snowman), inflections (e.g., doll, dolls) and derivations (e.g., institute, institution).

Compounding is the process of creating a new word by putting together two or more words

(e.g., blackboard). This combination of words that characterizes the process of word creation by compounding may occur between words of the same part of speech (e.g., snowman [noun + noun]), as well as between words from different categories (e.g., blackboard [adjective + noun]).

In most cases, the semantic contribution of the combined words creates the meaning of a new compound word (literal compound, e.g., black + board). However, there are cases in which the meaning of the compound word is very different from each separate component (metaphorical compound, e.g., hotdog). Literal compounds enable the inference of the meaning by combining the meaning of two or more components, whereas metaphorical compounds demand additional cultural knowledge and contextual clues. Word creation by the compounding process, in

English, falls into at least eleven different combinations: noun + adjective, adjective + noun, adjective + noun-ed, verb + noun, noun + verb-ing, noun + verb-er, verb-ing + noun, noun + noun, particle + verb, verb + particle, and adverb/particle + noun. The most frequent category in

English is noun + noun (Whitley, 1986).

Inflectional morphemes indicate tense or aspect and they are added to root words (e.g., work, worked), number (e.g., doll, dolls), person (e.g., make, makes) or comparison (e.g., fast, fastest). They do not change the meaning of words, and they are always suffixes, added after the root.

Derivational morphemes can be attached either as a prefix or as a suffix. When they are added as prefixes, they do not change the syntactic property of a word, but they can change its

meaning (e.g., happy [adjective] - unhappy [adjective]). The same prefix can provide different semantic information, depending on the grammatical category of the base to which it is attached.

For example, un- when attached to verbs and nouns (e.g., undo) means “reverse action”, whereas when attached to adjectives (e.g., unhappy) means “not, opposite of”. These selective restrictions can create opaque terminologies and ambiguity in meaning. When the derivational morphemes are added after the root and serve as derivational suffixes, they usually change the syntactic property of a word (e.g., communicate [verb] - communication [noun]). However, not all derivational suffixes create changes in the part of speech. The nominal suffix- ism, for example, can join nouns to form another noun (e.g., buddha [noun] - buddhism [noun]).

English derivational morphology involves distributional, relational, and syntactic aspects. The distributional aspect refers to the restrictions that apply to the combinations of affixes. For example, -ous is attached to nouns to make them adjectives, but not to verbs.

Relational aspects refer to the common morpheme shared by two or more words (e.g., heal, health). The syntactic aspect involves the association of derivational suffixes with specific syntactic categories and by this virtue, their ability to change the syntactic category of words to which they are connected (e.g., -ness and -tion indicate nouns, while –ify indicates verbs;

Ramirez, 2009).

The link between phonology and morphology in English. The process of suffixation may create phonological shifts and spelling changes in the root. Yet not all suffixes create a phonological shift in the stem: The Germanic suffixes are neutral (e.g.,-ness), while several

Latin (e.g.,-ure) and Greek (e.g.,-ism) suffixes cause phonological changes. Alterations include changing a soft phoneme to a hard one after a suffix is combined (e.g., reduce-reduction) as well as changes in the position of the stressed syllable (e.g., extreme-extremist). Another unique aspect of English morphological processes is the influence of suffixation on syllable boundaries.

In the presence of derivational suffixation, the internal syllabic structure of several words is modified. For example, in the derivation of signal from sign, the letter “n” becomes part of the second syllable (Ramirez, 2009).

Phonological awareness development and its role in literacy acquisition in English

(L1). In general, the ability to analyze larger phonological units (syllables and rhymes) develops before the ability to analyze syllables into smaller units (i.e., phonemes; Anthony et al, 2002;

Anthony, Lonigan, Driscoll, Phillips, & Burgess, 2003; Branum-Martin, Tao, Garnnat, Bunta, &

Francis, 2012; Cisero & Royer, 1995; Schatschneider, Francis, Foorman, Fletcher, & Mehta,

1999; Stanovich, 1992; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). According to Hoien, Lundberg, Stanovich, and Bjaalid (1995), the beginning of the development of PA is expressed in sensitivity to rhymes. When they are 3 years old children already demonstrate sensitivity to rhymes (Carroll,

Snowling, Hulme, & Stevenson, 2003; Lonigan, Burgess, Anthony, & Barker, 1998; MacLean,

Bryant, & Bradely, 1987) and implicit knowledge of PA (Bryant, MacLean, Bradely, &

Crossland, 1990; MacLean et al., 1987). The development of syllable segmentation and phoneme segmentation is next to emerge. PA, the awareness that words are made up of a variety of sound units, emerges typically in pre-school, during the years immediately prior to elementary school and the start of formal reading instruction.

Phonemic awareness, the understanding of how phonemes function in words, develops later and is an important predictor of reading development (Bryant et al., 1990). It correlates, at age 4, with early sensitivity to rhyme and syllable structure (Carroll et al., 2003). Around age 5 or 6, there is a ceiling effect on rhyme detection and rhyme production tasks, and most children at this age are able to blend and segment words into syllabic units (Blachman, 1994). However, children are not usually able to segment words into a series of phonemes (phonemic awareness) until age 5 or 6 (Blachman, 1994; Stanovich, Cunningham, & Cramer, 1984; Yopp, 1988). The

majority of children can manipulate phonemes and switch phonemes between or within words, add phonemes or delete phonemes by age 6 (Blachman, 1994). For example, they can change pain to fain when they are requested to substitute the /p/ with the /f/ phoneme. Phoneme deletion tasks are the most difficult, whereas rhyming tasks are the easiest (Yopp, 1988). Likewise,

Ziegler and Goswami (2005) reported that there is an order of acquisition from awareness of large units, such as words and syllables, through multi-phonemic and sub-syllabic units, onset- rimes, to single phonemic units. For example, Hulme et al. (2002) administered three tasks of oddity at the onset rime and phoneme level to 5- and 6-year-olds kindergartners. The findings indicated that the phoneme measures were more difficult than the onset-rime measures, and initial phoneme was easier than final phoneme.

It is important to note that there is no consenus in the English literature. The "Belgian group" argues that large syllable- level units are fundamentally a different level of awareness from literacy- engendered phoneme-level awareness (Morais et al, 1979). The researchers found that iliterate adults could neither delete nor add phonemes at the beginning of nonsense words, whereas others from the same area who received reading instruction succeeded in performing theses tasks. The authors concluded that awareness of phoneme segmentation does not develop spontaneously even by adulthood, but emerges as a concomitant of reading instruction and experience (Morais et al, 1979).

Morphological awareness development and its role in literacy acquisition in English

(L1). Brown (1973) investigated the order of acquisition of inflectional morphemes among native English speakers. Based on monthly observations of a handful of children, he concluded that the order of morphological development did not depend on frequency of exposure (in parental speech). Instead, the morphemes were acquired in order of syntactic and semantic complexity: present progressive, prepositions, plural, irregular past tense, possessive, 17

uncontractible copula (e.g., This is hot.), articles (e.g., a, the), regular past tense, 3rd person present tense regular, 3rd person present tense irregular and uncontractible auxiliary (e.g., Sara is winning).

The assessment of children’s MA in kindergarten and grade 1 concentrates on the transition from implicit, intuitive awareness of the morphemic structure of words to a more explicit awareness. Yet different levels of awareness are exposed when, for example, children are requested to explain the meaning of morphemically complex words (in comparison with naturalistic observations [Anglin, 1993]). In order to understand deeply the transition from implicit to explicit awareness, the focus should be on behaviors that might signify this shift and the assignments that might provide support for explicit awareness. On the one hand, if the child knows, for example, how to explain that the suffix ‘s’ marks a plural, this means that s/he has achieved a level of explicit awareness. On the other hand, if s/he succeeds in choosing the correct word from among four options, but does not know how to explain why, this means that the child has yet not achieved explicit awareness but has acquired implicit awareness. Tracking the progress of children from implicit to explicit awareness may be crucial for understanding children’s emergent MA in relation to reading development (Carlisle, 1995). This distinction is also relevant to the role that task demands has in conclusions one can draw about the emergence of various language skills.

Berko (1958) examined preschool and grade 1 children who ranged from four to seven years of age. The children were presented with a number of nonsense words and were asked to provide English plurals, verb tenses, possessives, derivations and compounds of those words

(e.g., Wug-Wugs, bational-bationalism). Children’s answers were not always correct, but they were consistent and demonstrated that children in this age range operate with clearly defined morphological rules. In addition, there were some differences in performance between the

preschoolers and the first graders. These differences were expressed in a dominant way for items on which the group as a whole did best or worst. For example, no preschool child was able to provide the irregular past tense form rang, but a few in grade 1 did. This difference was considered as developmentally significant. The developmental differences were expressed as a tendency to perfect knowledge they already had to some extent: the simple plurals and possessives, and the progressive tense. In general, children’s responses in the two age groups were not qualitatively different – in both age groups they illustrated command of the same simplified morphological inflection rules (e.g., Wug-Wugs, rit-ritting). On the whole, monolingual children as young as 4 years of age can generate simple inflections involving simple plural, possessive and progressive tense even when the “words” are unfamiliar to them

(Berko, 1958).

Three decades later, Carlisle (1995) investigated whether there are developmental changes in MA between kindergarteners and first graders. The findings indicated that many of the kindergartners had difficulties with morphological production tasks, which required children to actively create inflections and derivations, compared to receptive tasks that examined knowledge in a more passive way. They performed better on the inflected forms (e.g., book- books; 36.5%, 20.5 SD) than on the transparent derived forms (e.g., color-colorful; 22.8%, 16.2

SD). The first graders were better able to create correct morphologically complex words: inflected forms, 61.1% (18.5 SD), derived transparent forms, 40.9% (17.5 SD) and phonological change derived forms (e.g., product-production), 11.2% (16.9 SD). The first graders achieved a higher level on the overall task than their younger peers, and they also had a stronger correlation between their performance on the morphological production tasks and their reading comprehension in grade 2 (.55) compared to the performance on morphological tasks in

kindergarten (.33). Carlisle pointed out that learning to read probably contributes to subsequent word analysis skills.

In the same context, Jones (1991) also pointed out that first-grade children had difficulties in reading correctly words requiring complex phonological changes (e.g., pressure, natural).

However, they demonstrated proficiency and were aware of the relation of surface representations and underlying forms of some morphologically complex words. Their performance was quite accurate on compounds and relatively transparent derived forms (e.g. nine in “ninth”), when they were asked to delete a segment and then to explain the meaning of the remaining word. To conclude, derivational principles that include transparent structures and semantic connections are mastered by young school-age children, while the more complex morphological connections, those that are less transparent semantically and that include phonological shifts, are acquired later, beginning sometime before the fourth grade (Carlisle,

1988; Tyler & Nagy, 1989).

According to Anglin (1993), significant growth in knowledge of derived words among monolingual English-speaking children occurs between Grades 3 and 5, presumably due to the increased awareness of the internal structure of words (and support from reading and spelling skills). As explained below, the development of the three aspects of derivational MA – relational, syntactic and distributional – does not happen concurrently and some aspects are mastered only in late elementary grades. “Relational morphology refers to the common morpheme shared between two or more words (e.g., heal-health). Distributional morphology refers to the restrictions that apply to the combination of affixes. (For example, -ous is attached to nouns to make them adjectives, but not to verbs). Syntactic morphology involves the association of derivational suffixes with specific syntactic categories and by this virtue, their

ability to change the syntactic category of words to which they are attached (e.g.,-ness and –tion indicate noun, while-ify indicates verb)” (Ramirez, 2009, p.7).

Children are aware of relational properties at a comparatively early age, around age 4

(Clark & Cohen, 1984), while sensitivity to distributional and syntactic properties is acquired later in development and requires greater awareness (Tyler & Nagy, 1989; Wysocki & Jenkins,

1987). Children demonstrate the ability to identify a familiar stem in a derivative (relational awareness) around age 10. Overgeneralization errors, a sign of initial stages of awareness, and part of distributional properties of suffixes increase around age 12, while sensitivity to the syntactic properties of derivational suffixes is more often demonstrated around age 14 (Tyler &

Nagy, 1989).

Another factor that should be taken into account is that children’s ability to understand the relationship between the stem and the suffix in morphologically complex words in English and to identify syntactic properties of derivational morphemes depends on whether the suffix is neutral1 or not (e.g., meaning-meaningful vs. long-length; Carlisle, 2000; Carlisle & Stone,

2005; Jones, 1991). The ability to create neutral suffixes usually develops before the ability to create non-neutral suffixes (e.g., Carlisle & Fleming, 2003; Dale & O’Rourke, 1976; Gordon,

1989). Neutral suffixes such as -er, -ness,- ment and -ize are used frequently and are added to free morphemes (stems that can stand on their own). These suffixes do not produce phonological or orthographic shifts to the stems to which they are connected and do not alter the meaning of the stem (e.g., kind-kindness-kinder). In contrast, non-neutral suffixes such as -ify, - ity, -ive, or -ous are usually connected to bound morphemes and are used with less regularity.

These suffixes cause phonological and orthographic changes in the stems to which they are

1 Neutral suffixes do not affect the main word stress and do not cause the main stress to shift when they are added. They usually do not affect the quality of the stressed vowel in the word stem (or base). The majority of English suffixes are neutral. The non- neutral suffixes affect the location of stress and they make changes in the shape of the vowel or consonant of the base to which they are added. 21

connected and have less transparent semantic relationships with their stems than do neutral affixes (e.g., morpheme vs. morphemic). Gordon (1989) found that children aged 5, 7 and 9 accurately identified neutral-suffixed words at a higher rate than non-neutral suffixes, regardless of the frequency status of the stem or root. According to Tyler and Nagy (1989), the highest level of MA is distributional knowledge, which develops after relational and syntactic knowledge. This kind of awareness is related to the knowledge that with a few exceptions, most suffixes are attached only to one of four syntactic categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs (e.g., -ize indicates a verb). It would be difficult to master the distributional constraints on derivational suffixes without being able to identify the stem in a complex word or to distinguish between different syntactic categories. Distributional knowledge and distributional awareness emerge later than the developmental of relational and syntactic knowledge (Kuo &

Anderson, 2006).

In a cross-language study, Ku and Anderson (2003) found that both English (L1) and

Chinese (L1) speaking second and fourth graders did not perform significantly above chance in distinguishing well-formed and ill-formed derivatives. According to the authors, these results suggest that distributional knowledge may not be acquired until the late elementary grades in both English and Chinese as first languages, and may point to a universal tendency.

In a different study, Nicoladis (2003) investigated the order of acquisition of compounds in preschool children. She found that three- and four-year-old English monolingual children understand the meaning of novel compounds and even produce them by combining recognized morphemes. However, knowledge of compounds is not complete even among older children.

Furthermore, there are individual differences in compound awareness among older children

(Nagy et al., 2003), especially when the compound task demands manipulation of complex compounds with more than two constituent morphemes, with low-frequency compounds, or

with phonological shifts (e.g., stress alterations). In a cross-cultural comparative study, a steady increase in compound awareness was demonstrated among native speakers of Chinese and native speakers of English from Grades 2 to 6 (Ku & Anderson, 2003), a finding that again points to a universal order of development of these elements. It appears that MA of inflections and simple derivations emerges early, whereas an understanding of more complex derivational relations happens later (Deacon & Kirby, 2004).

Key Features of Hebrew Orthography and Morphology

Background. Hebrew is a Semitic language that was renwed as a spoken language at the end of the 19th century. The Hebrew consonantary script is read from right to left. It has 22 letters, which are solely consonants, though 4 of the 22 graphemes came to be used to represent vowels (see below). Vowel diacritics are placed below, inside or above the letters. Texts that are designated for young children, second language learners, and religious goals are usually printed with vowel diacritic marks, to aid in decoding. When diacritics are used, Hebrew is considered to be a “shallow” orthography for decoding, though somewhat less so for spelling (Geva, 2008).

Modern Hebrew texts read by experienced readers are partly voweled/ vocalized. This changes the orthographic depth of the Hebrew script, which becomes “deep” (Geva, 2008; Geva, Wade-

Woolley, & Shany, 1997).

The relation between phonology and orthography. The pronunciation of graphemes in Hebrew, unlike English, does not change as a result of the nature of neighboring consonants or vowels, specific letter strings, or the location of the consonants and vowels in the word (Geva

& Siegel, 2000). However, the phoneme-to-grapheme correspondences are more changeable compared to the grapheme-to-phoneme system. This is related to the fact that particular grapheme pairs that were phonetically distinct in ancient Hebrew (e.g., alef/ayin, kaf/qof) have been neutralized, and currently represent the same phoneme in the spoken language. As a result, 23

many Hebrew words are homophones, a fact that presents a challenge for young spellers (Gillis

& Ravid, 2000) as well as for individuals with learning difficulties (Geva & Wade-Woolley,

1998).

Hebrew learners cope with another source of difficulty, which emerges when the phonemic neutralization process interacts with morphological and orthographic processing demands. For example, the words MaLaX (=sailor, written with /xet/) and MaLaX

(=(he)reigned, written with /xaf/ ) are homophones, due to the fact that there is no differentiation in modern spoken Hebrew between the pronunciation of /xaf/ and /xet/ (Geva, 2008). There is one more challenge: /xaf/ is one of the letters that is written differently when it shows up in word final position. In order to spell this word correctly, the speller of MaLaX (he reigned) has to derive the root word from the context, apply the correct derivational form, and then consider the orthographic conventions regarding the orthographic representation of /xaf/ in word final position (Geva, 2008). Wade-Woolley and Geva (1999) have shown that this conclusion applies to adult learners of Hebrew as L2 whose native language is English or Russian. They concluded that Hebrew may be more opaque for spelling than for decoding.

Two separate frameworks of voweling exist and are used in Hebrew. In general, the

Hebrew orthographic system is consonantal, with some vowel support that is expressed by the four “mothers of reading” letters. The “mothers of reading” (/iMOT Ha’KRi’Ah/ in Hebrew) are four consonantal letters: alef, hei, vav and yod. These letters have two roles: They can signify vowels and they can signify consonants. For example, the letter yod indicates the consonant /y/

(e.g., B’YT’[=house]) as well as the vowel /i/ (as in the word DiRa[=apartment]). The fact that the same grapheme can serve both as a vowel and as a consonant creates an ambiguity. It is incomplete and inconsistent (Levin et al., 1999; Shimron, 1993, 2006).

The second framework of vowelization is the diacritics system, which provides almost

perfect and unambiguous representations of the vowels. Hebrew orthography is more consistent and transparent in its vowelized form, and can be characterized as having almost universal correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. Therefore, the acquisition of reading skills associated with grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, and the acquisition of decoding skills, are more straightforward in this framework than in the unvoweled system, and in orthographies such as English (Geva & Siegel, 2000; Share & Levin, 1999).

The semantic core of a Hebrew word (the root word) is consonantal, and the vowels and supplementary infixes, suffixes and prefixes provide morpho-syntactic information such as person, number, and gender. The reading of voweled Hebrew is based on the proficiency of phonological skills, whereas the reading of unvoweled Hebrew demands mastery of morphological and syntactic skills (Bentin & Frost, 1995; Shimron, 1999).

Regarding phonotactic complexity, Hebrew was considered to have relatively simple syllable structures (primarily CV, VC, and CVC), in contrast to other languages such as English, which are composed of complex syllable structures (e.g., CCVC, CCCVC, CVCC, CCVCC and

CCVCCC). However, more recently it was confirmed that modern spoken Israeli Hebrew has an extensive range of initial and medial consonant clusters (e.g., /gz/, /ʦd/, /pʦ/, /pg/, /ʦx/ etc) and, in some loans, even 3-consonant clusters (e.g., /ʃpʁɪʦ/ 'spray') (Schwarzwald, 2002). Clusters are constrained only to avoid a drop in sonority (Glinert, 1994). The reason for the confusion is that written forms, in contrast to the spoken phonology, consist almost exclusively of CV sequences (a consonant letter with vowel diacritic beneath). Therefore, modern Hebrew is often incorrectly misrepresented as a language with a simple CV/CVC phonology.

Complex syllable structures in English, when read by Hebrew speakers, are likely to be re-syllabified by a schwa that divides the complex rime (e.g., /fi’lem/ for film). Readers of

Hebrew as a second language are challenged by other aspects, particularly in segmenting

phonemic units and in identifying, aurally and metalinguistically, the linguistic units represented by graphemes (Geva, 2008). In her review, Geva concluded that since syllabic units are more complex in English than in Hebrew, there is not a complete correspondence between performance on specific phonemic awareness assignments in Hebrew and in English. It is probably more difficult for children whose native language is Hebrew and who learn English as a second language to keep these structures in working memory and to isolate the phonemes in a correct way in order to read and spell the words that present this syllabic complexity (Geva,

2008).

Morphology. Hebrew has a highly inflected and rich morphology. All verbs and most nouns and adjectives are produced by a combination of a root (usually consisting of three consonants) and a word-pattern, which can consist of prefixes, suffixes and infixes. There are seven types of verb word-patterns, three of which are active, three passive, and one reflexive

(Bentin & Frost, 1995). These seven types of verb word-patterns are called in Hebrew binyanim.

Each binyan portrays a particular aspect of the shoresh (root). The idea is that all verbs are built by obeying certain rules, and that Hebrew verbs have structure. This inflectional system is richer and more complicated than in English. Verbs are inflected for person, gender, number and tense.

For example, the following verb forms are derived from the root DBR: DiBeR (=he said),

DuBaR (=it was said), aDaBeR (=I will say), YeDaBeR (=he will say), and T’eDaBRi (=you,

(feminine, singular) will say (Geva, 2008).

Nominal word patterns are more numerous (about three dozen) and are less systematic than verb patterns. Some nominal word-patterns consist of vowels only, so that the orthographic integrity of the root is retained, due to the fact that most vowels are represented in writing by diacritic marks and not letters (Bentin & Frost, 1995). Other patterns are composed of vowel letters which are infixed between the root consonants, e.g., Vav and Yod. The vowel letters Alef 26

and Hei are only permitted in word-boundary positions (before or after the root, never inside).

The combination of the root and the word patterns influence the semantic and phonological information about the word. Different words can have a root or word pattern in common (Berent

& Shimron, 1997; Frost & Bentin, 1992). For example, nouns derived from the 3-consonant root

DBR include: DiBuR (=converation), DoBeR (= The speaker, b in the middle of the word is pronounced as /v/), and DaBRaN (=someone who speaks a lot; Geva, 2008).

Some noun patterns represent semantic categories. For example, the pattern CaCeCet is typical of vehicles and diseases, e.g., RaKeVet (=train) and AaDeMet (=rubella), respectively

(Geva, 2008). Once a word has been created by the derivational processes described above, it usually demands the addition of prefixes and/or suffixes, and often a vowel change inside the word, for its inflection. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for gender and number. Nouns can also be inflected for possession and location (Bentin & Frost, 1995). Possession can also be signalled by adding a suffix (inflected for person and gender) to the word ‘of’ (e.g. my car=

‘The car of me’; colloquial Hebrew equivalent: Mechonit (car) Sheli (mine) = Mechoniti (my car), or by a compound-like noun, in which the first of two nouns (usually inflected) is the possessed and the second is the possessor (e.g. bayit + sefer=beyt sefer; house+book=school;

Bentin & Frost, 1995).

Phonological awareness development and its role in literacy acquisition in Hebrew

(L1). In a cross-sectional study of preliterate kindergarten and literate (Grade 2) Hebrew speakers, Share and Blum (2005) have demonstrated that awareness of multi-phonemic units precedes the ability to access phonemes. In addition, high-literacy Hebrew speaking kindergartners and first graders had more difficulty in isolating initial phonemes than final phonemes. Share and Blum (2005) explain this finding with relation to the Hebrew syllabic structure. According to the authors, one third of all Hebrew syllables appearing in text are

actually “closed” CVC syllables (e.g., “lot”). The consonant stands alone only in word-final position. Consequently, the authors suggested that Hebrew script encourages access to singleton

('gar, 'lives גר r/ in the word/ ר consonants (e.g., word final consonants, such as the consonant

ga/. They concluded that literacy/ גַ g/ integrated into CV units/ ג rather than the onset consonant learning in Hebrew's CV-structured orthography facilitates awareness of final phonemes but not of initial phonemes, which are always integrated into a CV unit.

In a similar vein, in a cross-sectional study, the performance on PA assignments of

Israeli children from Ethiopian (mainly oral society) and non-Ethiopian backgrounds (mainly literate culture) was examined. Performance on the syllable awareness task was higher in both groups than performance on the phonemic awareness task. The order of acquisition of PA in

Hebrew was identical in both groups, despite the fact that the non-Ethiopian group had higher scores on the phonemic awareness tasks compared to the Ethiopian group, and in line with the normative observations (Shany, Geva, & Melech-Feder, 2010).

It has been argued that the nature of syllable splitting is different in Semitic languages such as Hebrew than in English. One conclusion is that just as in English, there exists a sub- syllabic/supra-phonemic level of PA in Hebrew (however, the natural, sub-syllabic/supra- phonemic constituent is not the rime but the body of the syllable, e.g., in Hebrew, NE+R

(NER=candle), e.g., in English, B-AN (BAN) [Share & Blum, 2005]). Hebrew predisposes children to body-plus-coda (i.e., CV+C) rather than to onset-plus-rime (C+VC) units as is the case in English (Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Treiman & Zukowski, 1996). One question explored in the current research is whether these differences are noted in children’s L1 and L2. For example, would children initially apply onset-rime splitting as anticipated in English but begin to show body plus coda splitting as their Hebrew improves?

Similarly, two other studies relate to the unique characteristic of the Hebrew language and point to the relative salience of consonants (vs. vowels) in Hebrew. Lapidot, Tubul and

Whol (1995-1996) found that monolingual, Hebrew speaking kindergarten children were able to identify and isolate consonants with more ease than vowels. Difficulties in identifying vowels were also revealed in errors such as stating that eSHKoLiT (=grapefruit) and SHuLXaN (=table) begin with the same sound (SH). Children also demonstrated more difficulty in identifying a common terminal vowel (e.g., TMuNah [=picture]) than a common terminal consonant ((e.g.,

GeZeR[=carrot]; SiR[=pot]). In a second study, Tolchinsky and Teberosky (1998) compared segmentation strategies in grade 2 Spanish (L1) and Hebrew (L1) children. Children in both groups were asked to divide words into “little parts”. Most Hebrew L1 speakers pronounced only consonants, whereas in the matched Spanish-speaking group, this was not the case. These findings point to the importance of considering as complementary the typological perspectives that highlight differences among languages, and universal or “central processing” perspectives of reading and language development (Geva, 2008). This point will be addressed again in relation to theoretical frameworks related to bilingualism.

In line with Share and Blum’s findings, Bentin and Leshem (1993) found that in Israeli,

Hebrew speaking kindergartens, the most prevalent response to the phoneme segmentation tasks was the production of sub-syllabic CV segments (36%), compared to phoneme-based responses

(19%), and to syllable-level responses (12%). A year later, in grade 1, children committed fewer errors in general than they did in kindergarten, but the decline in syllabic errors was especially pronounced. Bentin and Leshem also reported a positive and significant correlation between phonemic awareness assignments and various reading measures for Israeli children learning to read in their home language, Hebrew. However, the correlation between phoneme based responses and end-of-grade 1 word reading was higher (r=0.35) than the correlation between

CV- based responses and end-of-grade 1 word reading (r=0.19). Another cross-sectional study by Bentin, Hammer and Cahan (1991), which examined phoneme segmentation, also showed that the sub-syllabic CV unit plays a prominent role in Hebrew reading acquisition. The authors reported that in kindergarten, 25% of the errors constituted the sub-syllabic CV unit, and only

12% of the errors involved full syllables. Ben-Dror, Frost and Bentin (1995) found that adults, native Hebrew-speakers, when asked to delete the first "sound" in a spoken word, typically deleted the initial consonant and vowel (CV or body) rather than the initial phoneme (Ben-Dror,

Frost & Bentin, 1995). There is additional supporting evidence from Arabic for the preference for the CV body (Levin et al, 2008). In a recent study (Bar-Kochva, 2013), has shown that a measure of CV deletion correlated positively with Grade 1 reading. In addition, the author found that final consonant isolation was more strongly correlated with first grade word identification compared to initial consonant isolation. This study confirms that both consonantal and sub- syllabic units are important for Hebrew reading (Bar-Kochva, 2013).

In line with Share and Bloom's findings, Tolchinsky et al (2012) compared developmental trajectories of PA among 5- year old L1 speakers of Spanish, Hebrew and

Cantonese. No significant differences were found between the three languages in initial phoneme isolation. However, a significant advantage emerged on final phoneme isolation for those exposed to Hebrew. Final phoneme isolation measure, but not initial, correlated strongly with word reading and word writing. This was also the case with syllable deletion, which also correlated well with reading and writing, demonstrating that CV units have a significant role in

Hebrew reading acquisition. In this study, it was also found that letter-naming was significantly associated with final but not initial phoneme isolation. A CV response was frequently supplied in the initial, but not in a VC in the final phoneme, demonstrating the preference for CV over

VC (Tolchinsky et al, 2012).

Geva (2008) points out that the reported correlations between phonemic awareness measures and word reading measures, although positive and significant, were lower in Hebrew- based studies (with correlations ranging from .31 to .42 with a median of .36) than parallel correlations reported in the English (L1) literature (e.g., Stanovich et al., 1984). While phonemic awareness is a significant predictor of subsequent acquisition of Hebrew (L1) reading skills, the strength of the relationship is slightly weaker than in English, and the crucial linguistic units involved are not completely identical in English and Hebrew (Geva, 2008; Share, 2008).

One of the explanations for this finding is that decoding voweled Hebrew does not require high levels of PA (Share, 2008). This can be related to the shallowness of voweled

Hebrew, and the regularity of grapheme-phoneme correspondences in the Hebrew script (Geva,

2008). According to Schiff (2012), young Hebrew readers are involved in a scaffolding process.

The vowelization provides a basis for building initial reading abilities for successful decoding of unvoweled scripts (Schiff, 2012). It is possible that other linguistic and orthographic information sources, such as morphological information, make possible reading and spelling in Hebrew. As a Semitic language, another possibly unique feature of PA in Hebrew relates to its complex morphology (Geva, 2008).

The development of morphological awareness and its role in Hebrew (L1). Research based on monolingual Hebrew speaking children of various ages has demonstrated that being able to analyze words into their morphological components is critical in Hebrew, for making semantic and syntactic connotations and for preserving discourse coherence in reading and writing (Frost, Grainger, & Rastle, 2005; Levin, Ravid, & Rapaport, 2001; Schiff & Ravid,

2004). Hebrew speaking children have knowledge of word-formation early on, but they become specialists in the nuances of word formation, particularly derivations, only in adolescence. This late mastery of the derivational system has been attributed to the less regular and less

predictable character of derivations, in comparison with inflectional systems (Berman, 1995;

Ravid & Malenky, 2001).

Grammatical morphological patterns such as number and gender distinctions, followed by verb tense and person, are normally expressed by developing Israeli children before the end of the second year of life (Dromi, 1987; Ravid, 1997; Ravid & Malenky, 2001). By the end of their third year, children are able to correctly use all the necessary inflections that can be connected to nouns, verbs and adjectives. However, only at age 7 do they acquire proficiency in stem changes and unique forms (Berman 1981, 1983; Ravid & Malenky, 2001). In the first years of school, the ability to make optional inflectional marking of genitive nouns begins to appear

(Berman 1985; Ravid & Malenky, 2001). Numeral systems are marked correctly only in high school, and even that demands explicit instruction and school intervention (Ravid 1995; Ravid

& Malenky, 2001).

The literature describes different developmental trajectories of acquisition for the three major lexical categories – nouns, verbs and adjectives – and their structural components (Ravid

& Malenky, 2001). Hebrew Verbs belong to a structured rule system that includes verbs consisting of a combination of a root and one of seven verb patterns, known as binyanim or conjugation patterns. Most early verbs are created by verb pattern P1 (Qal), and by age three basic relationships such as causativity occur in relation to non-passive binyanim (morphological structures), for example: ha-maraq hitqalqel (the-soup [is] spoiled). By age four, children are able to generate semantically correct novel verbs from other verbs in a form consistent with the structural stipulations of their grammar, and even show knowledge of Semitic root formation by creating verbs with irregular roots (Berman, 1999). For example, s-t-r is a regular root in the verb ‘mastir’ (“hides”), versus n-g-s which is an irregular root in the verb ‘magis’ ("serves”).

By the time they begin to attend kindergarten, around age five, children demonstrate knowledge

of a large number of root-related word families, and make productive and mostly correct use of salient transitivity2 relationships (Berman, 1993). By age 9 more marked and less transparent operations such as the morphological passive formation begin to appear (e.g., DuBaR, [was said]; Ravid & Malenky, 2001).

Nouns in Hebrew are less constrained morphologically than verbs, and are characterized by a broad range of structures from non-derived forms to morphologically complex blends and compounds. Children create novel nouns at age 3 and even earlier, but they still tend to violate structural and semantic rules in doing so (Berman, 1999). Clark and Berman (1984) found that unlike English-speaking children, Hebrew speakers do not prefer the compound possibility and kindergartners do not have full understanding of stem modifications in compounds (Berman,

1987). However, sensitivity to Hebrew word structure, which is demonstrated in their ability to extract the root from a given word item (e.g., "siper" [he told] is related to "sefer" [book]), exists in Hebrew early on, and is demonstrated in daily life by the ability of 3-year-old children to explain novel nouns (Clark & Berman, 1984).

Not all types of nouns are acquired productively early on. Children find the semantics of agent and instrument easy to create early on (e.g., the root r-k-d is related to the agent noun

'rakdan' [dancer]). They also coin action and state nominals (e.g., in the construct state nominal beit ya’akov, “the house of Jacob”, beit is the construct state of the noun whose absolute form is bayit “house”). Acquisition of other abstract nouns starts around age 5, but only in high school this knowledge is consolidated and is used correctly. At the beginning, children learn to attach the abstract suffix- ut to a variety of stems (e.g., sandlar [shoemaker] becomes sandlarut, sandak [good father] becomes sandakut, ed [witness] becomes edut). Later, they progress from

2 Transitivity refers to the contour of movement or activity inherent in the verb. Transitivity is based on counting the number of nouns directly tied to the verb. An intransitive verb is a “one place” verb (subject only), such as “I run”. A singly transitive verb is a “two-place” verb (subject, object), such as “Saul struck David”. A doubly transitive verb is a “three place” verb (subject, object, object), such as “David gave Saul his armor.” 33

the neutral action nominal pattern CiCuC (e.g., nimuk [explanation]) to the appropriate action nominal pattern for each binyan. By adolescence, they acquire the complex lexical network of deverbal3 nouns (e.g., haphgana [demonstration]) (Berman, 1997a; Ravid & Avidor 1998;

Ravid & Malenky, 2001).

Adjective – Modern Hebrew has three structural classes of adjectives. The most basic is a closed class of primary CVC adjectives originating in Biblical present-tense verbs (e.g., xam which means hot, Tov which means good). These adjectives are morphologically simple because despite their verbal origin they are mono-morphemic as well as mono-syllabic. They designate basic semantic relations such as good, bad and cold. As a result they are early acquisitions

(Ravid & Nir, 2000). There are two main structures for morphologically complex adjectives in

Hebrew: the nonlinear form, which is based on present participle verb forms, e.g., madhim

(amazing, P5), and the linear form, consisting of a nominal stem plus the suffix /i/, e.g., calcal-i

(econo(m)-ic). Ravid and Nir (2000) reported that in the oldest group of kindergartners, nonlinear affixation precedes linear suffixation in adjectives. This finding has also been demonstrated in other studies that concentrate on the morphological development of adjectives in Hebrew (e.g., Berman 1994, 1997a; Ravid & Malenky, 2001). The non-linear form changes according to a root and pattern class. For example, mahir, which means fast, takes the noun pattern CaCiC (like pakid, which means clerk), or mafxid, which means scary, and mesukan, which means dangerous, use present tense MaCCiC and MeCuCaC verbal patterns. Times of acquisition of the non-linear forms vary in accordance with the semantic content of the adjective class. Color terms are correctly acquired early, despite their structural complexity (Ravid, 1995),

3 Deverbal nouns are nouns that are derived from verbs or verb phrases, but that behave grammatically purely as nouns, not as verbs. They are distinct from verbal noun types such as gerunds and infinitives, which behave like verbs within their phrase (although that verb phrase is then used as a noun phrase within the larger sentence). The formation of deverbal nouns is one of the types of nominalization (noun formation). Examples of deverbal nouns in English include organization (derived from the verb organize). An examples of a deverbal noun in Hebrew is maga, which means “touch”in English. 34

whereas other adjectives emerge and consolidate between the ages of 4 and 6 (Berman, 1994).

The linear forms are structurally simpler than the root and pattern class because they involve linear formation of a nominal stem and the addition of the adjectival suffix-i. However, their meaning is quite complex (Berman & Ravid, 1999; Ravid & Shlesinger, 1987).

As is evident from the discussion above, Hebrew has rich morphological constructs, and its word structures create a wide array of semantic and morpho-syntactic patterns. Therefore, developing metalinguistic awareness of inflectional and derivational morphology in Hebrew at a young age is critical for learning to read and spell. By comparison, English makes relatively little use of morphology, and the process of English word formations involves, in most cases, simple concatenation (Geva, 2008).

As noted earlier, MA has facilitating relationships with other linguistic achievements, including PA, vocabulary, learning to read and spell and even higher levels of reading and writing in Hebrew (Geva, 2008). An interesting finding in this context was demonstrated by

Schiff and Lotem (2010), who found that low SES children are characterized by a different developmental pattern of reading and they also lag behind high SES children, maintaining a two-year gap on reading measures. The authors found that low SES children based their reading process heavily on simple decoding skills, whereas high SES children rely not only on their phonological and decoding abilities, but also on properties such as morphology and meaning while reading. This may explain the gap found between the two groups. It was concluded that socioeconomic background has an indirect effect on reading through its influence on the phonological and morphological precursors to reading (Schiff & Lotem, 2010).

Bar-On and Ravid (2011) demonstrated the important role of morphology in learning to read the unpointed Hebrew script. The authors analyzed the developmental stages of the ability to recognize words in Hebrew, a critical ability underlying the process of reading unpointed script.

The findings demonstrated that at the end of grade 2, Israeli children cross a threshold and they succeed at using morpho-phonological pattern aids to find the missing phonological information

(bottom-up processes). For example, among young native Hebrew speaking children, grade 2 is a critical juncture in learning to read Hebrew. However, morphological pattern recognition, although crucial for novel word identification, is not sufficient for effective reading of the unpointed Hebrew script. The ability to process morpho-syntactic information (top-down processes) is crucial as well, and it develops more gradually and over a longer period than pattern recognition. Morpho-syntactic identification demands a process of integration of morphological and syntactic information from the context to achieve proficient reading. These factors play an important role in reading, and not only in Semitic languages (Bar-On & Ravid,

2011). A skilled reader in English also uses morpho-syntactic knowledge to better understand the text which s/he reads or to decode new unfamiliar words. For example, in the case of homographs [wind (n.)/wind (v.), present (n.) /present (v)].

In this context, it is important to emphasize the importance of metalinguistic awareness of inflectional and derivational morphology in Hebrew at a young age, which is critical for learning to read and spell in Hebrew (Geva, 2008). Little is known about morphological development among L2 Hebrew learners. This thesis will investigate Hebrew morphological trajectories of L2 Hebrew learners and will compare them to the morphological trajectories of native speakers of Hebrew, from what is known from the literature. Other questions will relate to different aspects of morphology (inflection, derivation, compound) in English (L1) and

Hebrew (L2), to their order of acquisition and to the transfer of MA between the two languages.

Cross-linguistic transfer has been subject to much scrutiny. Issues pertaining to inter- lingual transfer (both negative and positive) of phonological and MA between different typological languages are important to consider when studying concurrent language and literacy 36

development in children exposed to two typologically different languages such as English and

Hebrew.

Meta-Linguistic Awareness in Bilingual Contexts and Cross-Linguistic Influences

Theoretical frameworks of transfer. It is important to focus on theories of transfer when studying the development of PA and MA in young Hebrew as L2 learners because transfer may provide explanatory tools for understanding development and challenges faced by L2 learners. Definitions of L1-L2 transfer “vary in the extent to which they emphasize innate vs. acquired, cognitive, and developmental aspects, and in the extent to which they attend to facilitating or debilitating outcomes of similarities and differences between elements in the L1 and the L2” (Geva, 2014, p.1). Two framework clusters exist (with variants) – the contrastive

(Lado, 1964) or typological framework, and the linguistic interdependence framework

(Cummins, 1979). Two theories concentrate on the origins of negative and positive transfer between languages: The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (Lado, 1964) and The Script-

Dependent Hypothesis (Geva & Siegel, 2000) represent one cluster. Other complementary theories are related to the second cluster: The General Linguistic Coding Differences Hypothesis

(LCDH; Sparks & Ganschow, 1993 a, b; Sparks, 1995), which predicts that core linguistic abilities underlie success in both L1 and L2 reading acquisition, The Central Processing

Hypothesis, which is also known as the “Universal perspective” (Geva & Siegel, 2000;

Gholomain & Geva, 1999) and The Transfer Facilitation Model (Koda, 2008), which are both compatible with the LCDH, while underscoring the cognitive components that are common to learning to read in L1 and L2. Another theory related to this second cluster, The interdependence hypothesis, was proposed by Cummins (1979). According to this hypothesis, the acquisition of first and second languages is developmentally interdependent. Namely, development of the first language (L1) can have positive effects on the development of the

second language (L2). Cummins (1984) differentiated between language for academic and higher-order cognitive goals, known as “Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency” (CALP) and language for day to day interpersonal communication, known as “Basic Interpersonal

Communication Skills” (BICS; see more detailed descriptions in Cummins, 1981, 1984).

The universal perspective searches for commonalities in underlying processes across languages. This perspective has received support from studies demonstrating that individual differences in linguistic-cognitive processing component skills (measured in L1 and/or L2) can be used to explain variance in performance on word level reading and spelling skills in L2 and bilingual children as well (Geva & Genesee, 2006).

There is consensus in the research literature about the relation between PA and word level reading skills among English language learners (ELLs) coming from various linguistic backgrounds (e.g., Geva & Siegel, 2000; Lesaux & Siegel, 2003), among children whose home language is English, learning to read English and French concurrently in French immersion programs (e.g., Jared, Cormier, Levy, & Wade-Woolley, 2013; Lafrance & Gottardo, 2005) and among children living in various countries who are learning to read English in a foreign language context. Individuals with deficits in cognitive and linguistic processing skills are expected to have difficulties in the acquisition of basic reading skills, regardless of typological differences or similarities in characteristics of the language and the script involved, and regardless of whether they are learning to read in their L1, their L2, or both (Geva & Siegel,

1999; Ho & Lai, 2000; Katzir, Shaul, Breznitz, & Wolf, 2004; Quiroga, Lemos-Britton,

Mostafapour, Abbott, & Berninger, 2002).

More recently, Koda (2008) has proposed the Transfer Facilitation Model to explain cross-language transfer in the domain of reading development. The model emphasizes the importance of metalinguistic awareness (e.g., phonemic awareness, MA) that develops in one

language in facilitating the development of reading skills in other languages (Koda 2008, Geva,

2014). Koda explains that transfer is developing, constantly changing, and has a reciprocal relationship between well-based L1 abilities such as metalinguistic awareness, and ongoing exposure to L2 print. According to Koda, L1 facilitates L2 acquisition because metalinguistic skills developed in L1 are available cross-modally, i.e., from L1 spoken language to L2 reading development (Geva, 2014; Koda, 2008). For example, PA evaluated in the L1 can predict word reading skills in the L2, either when the two languages are typologically similar (e.g., Comeau, et al., 1999, for English-French; Durgunoğlu et al., 1993, for English-Spanish), and when the two languages are typologically dissimilar (e.g., Geva & Wade-Woolley, 2004, for English and

Hebrew; Wang et al., 2005, for English and Chinese).

There is a theoretical approach that emphesizes that second -language learning reflects a general capacity for statistical learning. According to this approach, language learning is primarily a process of picking up and implicitly assimilating the statistical properties of a linguistic environment. Language is considered as a well-structured environment that draws on the general cognitive ability to perceive and identify systematic structures and correlations.

Specifically words in each language, are characterized by statistical correlations and transitional probabilities that constrain and determine their internal structure, and by correlations between their sublinguistic components and semantic features. Mastering a lexicon involves the implicit learning of these correlations (Frost, 2012a, 2012b; Frost et al, 2013). According to this view, each language implicates a differential tuning into statistical structure, given its idiosyncratic linguistic characteristics (Frost et al, 2013). Therefore, it is assumed that second language acquisition is influenced by the degree of similarity or dissimilarity between the statistical properties of the first and second language (Byalystok, McBride-Chang, & Luk, 2005). In addition, there are individual differences in the sensitivity to the correlations in the environment

(Frost et al, 2013). This means that acquisition of second language depends on cognitive abilities to acquire a language by identifying common and unique statistical properties between the L1 and L2.

A complementary view is that of The Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (Lado, 1964), which assumes that typological differences between the L1 and L2 influence the acquisition of specific aspects of literacy in a given language (Lado, 1964). According to this hypothesis, it is possible to explain and even to forecast which characteristics of the first language will cause difficulties in the second language learner, based on linguistic analyses of the structure of the second language and of the learner’s mother tongue. Difficulties in mastering certain second language features may be attributed to differences between the learner’s first language and second language. Similar structures will result in facilitation of positive transfer, whereas different structures will cause interference or negative transfer (Lado, 1964).

According to the script dependent or orthographic depth hypothesis, typological differences between writing systems can explain differences in how easily students can learn to read in different languages (Genesee, Geva, Dressler, & Kamil, 2006). Differences between alphabetic orthographies, in terms of how systematically spelling and pronunciation correspond to each other, can have an important role in explaining differences in literacy acquisition among different languages (Durgunoglu, 2002; Geva & Siegel, 2000).

One way to study the nature of difficulties and errors that occur in the route of L2 reading development is to compare the two language systems. Corresponding phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures in L1 and L2 may be studied in order to find out whether difficulties in the course of L2 reading acquisition are primarily a result of

“interference” at one or more of these levels (Durgunoglu, 2002). Research among bilingual learners has shown that typological and orthographic differences between L1 and L2 are

important mitigating factors in cross-language transfer (Geva & Ryan, 1993; Geva & Siegel,

2000; Geva & Wang, 2001; Share, 2008; Wade-Woolley & Geva, 2000), and that cognitive and linguistic processes associated with reading acquisition may show different patterns of relationship in different L1-L2 language combinations (Geva & Wade-Woolley, 2004).

In the same vein, the 2004 study by Katzir et al. indicated that dyslexic individuals reading in different orthographies have some characteristics in common, but at the same time have unique characteristics related to the interaction of their difficulties with the nature of the orthography they are trying to cope with.

In summary, when studying the process of second language acquisition, it is important to take into account levels of proficiency in specific aspects of language (e.g., vocabulary, MA, syntax) in the L1 and L2, and to pay attention to the specific components of literacy that are being studied, but it is also important to consider the roles played by cognition, development, as well as social, affective, contextual and instructional factors (Geva, 2014).

It was expected that in the present study, which investigated native English speakers who learn Hebrew as second language, we would see evidence for the Contrastive Analysis

Hypothesis due to the typological differences between English and Hebrew. At the same time, we also expected to see evidence for the “Central Processing Hypothesis”, in that we expected to see cognitive-linguistic components, such as PA, that would correlate with each other crosslinguistically.

Cross-linguistic transfer of meta-linguistic knowledge. Based on the theoretical frameworks that were briefly described above, it could be argued that when children acquire language and literacy skills in an L2 context they should be able to take advantage of the abstract linguistic concepts that they have acquired in their L1, and use them where relevant in the L2 (Geva, 2008). Indeed, there is strong evidence in the research literature for a cross-

language transfer of children’s PA across diverse languages combinations with different alphabetical and consonantal orthographies such as Turkish and Dutch (Verhoeven, 1994),

English and Spanish (Durgonoglu et al., 1993), English and Arabic (Saiegh-Haddad & Geva,

2008) and English and Chinese (Gottardo, Yan, Siegel, & Wade-Woolley, 2001). Cross- language correlations between PA in English and Hebrew also support the argument that PA is a metalinguistic general skill that needs to be acquired only once (Durgunoglu, 2002; Geva,

2008).

Fewer studies have examined the transfer of morphological knowledge between languages (Bindman, 2004). Nunes and Hatano (2004) asserted that children learning L2 can use metalinguistic awareness of morphology and orthography that was developed in L1 for their other language, even if the two languages have different typological structures. Recent studies suggest that metalinguistic awareness of specific components can transfer cross-linguistically.

For example, Zhang et al. (2010) and Chen, Ramirez, Luo, Geva, & Ku (2012) have shown that knowledge of compound words acquired in Chinese can be transferred to English. Children with high reading proficiency have shown also transfer in the opposite direction from English to

Chinese (Zhang et al., 2010). Likewise, Jarvis and Odlin (2000) demonstrated transfer of bound morphology among Finnish and Swedish speakers of English (L2) and provided additional empirical support for a cross-linguistic morphological effect.

Geva and Siegel (2000) also found a cross-language correlation on oral cloze tasks, which measured morpho-syntactic awareness in children who had English as L1 and Hebrew as

L2. It is possible that this “transfer” may be attributed to a common underlying processing requirement such as working memory. The Central processing hypothesis highlights the importance of cognitive constructs such as, working memory, PA and naming speed in acquiring reading skills in L1 or L2. According to this perspective, individuals with cognitive

deficits will experience difficulties in acquiring basic reading skills, regardless of the language and orthography involved (Geva & Siegel, 2000).

According to Bindman (2004), one of the explanations for the transfer of morphological knowledge is the understanding of the underlying meta-linguistic principles shared by two languages. Koda (2000) argued that MA is a linguistic ability that may change across typologically distinct languages, and that L1 and L2 can be different in lexical access processes.

In her study, it was found that L2 MA is limited by learners’ experience of L1 processing. She investigated how L1 morphological processing of Chinese and Korean affected L2 MA of

English. The findings indicated that some L2 morphological units are less salient for L2 learners. These results support the view that the variation in L1 morphology determines how L2 learners process some morphological units of the L2.

Hancin-Bhatt and Nagy (1994) conducted a study among Spanish-English bilingual elementary school children. They compared the ability of those children at three different grade levels to provide the Spanish equivalent of specific English words, some of which had derivational and inflectional suffixes. Their findings suggest that in orthographically and linguistically similar languages such as Spanish and English, cross-language influence plays a significant role both in the recognition of individual words and in the learning of derivational morphology.

A glimpse into cross-linguistic relationships among typologially distant languages such as English and Hebrew comes from Bindman’s (2004) UK based study. She studied cross- lingusitic (English and Hebrew) relationships in a sample of primary level, English as L1 children who were also developing to some extent their Hebrew language skills (L2) in the UK.

The focus of the Hebrew program was on reading for reglious purposes and not on oral language proficiency in Hebrew. Of relevance in the present context was the finding that when the data

were analyzed only with a subgroup whose Hebrew language proficiency was somewhat more developed, Hebrew language comprehension (measured with cloze measure) and a combination of Hebrew derivational and inflectional knowledge (measured with a root morphemes task), accounted for significant variance in English word analogy, English sentence analogy (MA measures) and English language proficiency (assessed with English oral cloze measure). These results suggest that the nature of the relationships between MA tasks in the L1 and L2 can be deteceted among typologically different languages, when a certain threshold of proficiency has been reached in the L2. (See also Saiegh-Hadded & Geva, 2008, for a similar conclusion regarding English-Arabic children). This study therefore provides only limited relevant information that can be compared to programs that emphasize the acquisition of communicative competence in Hebrew as L2.

The transfer framework is useful but not sufficient for understanding L2 literacy development, and it is not the only source of influence on L2 learning (Genesee et al., 2006;

Genesee & Geva, 2006). An individual differences perspective is also required to understand what processes interrupt or enhance L2 learning. Underlying cognitive skills such as working memory, phonological short term memory and processing speed, which underlie performance on specific language and literacy skills in the L1 and L2, may explain to some extent these complicated relationships between L1 and L2 skills (Geva & Wiener, 2014; Geva & Ryan,

1993).

Meta-linguistic development and its role in literacy acquisition in English (L2).

There is evidence that reading development of English Language Learners (ELLs) in many aspects resembles native English-speaking children (Lesaux, Koda, Siegel, & Shanahan, 2006;

Lipka, Siegel, & Vukovic, 2005). Specifically, phonological processes, including PA, rapid naming and working memory, are significant underlying processes that are important for

reading development in English L1 and ELL students (Geva & Yaghoub-Zadeh, 2006; Geva,

Yaghoub-Zadeh, & Schuster, 2000 ; Lesaux, Rupp, & Siegel, 2007). For example, PA is critical for decoding skills among both native English speakers and ELLs (August & Shanahan, 2006;

Lesaux & Geva, 2006; Lesaux & Siegel, 2003). In addition, findings have indicated that MA can help to identify reading and language difficulties in both English native speakers and ELLs

(Restrepo, 1998; Siegel, 2008). For example, Restrepo (1998) reported that the ability to learn novel bound-morphemes in Spanish differentiated between Spanish-English bilinguals with normal language development and those with language impairment. The results were similar to those of comparable research with native English speakers (Gavin, Klee, & Membrino, 1993).

Likewise, in a large-scale study that included 1,238 sixth graders, Siegel (2008) investigated the contribution of MA to reading among average and below average readers; some of them were English monolinguals and others ELLs. She concluded that MA made a significant contribution to reading beyond the contribution of PA and oral language skills, and that MA differentiated between good and poor readers in a similar way for both the English L1s and the

ELLs. These findings demonstrate that MA differentiates between typically developing and struggling readers, regardless of their language status (ELLs vs. English native speakers).

Along with the similarities, differences between ELLs and their native-English-speaker peers may exist in the levels of performance on precursors of reading, oral language and reading itself and the amount of variance they explain (August, Carol, Dressler, & Snow, 2005; Geva &

Farnia, 2012). Some of these differences decrease throughout schooling (e.g., word reading fluency), while others do not close completely (e.g., vocabulary, reading comprehension). ELLs with little or no English mastery scored lower on phonological processing and decoding than did native English-speaking children who started school (Chiappe, Siegel, & Gottardo, 2002), but were able to complete their phonological processing and even surpass their L1 peers within a

few years (Chiappe, Siegel, & Wade-Woolley, 2002; McBride-Chang & Kail, 2002). In contrast, ELLs continue to demonstrate difficulties in vocabulary and reading comprehension in high school and beyond (Farnia & Geva, 2013; Pasquarella, 2009). Farnia and Geva (2011) examined the vocabulary trajectories of 91 ELLs with Punjabi, Tamil or Portuguese home languages and compared them to the vocabulary trajectories of 50 English monolinguals from

G1 to six. The authors found that although vocabulary grew faster in ELLs than EL1s in the elementary grades, six years of English schooling did not close the gap (Farnia & Geva, 2011).

Due to the close relationship between MA and vocabulary, it can be assumed that ELLs are also behind in MA. Indeed, Carlo et al. (2004) found that Grade 5 Spanish-speaking ELLs had lower derivational awareness than did native speakers. However, the Spanish-speaking

ELLs had lower SES than their English-speaking peers; therefore, there may have been a confounding of language status and SES (Carlo et al., 2004). The important role of MA in predicting reading ability can also be seen among other groups of ELLs, as was demonstrated by

Lam, Chen, Geva, Luo and Li (2011). Those authors investigated Chinese-speaking ELL children and found that the variance explained by MA increased with age. The authors emphasized the importance of derivational awareness in young Chinese-speaking ELL children’s English reading development (Lam et al., 2011) as well as in young Spanish-speaking

ELL children’s English vocabulary knowledge (Chen et al., 2012).

Phonological and morphological development among English (L2) children: The role of L1 characteristics. Along with the research literature that supports the idea that there exists a canonical sequence of morphological acquisition of English L2 structures (Pienemann,

2005), there are findings that indicate that the process of L2 morpheme acquisition is complicated and influenced by additional factors such as language typology and learners’ perception of a given structure at a specific developmental and acquired stage (Ellis, 2006).

Schumann (1979) suggested that because of the existence of no (negation) + verb in Spanish grammar (e.g., no tengo, no puedo, in English I don’t have, I can’t), Spanish speakers learning

English find it more difficult than speakers of other languages to overcome this error in their L2.

More specifically, the characteristics of the L1 play an important role in L2 acquisition.

To illustrate, Schiff and Calif (2007) dealt with the cross-linguistic influence of Hebrew

(L1) on English (L2). In this study the authors investigated how specific language differences and similarities in orthography and morphology of these two specific languages contribute to cross linguistic influence. Due to the distinct orthography and specific phonological characteristics of these two languages, it was hypothesized that children’s performance on the

L1, Hebrew, orthographic-PA task would not predict their L2 English performance. As anticipated, the orthographic-PA task scores showed no cross-language correlation between the

Hebrew and English task scores. The investigators explained that while both non-pointed

Hebrew and English scripts can be characterized as deep orthographies, they vary in their relative grapheme-phoneme correspondence. Hebrew has a more direct grapheme-phoneme correspondence than English (Share & Levin, 1999). Therefore, the orthographic-PA results might be attributable to the phonological differences between the two languages. By comparison, it was assumed that due to shared linear formation,4 L1 Hebrew morphological task scores would predict L2 English morphological task results. As anticipated, there was a significant correlation between the Hebrew and English MA scores on the linear formation, common to both languages. Beyond that, Hebrew MA predicted English MA. These results were attributed to the type of morphological task that was used in this study, which was based

4 “Hebrew linear suffixation is formed by the combination of the linearly concatenated base (usually a word) and affix. For example, dmyon,”imagination” is followed by the suffix i and becomes dmyoni “imaginary”. Even though Hebrew has several morphological word formations, Hebrew and English both use morphologically linear derivational forms (base + suffix)” (Schiff & Calif, 2007, p. 278). Thus all the words chosen for this specific study were linear derivations. An example in English: farm-farmer, corn-corner 47

on a language feature – the linear derivational form – common to both languages (Schiff &

Calif, 2007).

Phonological and morphological development among English (L2) children: The role of cognitive processing. Other complementary studies found relationships between L1 and

L2 working memory, phonological short-term memory, PA and phonological recoding. Geva and Ryan (1993) interpreted these results as evidence that these abilities are part of universal underlying cognitive mechanisms that operate when reading in any language (Geva & Ryan,

1993). In this context, Kahn-Horwitz, Shimrom and Sparks (2005) tested the general Linguistic

Coding Differences Hypothesis (LCDH), which, like the universal framework suggested by

Geva and colleagues, predicts that core linguistic abilities underlie success in both L1 (Hebrew) and L2 (English) reading acquisition. In their study, the investigators found that despite the differences between the Hebrew and English orthographies and morphological structure, common underlying abilities affecting Hebrew (L1) reading impacted English (L2) as well. The major finding in this study was that phonological, orthographical and morphological variables measured in Hebrew accounted for English (L2) reading acquisition as well. Results of this study emphasize the importance of adding a morphological component to the set of common underlying “core” skills which, according to Ganschow and Sparks, consist of phonological, orthographic, syntactic and semantic components (Kahn-Horwitz et al., 2005).

Contrary to the studies that found a correlation between skills in Hebrew as L1 and

English as a foreign language in Israel (Geva & Ryan, 1993; Geva & Siegel, 2000; Kahn-

Horwitz et al., 2005; Schiff & Calif, 2007), Yardenay (2010) did not find a significant correlation between Hebrew as L1 reading ability and English as L2 reading ability in the U.S.

According to Yardenay, it is possible that cross-linguistic transfer occurs only when L1 is stronger than L2, or that certain threshold has been achieved (Paradis, Genesee, & Crago, 2011). 48

Dekeyser, Alfi-Shabtay and Ravid (2010) conducted two studies with bilingual participants, examining L2 of different age groups of Russian native speakers. In one study the participants were L2 English speakers and in the other, L2 Hebrew speakers. English and

Hebrew were chosen as second languages because they are typologically different, particularly in the area of morphology. In both studies, for young learners (below the age of 18), grammatical knowledge was strongly predicted by age of arrival. On the other hand, for young adults (ages 18 to 40), aptitude was the stronger predictor of grammar knowledge and not age.

The authors concluded that there is a decline of learning ability as a function of age and a shift in grammar learning mechanisms before adulthood (Dekeyser et al., 2010).

Meta-linguistic development and its role in Hebrew as a second language phonology. As described above, according to the central processing hypothesis, PA is a universal meta-linguistic ability that underlies phonemic analysis in learners’ L1 and L2, beyond typological similarities and differences in the components that contain the phonological repertoire of the L1 and L2. However, the evidence demonstrated in the literature also indicates that new phonemes that do not exist in the child’s L1 present specific challenges (i.e., negative transfer) to L2 spelling. Developmental research with ESL learners and Hebrew second language learners has shown that over time, with exposure and literacy acquisition, L2 children acquire these new phonemes and the frequency of L1-specific errors in spelling gradually diminishes (e.g., Geva & Siegel, 2000 and Geva, Wade-Woolley, & Shany, 1993 for Hebrew;

Wang & Geva, 2003 for Chinese). Such results suggest that L2 learners may experience difficulties with specific novel linguistic features of the L2 such as imprecise phonological representations of novel phonemes, a finding demonstrating language-specific effects. This has been demonstrated in relation to the phoneme /ts/ that is novel for Hebrew as L2 in young children (Wade-Woolley & Geva, 2000), and the phoneme /th/ that is novel for Chinese as L1 in 49

children acquiring English in an immersion context (Wang & Geva, 2003).

To illustrate, Wade-Woolley and Geva (2000) examined the possibility that performance on specific PA items in the L2 might depend on the extent to which the L1 and L2 share most phonemes or syllable structures. Children listened to pseudowords, and for each item were asked to circle the written word they thought they heard. The phonological aspect of the task was designed to tap sensitivity to the phonemic contrast (/ts/ vs. /s/) that occurs productively in

Hebrew but is phonotactically constrained in English. As was expected, children experienced more difficulty discriminating pseudowords that included the /ts/ vs. /s/ contrasts in onsets than in rimes. Word-level reading skills in both Hebrew and English correlated significantly with performance on this measure. PA in the native language (English) was related to the ability to read words and understand oral language in the L2 (Hebrew). The hypothesis that there would be an interaction between reading level and language transfer was not supported: skilled and less-skilled Hebrew-as-L2 readers alike had more difficulty discriminating the /ts/ vs. /s/ phonemic contrasts in syllable positions that were novel to them (i.e., in syllable onsets).

Saiegh-Haddad, Kogan, and Walters (2010) conducted a study that provided additional support for the complementarity of the universal and language specific frameworks. The authors examined phonemic awareness in bilingual Russian (L1)-Hebrew (L2) children. A phoneme deletion task was given in a variety of linguistic options: phoneme position (initial, final), linguistic context (singleton, cluster), word length and stress. Results pertaining to word length and word stress supported the universality of these factors. However, phoneme position and linguistic context provided evidence for language-specific aspects of phonemic-awareness related to onset-rime versus body-coda syllable structure differences that were discussed earlier

(Saiegh-Haddad et al., 2010).

These studies provide additional evidence for the complementarity of the universal and language specific frameworks. PA is required for the development of reading both in English, as

L1, and in Hebrew, as L2. However, novel phonological elements characteristic of the L2 present additional specific challenges to L2 learners (Geva, 2008).

Morphology. There is a dearth of research on the development of basic morphological skills in children acquiring Hebrew within a bilingual or L2 context (Geva, 2008). It is reasonable to assume that language proficiency and a certain threshold level of proficiency would be crucial for L2 learners, in order to decode Hebrew words with respect to their morphological components with sufficient accuracy and fluency (Geva, 2008). In fact, with regard to children learning to read in their L1, Carlisle (2000) claimed that it is reasonable to hypothesize that over time, the relationships among language proficiency, vocabulary, word reading, spelling skills, and morphological skills become mutually enhancing. It is reasonable to expect that this might also be the case with regard to L2 learners, as their L2 language proficiency improves with time and amount of exposure (Geva, 2008). One aspect of the cognitive-linguistic demands that is related to reading and comprehending unvoweled Hebrew texts may be the requirements of the highly inflected and morphologically dense nature of the

Hebrew language (Geva, 2008; Wade-Woolley & Geva, 2000).

Geva (2008) brought up questions pertaining to the development of meta-linguistic awareness in Hebrew as L2, and its role in gaining proficiency in reading and writing skills.

Some of these questions include the following topics: a) patterns of development of morphemic awareness in Hebrew as L2; b) the extent to which this development influences and is influenced by development of other aspects of literacy, growth in vocabulary and phonemic awareness in the L1 and L2; and c) the relationship between morphemic awareness in English as

L1 and Hebrew as L2. She also emphasized contextual factors such as home literacy, SES, and the effects of instruction that should be taken into account as well (Geva, 2008).

Geva and Shafman (2010) explored the relations between oral language and different aspects of emergent morphological skills in senior kindgarten (SK) children and first and second graders who just started to learn Hebrew as L2. The children demonstrated awareness of morphological rules in Hebrew, and started to develop the ability to recognize and isolate morphemes that signal Hebrew inflections. Regardless of familiarity with the significance of the stem, children demonstrated an increasing oral ability to utilize analogies involving primary rules for inflections of nouns and verbs, based on gender and number, and apply that knowledge to generate morphologically correct inflections. Error analysis demonstrated that those children who just started to be exposed to Hebrew (L2) began to acquire command of high frequency, salient, simple inflectional patterns such as those involving the plural marking of male-female nouns (e.g., yeled-yaldah=child [male]-child[female]), as well as the cardinal manner of marking plurality (e.g., yeled-yeladim=child [male, singular]-children [male, plural]). The participants demonstrated awareness of inflection patterns related to aspects such as male/female nouns, singular/plural nouns (male/female), plural noun pairs, possessive (mine, his, ours) and verb inflections (male/female, singular/plural; Geva & Shafman, 2010).

In a study conducted in Israel, Schwartz, Kozminsky and Leikin (2009) compared the acquisition of irregular forms of Hebrew inflectional morphology, specifically irregular forms of

Hebrew plural nouns, between Russian (L1)-Hebrew (L2) bilingual children and Hebrew monolingual children. The findings indicated that both groups acquired the irregular forms of the Hebrew plural nouns in a similar way and exhibited related patterns of developmental errors.

However, the bilingual children showed a delay in the acquisition of Hebrew plural nouns and it was assumed that they relied less on the phonological components of the stem with the irregular

suffixes, and were more dependent on their memory. In addition, it was found that the bilingual children had a tendency to close the gap with their monolingual peers (Schwartz et al., 2009).

Highlights in the Investigation of Cross-Language Transfer of Phonological and

Morphological Awareness

In order to understand how strongly phonological and morphological tasks are related across languages, there are four factors that should be considered: task components, language characteristics, cognitive development and instruction (Bialystok & Swain, 1978; Branum-

Martin et al., 2012). Various tasks that assess PA measure PA and MA as a single ability within languages. Instruction and extent of exposure play an important role in the acquisition of phonological and MA, and there is a dearth of research related to instruction (quality, focus, extent) and the development of various components of L2 language and literacy among L2 learners (Francis, Lesaux, & August, 2006; Geva & Wiener, 2014) and languages other than

English (Branum-Martin et al., 2012). For example, in the domain of PA, tasks that involved manipulations of multiple grain sizes demonstrated higher correlations between languages than did syllable-level tasks (Branum-Martin et al., 2012).

Cognitive abilities, age, socioeconomic status (SES), home language, and literacy experiences represent additional dimensions in the evaluation of cross-linguistic correlations concerning phonological and MA (Branum-Martin et al., 2012; Geva & Wiener, 2015). For example, many phonological and morphological measures draw on cognitive abilities, such as working memory, which is assessed by complex span tasks (Hitch, 2006). According to Hitch

(2006), there is a steady improvement across childhood in performance in all of the complex span tasks. It has been found that a critical change occurs between the ages of 5 and 7 in the use of strategies to reactivate decaying memory traces (Camos & Barrouillet, 2011). Specifically, a qualitative change in working memory develops around age of 7 (Camos & Barrouillet, 2011). 53

In line with this, it has been found that rehearsal-related phenomena do not appear before 7 years of age, that is, children do not actively rehearse verbal material for maintenance purposes before 7 years of age (Jarrold & Tam, 2010). Therefore, some linguistic phenomena may be better explained by working memory rather than different linguistic features of languages.

Relatedly, in their introduction to a special issue focusing on transfer of reading in two languages, Saiegh-Haddad and Geva (2010) underscore that transfer interacts with specific linguistic characteristics of the languages involved, characteristics of the learners and contextual/instructional characteristics (Saiegh-Haddad, 2010). In their meta-analysis, Branum-

Martin et al. (2012) emphasized the importance of investigating phonological and morphological awareness in the context of the relation between English, an alphabetic language, and Chinese, a non-alphabetic language, to receive robust proof for understanding phonological and MA in the bilingual context.

The Present Research

This research is based on three studies in which, over a two-year period, the phonological and morphological skills of English-speaking children learning Hebrew as L2 in a Hebrew day school were tracked. The developmental trajectories of PA in Hebrew (L2) were investigated, as well as the development of spontaneous morphological proficiency in Hebrew across grades. In addition, by considering parallel discrete morphological tasks in English and Hebrew, it was possible to compare the English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) morphological trajectories to identify common patterns and differences.

Research Questions

The research questions that were examined are:

Study 1. What are the specific Hebrew morphological structures (e.g., Hebrew morpheme markers for nouns, adjectives and verbs and Hebrew morpheme markers for gender 54

and number) that develop over time in Hebrew (L2) emerging bilingual children? Do these structures mirror the structures that are known to develop earlier in Hebrew L1 children?

Study 2. (a) What is the order of acquisition and development of PA components (i.e., initial phoneme, final phoneme, sub-syllable, syllable) in Hebrew (L2)? (b) Do PA in English

(L1) and Hebrew (L2) proficiency predict PA in Hebrew (L2)?

Study 3. (a) Are there differences between English (L1) and Hebrew (L2), in the order of development of MA constructs (i.e., inflectional morphology, derivational morphology and compounds)? (b) Are there differences in performance between different tasks that measure the same morphological construct in each language? (c) Are there differences between English and

Hebrew in the performance of morphological tasks that are comparable in terms of structure? (d)

Do grade level, Hebrew (L2) spontaneous morphological proficiency, English (L1) and Hebrew

(L2) PA and parallel English morphological measures with discrete items predict performance on parallel Hebrew morphological measures with discrete items?

Chapter Three

Method

Participants

The research design can be characterized as a cross-sequential longitudinal design. It involved two successive cohorts of students ages 4 or 5 whose development was tracked over two years, and tested at three time points (Time1, Time 2, and Time 3), with an interval of a year between the waves of data collection. For the first cohort the first time point was in junior kindergarten

(hereafter the JK cohort) and the third was in G1. For the other cohort the first time point was in senior kindergarten (hereafter, the SK cohort) and the third was in G2. Data was collected in

May 2011, May 2012 and May 2013. The attrition rate was 27.9%: 5.8% after Time 1 and

18.6% after Time 2. For the JK cohort the attrition rate was 25%: 6.3% after Time 1 and 18.6% after Time 2. For the SK cohort the attrition rate was 31.6%: 13.2% after Time 1 and 18.4% after Time 2. In addition, five children participated in assessment at Time 1 and Time 3 but not in Time 2: Two from the JK cohort and three from the SK cohort. Attrition was probably caused by the time required for testing.

Data were collected from 86 children - 48 in the JK cohort and 38 in the SK cohort. The ratio of boys to girls was slightly different in the two cohorts. In the SK cohort it was 61% girls and 39% boys and in the JK cohort it was 52% girls and 48% boys; however, a Preliminary5

Chi-Square6 test did not find significant differences between the groups (2=0.68, df=1, p=.27).

5 Preliminary Tests: these tests are performed prior to the hypothesis testing stage to verify that the structure of the data is as expected by the survey conductors. For instance, a comparison between number of boys versus number of girls in different grades is done prior to the full model run.

6 Chi-Square Test: following the idea of preliminary tests, a Chi-Square test, is in this case, a statistical technique to compare discrete distribution of one group to that of another group. In discrete distribution we mean that a final set of responses can be measured (e.g. distribution across grades, grade a, grade b, grade c, etc.). 56

The sample was drawn from a private Hebrew-English day school in metropolitan Toronto. The school was located in a predominantly middle-to-upper SES neighborhood.

A family profile questionnaire was used to collect information about children’s home language use, immigration experience and parents’ attitudes toward bilingualism (see Appendix

A). Most parents were professionals who were able to pay the high school tuition and most speak English at home, which was very often the parents’ L1.

English is the first language of all the children. JK and SK are half day programs where

English is the language of instruction, and Hebrew is taught by professional Hebrew teachers for

15 minutes, twice weekly (i.e., a total of 30 minutes per week). Beginning in G1 the length of the school day and the proportion of English-Hebrew changes: The children attend school from

9am-4pm; the first half of the day is taught in English by native speakers of English, and the second half in Hebrew by native speakers of Hebrew.

All the children whose parents filled out the questionnaire were born in Canada, except for one child who was born in the United States. 94% of the parents (45 parents out of 48 parents who filled out the questionnaire) reported that the primary home language is English, and 92% of the parents reported that their child’s best language is English. Information from classroom teachers confirmed that the home language of children whose parents did not fill out the questionnaire was Englsih. All of the parents who filled out the questionnaire had at least an undergraduate university degree.

Measures

Table 1 summarizes the measures that were used in this study for each of the three time points.7

7 Time Point, Wave: this term stands for a point of time in which data were collected. In reality, time goes by continuously, but the researcher can only have a snap shot every several units of time (e.g. weeks, years, seconds, etc.), that is to measure responses at each time point.

Table 1 Measures Collected at each Time Point Language Measure JK-SK SK-Grade 1 Grade1-Grade 2 Time1 Time2 Time3 Construct Cognitive English Working + Memory Phonological + + + Awareness Hebrew Phonological + + + Awareness Receptive English Vocabulary + + + Language Productive Hebrew Story Telling + + + Language Morphological English Inflection + + Awareness Awareness- Analogies Inflection + + Awareness- Sentences Derivational + + Awareness Compounds + + Hebrew Inflection + + + Awareness- Analogies Inflection + + Awareness- Sentences Derivational + + Awareness Compounds + +

Child measures

Backgroud characteristics

SES characteristics were assessed through personal communications with the school’s

administration and questionnaires that inquired about parental education and occupation.

Cognitive processing

Digit span. Short-term verbal working memory capacity was measured in English with the digit span subtest from the WISC-R (Wechsler, 1996). The test consists of two parts. In the first part, digit-span forward, the participant was asked to repeat strings of digits in the same order heard. In the second part, digit-span backward, the participant was asked to repeat strings of digits in reverse order. Each part (forward and backward) consists of eight items. Each item was given in two trials, and the test was discontinued if a participant failed both trials. The total number of correct answers was used (see Appendix B).

Phonological awareness- syllable deletion (Hebrew version: Shany & Ben Dror, 1998).

This subtest required participants to delete syllables from a spoken word. For example, “In

Hebrew mispar means number. Say mispar (‘number’). Now, say mispar without saying /mis/”

(answer: /par/). There were two practice items and 10 test items. One practice item included the deletion of the initial syllable and the other included the deletion of the final syllable. Five test items included the deletion of the initial syllable and the other five test items included the deletion of the final syllable. In all items, deletion results in the formation of real Hebrew words.

Total scores could range from 0-10. All the items were administered to all the children (see

Appendix C).

Initial phoneme isolation (Hebrew version: Schwartz, Leikin, & Share, 2005).

To my best knowledge, this was the first time that this task was administered to children who

just began to be exposed to Hebrew (L2) in JK and SK and who just started to learn to read in

Hebrew (L2) in G1 while their previous exposure to Hebrew (L2) was very limited. This subtest required the isolation of the initial consonant in spoken words. There were two practice items and then participants were presented one at a time with ten pictures of objects: five beginning with consonant clusters, CCV, (e.g., /dli/ [pail]) and five beginning with a simple CV pattern

(e.g., /tut/, [strawberry]). The children had to repeat the name of the object after it was pronounced by the tester, and then to isolate the initial consonant. For example, “In Hebrew dli means bucket. Say dli (‘bucket’). “Now, say the first sound of the word dli.” Total scores could range from 0-10. All the items were administered to all the children (see Appendix C).

Final phoneme isolation (Hebrew version: Schwartz et al., 2005). This test required the participants to isolate final consonants in words. There were two practice items and then the children were presented, one at a time, with ten pictures representing one- or two-syllable words

(e.g., in Hebrew, /kos/, is 'glass'). They were asked to isolate the final consonant in each. For example: “In Hebrew kos means glass. Say kos (‘glass’). Now, say the last sound of the word kos.” Total scores could range from 0-10. All the items were administered to all the children

(see Appendix C).

Phonological awareness was measured in English with the Elision subtest from the

Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte,

1999). This is a standardized task where the child hears a word and then repeats the word with a certain phoneme removed (e.g., say “dog” (pause), now say “dog” without the “/d/” sound).

There were 20 items and administration was stopped when the child made three consecutive errors. Total scores could range from 0-20 (see Appendix D).

Language

Receptive vocabulary. The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Fourth Edition (Dunn &

Dunn, 1997) is a widely used, receptive measure of English receptive vocabulary knowledge.

This is a standardized test where the child hears a word and is then asked to point to one of four pictures that best corresponds to the word. The task is discontinued when the child makes 8 errors within a set of 12 items. There are 228 items in this standardized task (see Appendix E).

Productive vocabulary. Narrative production. This task was given in Hebrew. The aim was to examine the participants' ability to spontaneously produce an authentic story of a familiar event ("A birthday party"). The method of collecting the story discourse was developed by

Nelson and Gruendel (1986). It relies on leading questions by the experimenter: "I know that you know a lot about birthday parties." "Can you tell me about birthday parties?" "Can you tell me what happens when there is a birthday party?" If the participant paused or was silent, the researcher continued to ask: "What is the first thing that happens when…" and "What happens next?" and "What happens at the end?" The participants’ responses were recorded and analyzed afterwards according to microlinguistic components such as vocabulary and morphology.

Analyses pertaining to narrative structures are not included as this analysis is beyond the theoretical scope of this dissertaiton. Linguistic component analyses in Hebrew focused on the production of morphemes such as markers for nouns, adjectives and verbs or Hebrew morpheme markers for gender and number. The narratives were very brief and the children were not able to produce full sentences. They produced relevant but discrete words, such as ‘uga’ (cake),

‘shokolad’ (chocolate), and ‘nerot’ (candles) and there was no evidence of grammar.

Twenty percent of the transcripts were randomly selected and retranscribed by a research assistant for reliability purposes. Interrater reliability was conducted using the following formula: [number of agreements/ (number of agreements + disagreements)]×100 (Sackett, 1978)

and yielded 100%. After this stage, the narratives were coded by the author, a native speaker of

Hebrew. The following linguistic components were counted: morphemes, words, morphemes per word, nouns in singular masculine, nouns in singular feminine, nouns in plural masculine, nouns in plural feminine, adjectives in singular masculine, verbs in past plural masculine, verbs in past plural feminine, verbs in present singular masculine, verbs in present singular feminine, verbs in present plural masculine, verbs in present tense plural feminine, and compounds. For reliability purposes and according to Sackett's (1978) formula, 20% of the transcripts were randomly selected and recoded by a reasearch assistant. Inter- judge reliability was 100% (see

Appendix F).

Morphological awareness. Inflection awareness - Analogies.(Hebrew). In the Hebrew version, a 14-item expressive word analogy task developed by Geva and Shafman (2010) measured the participants’ ability to create the inflected version of a word, in a manner analogous to a pair presented first. For example:

(1) Adom-Adomim (red(singular, masculine)-red(plural, masculine); yarok

(green(singular, masculine)-??______(expected response- yerukim – green[plural,

masculine]).

(2) rakdanit-rakdan (dancer[feminine, singular]- dancer[masculine, singular]). Paxdanit-

(someone who is scared [feminine, singular])- ??______expected response: paxdan

(someone who is scared [masculine, singular)].

Analogy items assessed a range of inflectional aspects such as singular-plural nouns, masculine- feminine adjectival inflections, and simple tenses. There was one practice item and a total of 14 items, which were all administered. Scores could range from 0-14. All the items were administered to all of the children (see Appendix G).

Inflection awareness - Analogies.(English). The English version was created in the same manner except that it included eight items. The English version was also developed by Geva and

Shafman (2010) and was based on descriptions by Bindman (2004) and Nunes, Bryant and

Bindman (1997). For example: (Piggy): PUSH – (Piggy): PUSHED. (Piggy): JUMP. “Now what should Chickee say?" If correct: Chickee should say “jumped.” There were eight items, and scores could range from 0-8. All the items were administered to all the children (see

Appendix H).

Inflection awareness-Sentences.(English). This task was based on Nunes et al. (1997) and revisions were carried out by Deacon and Kirby (2004). The participants listened to a complete sentence, followed by another with a word missing. The participants had to provide the missing word in its correctly inflected form by changing it so that it fit in the new sentence.

The participants had to say what the missing word was in the new sentence. The word that needed to be changed and was heard in the first sentence was also presented visually to the participants. For example: I play (pause). They are ?; expected response- playing. The written word ‘play’ was also presented visually to the participants. The items assessed a range of inflectional aspects such as singular-plural nouns, simple tenses, past tenses, changes indicating comparison (e.g., tall-taller). The English version included two practice items and 17 test items, and scores could range from 0-17. The responses were dichotomous: one point was given for each correct response. The score used for this task was the total number of correct responses. All the items were administered to all the children (see Appendix I).

Inflection awareness-Sentences.(Hebrew). The Hebrew version was parallel to the

English version and was developed by the authors. The Hebrew version included two practice items and 15 test items. For example: 'Ani mesachek' (I play). 'Hem' (They) ???; expected response- 'Mesachkim' (They play). The written word 'Mesachek' was also presented visually to

the participants. The responses were dichotomous and the scores could range from 0-15. One point was given for each correct response. The score used for this task was the total number of correct responses. All the items were administered to all the children (see Appendix J).

Derivational awareness. (English). A modified version of the Test of Morphological

Structure (Carlisle, 1988; Carlisle, 2000) in English was used. The participants heard a word, and then immediately heard a sentence with a word missing in it. The participants had to fill in the missing word by changing the word that they heard before, so that it fit in the sentence. The participants had to say what the missing word was in the sentence. For example: farm (pause).

"My uncle is a ?" expected response- farmer. The items assessed a range of derivational aspects such as adding the “er” to indicate a noun, and adding “ful” to indicate an adjective. The items also included options for decomposition. For example: runner (pause). "How fast can she

?" expected response- run. The English version included 30 items, and scores could range from

0-30. All the items were administered to all the children (see Appendix L).

Derivational awareness. (Hebrew). A forced-choice derivational awareness task was administered in Hebrew because it was felt that children did not have enough command of

Hebrew to generate the itmes on their own. Instead, in each item children were asked to select the correct answer from two options provided by the tester. For example: Yashav. Ani ohevet

______(yoshevet, lashevet) ba’rakevet. (translation: Sit. I like ______on the train. [sitting, to sit]). One point was given for each correct response. The Hebrew version had 19 items. Scores could range from 0-19. all the items were administered to all the children (see Appendix K).

Derivational awareness (Hebrew). Another version of Hebrew derivational awareness was developed by the authors in a manner that was parallel to the English version. In this version, as in the English version, the children had to generate the missing word (see Appendix

M). For example: Axal. Ani ohevet______pizza. Correct response: le’exol (translation: ate. I

like to___pizza (to eat). There were 30 items on this task. However, this task was too difficult, and the children could not do any of the items due to their low level of Hebrew proficiency.

Therefore further analyses were not conducted with this version.

Compound words. (English). This test was adapted from Nagy et al. (2003). It required the participants to identify the head of a compound noun. The participants heard a description of an animal or an object that does not exist in real life, and were asked to select, from several options, the combination of words that made the most sense in naming the object. The English version included one practice item and a total of 16 items; 12 items involved two-word combinations of novel compounds, for example, “Which is a better name for a fish that wears a hat? A fish hat or A hat fish?” The remaining four items involved three- or four-word combinations; for example, “There is a drawer in my dresser where we keep books and I have a key that locks it. What would be the best name for the key? Drawer book key, Book key drawer or Book drawer key?” To ease the memory burden, in the current version of the test each item was accompanied by a picture depicting the object or animal being described. Scores could range from 0-16. For the English version the responses were dichotomous: one point for a correct response and zero for an incorrect response. All the items were administered to all the children (see Appendix N).

Compounds words.(Hebrew). The Hebrew version was developed by David (2013) and included 12 items. Participants had to generate the new compound by themselves, without the ability to choose between two options as was the case in English. For the Hebrew version, there were three practice items for which feedback was provided. For example: "A cake which is made from chocolate is called in Hebrew "ugat shokolad". How would you call in Hebrew a cake which is made from candies? Candies in Hebrew are 'sukaryot'. Each task item was

accompanied by two pictures that illustrated the meaning of the words that the compound was made of.

Responses were rated on a 3-point coding scheme as “fully correct”, “partially correct”, and “incorrect” responses. Three points were given for a fully correct answer. Two points were given for partially correct responses, e.g., using the right words in the right order with inflectional morphological errors. One point was given for using the correct morphemes but in the wrong order (e.g., shokolad-uga instead of ugat-shokolad). Zero was given when responses had the incorrect base (e.g. uga [cake]) with the possessive missing. Scores could range from 0-

36. All 12 items were administered to all the children (see Appendix O).

In general, in both languages, test items on all the morphological tasks were balanced for a variety of morpho-phonological categories that emerge from the combination of different levels of stem transparency and suffix regularity (e.g. a word with a transparent, non-changing stem that takes a regular suffix; a word with a transparent, non-changing stem that takes an irregular suffix: car-cars; man-men, respectively). Table 2 summarizes the main characteristics of the morphological tasks in each language.

Table 2 Summary of the Morphological Tasks in English and Hebrew

English Hebrew Inflections push-pushed; Adom-Adomim; (word analogies in Hebrew) Example Jump-jumped yarok- yerukim Number of items administered 8 constructed responses 14 constructed responses Scoring Dichotomous Dichotomous Inflections-sentences Jack has one book. Same as in English Example The root word, e.g., book, is also The root word in Hebrew is also written in English and presented written in English and presented to the child to the child, e.g., sefer (book) Rachel has three?- books Number of items administered 17 constructed responses 15 constructed responses Way of scoring Dichotomous Dichotomous Derivations Farm (pause). My uncle is a ...? Same as in English Example Farmer Number of items administered 30 constructed responses 19 “choice of two” responses Way of scoring Dichotomous Dichotomous Compounds Which is a better name for a A cake which is made from bee that lives in the grass? chocolate is called in Hebrew (each item is accompanied by a “Ugat Shokolad”. What would picture depicting the object or you call in Hebrew a cake animal being described) which is made from candies? Candies in Hebrew are “sukariot” (each item is accompanied by a picture depicting the object or animal being described) “Ugat Sukariot” Example A. Bee grass B. Grass bee Number of items administered 16 Multiple choice 12 constructed responses Way of scoring Dichotomous Polytomous

Teacher interviews about the Hebrew program

The teachers were interviewed in order to gather information about the Hebrew program and about their approaches to emergent literacy instruction and development in L1/L2, within the framework of bilingual pre-school and G1 settings (see Appendix P). The following information was generated from the interviews with the Hebrew teachers.

JK children were exposed to Hebrew twice a week, each time for a quarter of an hour. At this stage the children were exposed only to oral Hebrew and the teacher tried to reduce the syntactic level of her sentences to the level of male and female only. “Bentzi” was a male doll and the teacher, as a female, spoke with the “male doll” throughout the lesson. The teacher found 70 words that are common to both languages and the children were taught cognate words or borrowed words that are common to both Hebrew and English (i.e., pizza, balloon). Then, second person pronouns were taught. Most of the learning was performed using visual concrete cards, which were accompanied with the oral word in Hebrew. The word was written on the card in Hebrew, so that children were exposed to Hebrew print at this stage. However, letters were not taught explicitly and children were not expected to know them. The child heard, for example, the word “pizza” accompanied by a picture of a pizza and the word “pizza” written in

Hebrew under the picture. At this point, the teacher emphasized the importance of proper pronunciation of words and sounds. At the end of JK, most of the children were supposed to know second person pronouns (ata/at [you-male/you-female], and 70 words which are common to Hebrew and English, 30 more words that are related to “the world of children” such as cake, candies, etc. They were also supposed to be able to understand basic instructions in Hebrew, such as: “Open the door, please.” The children in JK were exposed to short sentences and were explicitly taught second person pronouns with an emphasis on nouns, such as cognates, borrowed words, and nouns that are related to “the world of children”.

Children in SK were exposed to Hebrew twice a week, 20 minutes per session. The teacher in SK established the children’s previous knowledge from JK. In addition, she taught third person pronouns and additional verbs, nouns and adjectives. In SK there was an emphasis on the acquisition of adjectives and verbs.

From grade 1, the children were exposed to Hebrew every day for half of the day (2.5 hrs per day, or 12.5 hrs per week). At the end of grade 1, most of the children were supposed to know the days of the week, seasons of the year and basic concepts which were related to weather; they were also supposed to have some reading and writing fluency in Hebrew.

By the end of grade 2, most of the children were supposed to know how to give an answer in Hebrew that is composed of two or three sentences. The teacher continued to consolidate the speaking, reading, writing and reading comprehension skills in Hebrew.

Procedure

An information letter and a request for consent were sent to the principal of the school (see

Appendix Q). After obtaining consent from the school principal, we provided a letter of information and request for teachers. In this letter, teachers were provided with information about the study (see Appendices R, S). The teachers helped us to distribute information letters

(see Appendix T) and consent forms (see Appendix U) among the children, who took them home for their parents to read. The consent forms had both English and Hebrew versions. After the parents had given approval, children returned the signed consent forms to their teachers.

Only children whose home language was English were included (84 children in the first wave of data collection). There were two Hebrew speaking children who did not participate in the study.

Participants were assessed individually in a quiet room at their school within school hours. In the first wave of data collection (spring of 2011, Time 1), each participant was assessed on Hebrew and English emerging literacy and language skills in four, 30-minute 69

sessions. Two sessions were dedicated to the English version and two sessions were dedicated to the Hebrew version. Instructions for each task were given in English. In addition to these language and literacy tasks, a test that measured working memory was administered in English, the stronger language (see list of measures above).

In the second wave of data collection (spring of 2012, Time 2), each participant was assessed on Hebrew and English emerging literacy and language skills in two, 60-minute sessions. One session was dedicated to the Hebrew version and the other was dedicated to the

English version. The third wave of data collection was conducted in the spring 2013 (Time 3), in the same manner as the second wave. All measures were given in the same order within each language, and the order of English and Hebrew testing was randomized.

All tasks were administered individually by trained university graduate or undergraduate students with experience in working with children in English, Hebrew or both. Only the children whose parents signed a consent form and provided assent for each wave separately participated in the study. Appropriate breaks were given and children received stickers as incentives at the end of each session.

Chapter Four

Data Analysis

Preliminary Analyses

This was a two-cohort longitudinal study that followed students from the spring of their JK year in one cohort and SK year in the second cohort (Time 1), through the spring of SK and G1, respectively (Time 2) to the spring of G1 and G2, respectively (Time 3). For data analyses purposes we created one model that takes into account the two cohorts together by creating four groups: JK, SK, G1 and G2. However, even though there are four waves of time, each child was assessed no more than three times. Specifically, for some children the first time of testing was in

JK and the last was in G1, while for other children the first time of testing was in SK and the last was in G2. Moreover, for some children the number of waves was incomplete. That is, we collected the full three waves of data for only 57 children, regardless of their grade at the starting point of the study, while for others we collected only two waves (21 children) or one wave (8 children).

Table 3 shows statistical moments of centrality8 and dispersion for performance measurements (all the discrete tasks, except for the spontaneous task of “birthday party”) for the two cohorts (starting at JK vs. starting at SK), where wave means the grade in which the index was measured. The structure of the data imposed potential differences that might have been the result of grade, that is, if the skill was measured in cohort 2 in wave 2, it means that it was measured in G1, while for the JK cohort it means that it was measured in SK. We found that reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alphas) were reasonably high (above .7) for most of the

8 Statistical Moments: the mean is a moment of centrality and the variance is a moment of dispersion.

tasks, but for some tasks they were low, as the measurements were not consistent and created low correlations between items. On these tasks we could not expect high reliability between items as difficulty levels varied between the different performance measurements. In other words while some tasks (e.g., Hebrew compound task) would not be reliable as assessment instruments, performance could indicate areas where skills were not yet existent due to the fact that Hebrew was just beginning to emerge.

In addition, we performed a preliminary test to compare performances on the PPVT of the two cohorts (the one starting in JK, and the one starting in SK) in the same grade to confirm that the two cohorts were similar. Results of t-tests showed that no significant difference were found in SK and G1 between the two cohorts, respectively (t=0.44, p=.66; t=0.01, p=.99). This meant that where appropriate the data of the two cohorts could be combined. This preliminary finding justified the subsequent analytical methodology.

Table 3

Comparison between Cohorts on the Task Battery

Cohort 1 (n=48) Cohort 2 (n=38) Items N Min Max M SD alpha N Min Max M SD alpha English Wave 1 PPVT 180 48 48 122 92.21 15.68 .92 38 77 132 109.13 11.77 .90 Digit backwards 1 48 0 4 2.21 0.94 na 38 0 5 2.71 1.33 na CTOPP 20 48 0 17 4.75 2.98 .83 38 3 18 7.97 3.80 .90 Wave 2 PPVT 180 43 82 132 110.30 11.96 .87 30 79 141 121.63 12.13 .88 CTOPP 20 43 3 19 7.93 3.33 .88 30 6 20 13.30 4.70 .90 Analogies 8 43 0 7 5.05 1.31 .49 30 4 8 6.10 .99 .23 Sentences 17 43 5 15 10.70 2.67 .62 30 8 16 12.70 2.26 .58 Deriv Structure 15 43 2 11 6.16 1.95 .46 30 5 14 8.83 1.93 .24 Derriv Decompo 15 43 3 14 7.95 2.35 .66 30 8 14 11.43 1.76 .48 Compounds 16 43 2 12 9.05 2.20 .44 30 5 13 8.80 1.69 .10 Wave 3 PPVT 180 36 54 154 121.66 16.58 .93 26 111 149 133.42 9.15 .80 CTOPP 20 36 8 20 14.75 3.72 .83 26 6 19 14.07 3.59 .82 Analogies 8 36 3 8 5.77 1.14 .36 26 4 8 6.32 1.29 .55 Sentences 17 36 8 17 12.30 2.36 .58 26 11 17 14.28 1.71 .47 Deriv Structure 15 36 6 14 9.16 2.58 .65 26 8 14 10.75 1.53 .18 Deriv Decompo 15 36 7 15 10.77 1.98 .47 26 11 15 13.57 1.09 .13 Compounds 16 36 4 12 7.63 2.00 .17 26 6 15 9.98 2.11 .42 Hebrew Wave 1 First phoneme 10 47 0 10 7.47 2.67 .84 38 1 10 8.08 2.31 .81 Last phoneme 10 47 0 10 5.64 3.19 .85 38 0 10 7.84 2.43 .80 Syllable 10 47 0 10 5.49 2.64 .73 38 0 10 6.58 2.70 .80 Wave 2 First phoneme 10 42 1 10 8.35 2.15 .78 29 0 10 7.55 3.52 .94 Last phoneme 10 42 0 10 8 2.21 .76 29 7 10 9.65 .72 .40

Syllable 10 42 0 10 6.70 2.04 .57 29 5 10 9.06 1.38 .62 Analogies 14 42 0 7 2.71 2.16 .69 29 2 10 5.31 2.11 .60 Sentences 15 42 0 11 .69 2.14 .92 29 0 5 2.21 1.50 .40 Deriv Structure 9 42 0 8 4.31 1.94 .45 29 2 8 5.59 1.48 .07 Deriv Decompo 10 42 0 10 5.07 2.03 .44 29 1 10 5.07 2.15 .54 Compounds 36 42 0 32 12.88 10.54 .44 29 2 32 22.17 7.31 .10 Wave 3 First phoneme 10 36 0 10 6.08 3.38 .88 26 1 10 6.70 2.41 .81 Last phoneme 10 36 1 10 8.69 2.31 .87 26 7 10 9.71 .66 .46 Syllable 10 36 6 10 8.77 1.17 .29 26 8 10 9.54 .68 .50 Analogies 14 36 0 11 4.94 2.19 .62 26 3 10 6.69 1.67 .33 Sentences 15 36 0 3 .55 .84 .31 26 0 10 2.55 2.27 .90 Deriv Structure 9 36 0 8 4.50 2.22 .61 26 1 8 5.45 1.60 .27 Deriv Decompo 10 36 0 9 4.80 2.35 .60 26 0 10 5.12 2.32 .61 Compounds 36 36 0 33 15.16 11.14 .87 26 5 36 26.48 8.07 .80

We needed to fit a regression technique that is robust enough to produce reliable estimates for incomplete data and possible non-normal distribution of the dependent variable. A common assumption in regression models is that the dependent variable is normally distributed.

When this assumption is violated, a generalized model is necessary. We used the Generalized

Estimating Equation (GEE)9 regression procedure that performs well under these two constraints (Garson, 2012). Performance across repeated tests was the sum of all successes, which made the dependent variable a “count” variable. Several possibilities may fit this case, all of which belong to the Poission distribution10 family. The Poisson distribution is a discrete distribution whose mean and variance are equal. In cases of over-dispersion (large variance with

9 GEE (Generalized Estimating Equations): the choice for the better statistical model that fits the analysis of the data. This model generalizes the standard IID case (independent, identical distribution, which means: the distribution is normal and there is no dependency between observations, while they are all derived from the same distribution [same variation around the mean]) by assuming correlations between the different measurements within the same individual child, and Poisson distribution for the dependent variable. Further details are provided in the methodology section.

10 The Poission Distribution is a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time and/or space if these events occur with a known average rate and independently of the time since the last event. 74

respect to the mean), a Negative Binomial distribution (NBD)11 provides a correction scale

(Hilbe, 2011). This type of dependent variable indicates that values are discrete (equal or greater than zero in integer values) and their frequencies are asymmetric with a right tail.

Although the better way to work with count variables is to fit a Poisson distribution to these variables, in some cases it is difficult to compare different counts from different scales, where the scale is the number of items in the count variables. Due to this problem the following methodology was suggested: first, we could standardize the variable by dividing the cumulative value by the number of items, which produced a ratio between zero to one. Then, we could transform this value into logistic units. Put simply, we took this ratio and found the log of its proportion over the complementing ratio (Ln[p/(1-p]), where p was the ratio. This simple formula transformed the ratio into a continuous variable, which is approximately normally distributed. Then we used this variable in a GEE (General Estimating Equation), which allowed the use of data with missing values.

The advantage of this type of model, in comparison to ANOVA models with repeated measures, was the estimates it produced for the time effect. In GEE we could build the relationship between one time point and another in terms of variance and covariance. In the case of longitudinal data, such as in this study, a structured variance-covariance matrix could be requested, and that imposed some structural relationship between time points. In other words, we could integrate into the model the fact that a child was measured several times and those measurements (three measurements for most of the children) were correlated within each child.

Thus, we could estimate an average development trend across all observations and an individual development trend for each child (Singer &Willett, 2003). Furthermore, the GEE procedure also

11 Negative Binomial Distribution (NB): this distribution is an expansion of the Poisson distribution, but allows more flexibility in terms of the ratio between the mean and the variance.

allowed us to compare means of different grades and different background categories, but controlled for the non-normal distribution of the dependent variables. These advantages were expected to produce more accurate estimates than the analysis of variance or covariance.

Specifically, in the case of these data, a standard MANOVA with repeated measure was not appropriate due to the non-normality of the dependent variables. Moreover, the incomplete structure of the data, the fact that none of the observations was recorded at all four time points, meant that it could only be measured by the GEE procedure without losing the full picture, thus leaving the GEE as the only estimating alternative. These models aim at hypothesis testing, thus we developed a standard model format for each stage of hypothesis testing.

The study questions aimed to understand difference across grades. The choice of cohort design allowed estimating between age differences, which was the objective of the research even though the sample size was small and a single child was only partially measured across the four categorical ages. The GEE procedure was the modeling framework within which all covariates and interactions were estimated. The GEE procedure has parallel instruments to estimate time change, that is the shape of the variance/covariance matrix, in comparison to longitudinal multilevel model. As suggested by Fitzmaurice et. all (2009, p.53): “… we have seen that the GEE approach provides a convenient alternative to ML (Multilevel, I.G.) and estimation of the regression parameters in marginal models for longitudinal data, while also retaining a number of appealing properties”. The advantage of GEE over other multilevel procedures is the control for the within subject measurements, that is, each child in the present study was tested three times and the control for that cluster or nested shape of data affected the estimates. As explained by Fitzmaurice et al., (2009): “… for a within-subject effect when the covariate design on time is not the same for all subjects, the GEE estimate is a weighted average of both between-subject and within-subject contrasts that are weighted differently. Moreover,

the weights for these different contrasts depend on the assumed covariance”. To support this answer couple sources are suggested. For example, Twisk (2013, p.57) suggests that there is no distinct difference between alternative statistical techniques for estimating multilevel data, thus

GEE and RCM are very similar. The difference may be in the a-priory covariance assumption when using GEE (see p.92). The categorical time as was applied in this study is one way that allows flexible modeling without a-priori assumption about the growth shape as in longitudinal growth curve models (Twisk 2013, p.91). It is always important to define overtime differences by multiple comparisons to get the sense about potential sources of difference (McArdle and

Nesselroade 2014). Another constraint of this research is the cohort shape of the data collected.

Little (2013, p.60-61) suggests that this modeling strategy provides reliable results whitina shorter period of time. In this study, due to a small sample size and the miss match between time points, the within subject could only be controlled without growth assumptions to allow for understanding differences across ages. The aggregation of the two cohorts was possible only by making no assumption about the growth curve shape, because each child has only three time points, but the analysis runs across four time points. Thus the control is for the within-subject correlation rather than the growth curve shape.

We also compared the performance of this specific sample to the national normative data available for the CTOPP performance by means of quartiles (see Table 4 below). As can be seen from the table, on the whole our sample shows higher performance on the CTOPP than does the general population. In JK, 35 percent of the children performed in the upper quartile of the population, whereas only 13 percent performed in the lowest quartile. The distribution of SK children shows that 39.5 percent of the sample performed parallel to the national upper quartile, and this trend becomes stronger in G1 (66.7) and G2 (50.1%).

Table 4 CTOPP Frequency within Each Quartile from JK to Grade 2

Grade JK SK G1 G2 % Quarter 1st (0 – 25) 13.0 3.7 7.7 2nd (25 – 50) 26.0 6.2 13.6 19.2 3rd (50 – 75) 26.0 50.6 19.7 23.0 4th (75 – 100) 35.0 39.5 66.7 50.1

In summary, the children's performance on CTOPP was above average, and the gap between them and the general population in this task increased with age. Thus, it can be concluded that inferences regarding Hebrew phonology (L2) can be drawn under the assumption that those children have normal and even above average phonological skills in English, their native language, and that their bilingualism is developed within an additive context (Baker, 2006).

Descriptive statistics for each grade are presented below (See Table 5 for JK, Table 6 for SK,

Table 7 for G1, and Table 8 for G2). The means and standard deviations of all the measures pertinent to all the three studies are displayed for each grade separately. For each task in both languages (except of the Hebrew compound task), number of items reflects the highest score that potentially could be achieved in each measure. This is due to the fact that the score for each item was 0 or 1. Thus, number of item is the sum of all the items in each measure, given each item was correctly answered by receiving 1 point. The only exception for this is the Hebrew compound task. In this task, 12 items were given and the score for each item ranged between 0-

3. Therefore the highest score that potentially could be achieved in this task is 36.

To identify patterns of association among all the phonological morphological and language measures within and across languages, matrix correlation were produced (See Table 9 78

for JK, Table 10 for SK, Table 11 for G1, and Table 12 for G2). Moderate to high correlations

were found in JK and SK between English PA and Hebrew final phoneme and syllable tasks,

but not with initial phoneme task. Inital phoneme correlated with final phoneme and final

phoneme correlated with syllable deletion in JK and SK. In Grade 1 there was a correlation

between initial and final phonemes tasks only, and no correlations were found in Grade 2 with

regard to these measures. With regard to the morphological measures in both languages,

moderate to high correlations were found between English and Hebrew analogy tasks, across all

the three grades: SK, Grade 1 and Grade 2. However, the pattern of association between all the

morphological measures within and between languages changed across the grades.

Table 5

Descriptive Statistics for Language Skills in English and Hebrew in JK

Measure Items N M SD Min Max alpha

English (wave 1)

PPVT 180 48 92.60 15.84 48 122 .92

CTOPP 20 48 4.75 2.97 0 17 .82

Hebrew (wave 1)

Initial Phon 10 48 7.40 2.66 0 10 .83

Final Phon 10 48 5.62 3.18 0 10 .85

Syllable 10 48 5.60 2.64 0 10 .72

Table 6

Descriptive Statistics for Language Skills in English and Hebrew in SK

Measure Items N M SD Min Max alpha

English

PPVT 180 81 123.28 9.49 99 140 .88

CTOPP 20 81 7.95 3.53 3 19 .89

Analogies 8 43 5.04 1.30 0 7 .50

Sentences 17 43 10.71 2.66 5 15 .61

Structure 15 43 6.02 1.94 2 11 .45

Decompo 15 43 8.04 2.34 3 14 .66

Compounds 16 43 9.04 2.20 2 12 .43

Hebrew

Initial Phon 10 81 8.24 2.21 1 10 .90

Final Phon 10 81 8.01 2.30 0 10 .77

Syllable 10 81 6.68 2.36 0 10 .70

Analogies 14 43 2.75 2.15 0 7 .69

Sentences 15 43 0.75 2.13 0 11 .91

Structure 9 43 4.48 1.95 0 8 .45

Decompo 10 43 5.12 2.02 0 10 .43

Compounds 12 43 13.91 10.53 0 32 .90

Note. The data for PPVT, CTOPP, Initial phoneme, Final phoneme and syllable were collected from wave 1 plus wave 2. The data for the other measures were collected only from wave 2.

Table 7

Descriptive Statistics for Language Skills in English and Hebrew in G1

Measure Items N M SD Min Max alpha

English (wave 2+3)

PPVT 180 66 121.65 14.62 100 154 .91

CTOPP 20 66 14.07 4.24 6 20 .87

Analogies 8 66 5.94 1.08 3 8 .32

Sentences 17 66 12.48 2.30 8 17 .58

Structure 15 66 9.06 2.29 5 14 .51

Decompo 15 66 11.10 1.90 7 15 .47

Compounds 16 66 8.17 1.94 4 13 .20

Hebrew (wave 2+3)

Initial Phon 10 66 6.68 3.49 0 10 .91

Final Phon 10 66 9.12 1.84 1 10 .85

Syllable 10 66 8.96 1.27 5 10 .49

Analogies 14 66 5.23 2.14 0 11 .61

Sentences 15 66 1.36 1.43 0 5 .54

Structure 9 66 4.98 1.98 0 8 .50

Decompo 10 66 4.98 2.23 0 10 .56

Compounds 12 66 18.87 10.18 0 33 .85

Table 8

Descriptive Statistics for Language Skills in English and Hebrew in G2 81

Measure Items N M SD Min Max alpha

English (wave 3)

PPVT 180 26 133.42 9.15 111 149 .80

CTOPP 20 26 14.07 3.59 6 19 .82

Analogies 8 26 6.32 1.29 4 8 .55

Sentences 17 26 14.28 1.71 11 17 .47

Structure 15 26 10.75 1.53 8 14 .18

Decomposition 15 26 13.57 1.09 11 15 .13

Compounds 16 26 9.98 2.11 6 15 .42

Hebrew (wave 3)

Initial Phoneme 10 26 6.70 2.41 1 10 .81

Final Phoneme 10 26 9.71 .66 7 10 .46

Syllable 10 26 9.54 .68 8 10 .50

Analogies 14 26 6.69 1.67 3 10 .33

Sentences 15 26 2.55 2.27 0 10 .90

Structure 9 26 5.45 1.60 1 8 .27

Decomposition 10 26 5.12 2.32 0 10 .61

Compounds 12 26 26.48 8.07 5 36 .80

Table 9

Correlations among English and Hebrew Phonological Measures in JK (n=48)

Hebrew

Initial phoneme Final phoneme Syllable deletion

English CTOPP .15 .40** .34* Hebrew initial phoneme .65*** .53***

Hebrew final phoneme .47**

Note. JK = Junior kindergarten. CTOPP= Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Table 10 Correlations among English and Hebrew Phonological and Morphological Measures in SK (n=81 for CTOPP, Intial, Final and Syllable; n=43 for Analogies, Sentences, Structure, Decompositions and compounds for both languages)

English Hebrew Analo Sente Struct Deco Co Analo Sente Struct Dec Co Initi Fin Sylla 83

gies nces ures mp mp gies nces ures omp mp al al ble English CTO .31* .32* .14 .16 .08 .36* .20 .19 .11 .13 .12 .22* .36**

Analo .12 .36* .43** .19 .50** .38* -.02 .02 .13 .28 .53*** .27

Sent .30 .27 .12 .23 .23 .02 -.06 -.13 .06 .08 .03

Struct .50** .31* .17 .09 .18 -.06 .14 .35* .54*** .28

Deco .41** .43** .19 .01 -.02 .34* .11 .49** .21

Comp .04 .04 .17 .21 .21 .10 .35* .20 Hebrew Analo .55*** .02 .35* .39* .00 .21 .22

Sent .15 .53*** .40 .15 .03 .10

Struct .50** .00 -.01 -.08 .12

Deco .22 -.11 .00 .12

Comp .17 .18 .30*

.22* .20 Initial .37** Final

Note. SK= Senior kindergarten. Analo=Analogies. Sent=Sentences. Struct=Structure. Deco= Decompositions. Comp = Compounds. Final = Final phoneme. Initial = Initial phoneme. CTO=CTOPP= Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Table 11

Correlations among English and Hebrew Phonological and Morphological Measures in

G1(n=66)

English Hebrew 84

Analo Sente Struct Deco Co Analo Sente Struct Dec Co Initi Fin Sylla gies nces ures mp mp gies nces ures omp mp al al ble English CTO .19 .15 .19 .12 -.08 .44*** -.06 .05 .23 .27* .27* .17 .13

Analo .31 .24 .20* .16 .31* .13 -.05 .02 .27* .21 .22 .06

Sent .40** .20 .24* .44*** .15 .19 .11 .07 .11 .03 .08

Struct .37** .07 .16 .14 .16 .23 .14 .33** .27* .11

Deco -.02 .36** .47*** .12 .09 .17 .10 .08 .06

Comp .07 .21 .17 -.06 .18 .09 .12 .06 Hebrew Analo .25* .33** .35** .18 .20 .14 .20

Sent .33** .15 .32** .21 .20 .24*

Struct .24 .26* .25* .21 -.05

Deco .06 .13 .24* .20

Comp .44*** .19 -.09

.57*** -.05 Initial .19 Final

Note. G1= Grade 1. Analo=Analogies. Sent=Sentences. Struct=Structure. Deco= Decompositions. Comp = Compounds. Final = Final phoneme. Initial = Initial phoneme. CTO=CTOPP= Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Table 12

Correlations among English and Hebrew Phonological and Morphological Measures in G2

(n=26)

English Hebrew

Analog Senten Structu Deco Co Analog Senten Structu Deco Co Initi Final Syll ies ces res mp mp ies ces res mp mp al able English CTOPP .50** .51** .23 .02 -.02 .25 .20 -.13 -.03 .40* .30 .37 .16 Analogi .32 .10 .37 -.02 .63*** .12 .20 .01 .42* .10 .39* .26 Sentenc .47* .17 .12 .27 .39* .14 .50* .34 .43* .22 .19 Structur -.01 .46* .24 .06 .21 .58** .28 .19 .12 .24 Decom .08 .03 .10 -.02 .00 .28 -.31 -.02 .32 Compo .15 -.08 .19 .36 .14 -.10 .15 .33 Hebrew Analogi .09 .04 .34 .43* .03 .20 .23 Sentenc -.01 .40* .09 -.11 .07 .37 Structur .21 .09 .25 -.06 -.03 Decom .16 .05 -.13 .36 Comp .14 .26 .24 Initial .24 -.12 Final -.05

Note. G2= Grade 2. Analogi=Analogies. Sentenc=Sentences. Structur=Structure. Decom= Decompositions. Comp = Compounds. Final = Final phoneme. Initial = Initial phoneme. CTOPP= Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Chapter Five

Study 1

The Emergence of Morphemic Components in the Spontaneous Speech of Hebrew L2

Narratives

The present study focused on the emergence of morphological structures in spontaneous

Hebrew speech of the emerging bilingual Hebrew children. We modeled performance in the use of different types of words in Hebrew. The research question was: What are the specific

Hebrew morphological structures (e.g., various Hebrew morpheme markers for nouns, adjectives and verbs or Hebrew morpheme markers for gender and number) that appear in the spontaneous narratives of Hebrew L2 from JK to G2? Do these structures mirror the structures that are known to develop earlier in Hebrew L1 children?

According to Geva and Shafman (2010), young Hebrew L2 learners, with English as their L1, begin to demonstrate awareness of Hebrew morphological knowledge with regard to marking male/female nouns, singular/plural nouns (male/female), plural noun pairs, possessive

(mine, his, ours) and verb inflections for gender and number (but not for verb patterns; Geva &

Shafman, 2010). The present study adds another layer by examining whether the awareness of inflection patterns is expressed in spontaneous speech and not only in the context of discrete

(e.g., multiple choice, cloze) items that provide options to choose from, thereby restricting the range of responses that may be considered, and possibly providing clues to the answers expected. Children were asked to tell, in Hebrew, “everything they knew about birthday parties”. This study examined whether the children were able to describe a birthday party event, utilize their knowledge about morphological inflections in Hebrew, and how this performance changed over time.

According to the reports of teachers who were interviewed about their approaches to emergent literacy instruction and development in L1/L2, within the bilingual context (as detailed in chapter three), the children in JK were supposed to demonstrate the following knowledge: They were expected to be able to differentiate in Hebrew between second person pronouns for male and female. They were supposed to know and perhaps to express nouns that are common to English and Hebrew such as cognates or borrowed words (e.g. balloon, pizza).

They were also supposed to know words that are related to “the world of children” such as cake, candies, etc. Children in SK and G1 were supposed to show an increase in vocabulary, and they might express more verbs, nouns and adjectives. According to the teachers, by G2 most of the children should known how to provide an answer in Hebrew that is composed of two or three sentences.

According to the research literature, native Hebrew-speaking children demonstrate grammatical morphological patterns such as number and gender differentiations, and verb tense and person, before the end of their second year of life (Dromi, 1987; Ravid, 1997; Ravid &

Malenky, 2001). By the end of their third year, children use correctly all the necessary inflections that can be connected to nouns, verbs and adjectives. However, only at age 7 do they acquire proficiency in stem changes and unique forms (Berman 1981, 1983; Ravid & Malenky,

2001). For example, some Hebrew nouns alter their actual (consonantal) stem when they add

yamim, days), the) †יָמִים yom, day) is) †יֹום their plural endings. To illustrate, the plural of

†נָׁשִים isha, woman) is) †אִשָה anashim; men) and the plural of) †אֲנָׁשִים ish, man) is) †אִיׁש plural of

(nashim; women).

On the other hand, based on the research literature and on interviews with the teachers, it was hypothesized that in JK and SK, a time when they were not exposed to Hebrew (L2) as much as in grades 1 and 2, they would show very minimal levels of proficiency. Both JK and

SK groups were predicted to lag behind native speakers of Hebrew. It was hypothesized that in

JK and SK they would demonstrate exgremely limited vocabulary compared to Hebrew native speakers. However, it was also predicted that, with increasing age and increased exposure to

Hebrew, they would learn to produce basic and familiar nouns, adjectives and verbs in the present tense, and use morpheme markers for gender and plurals. In the context of the specific style of instruction that was described above (see below for the detailed descriptions of measures), the children might first show knowledge about nouns, and only later would they express knowledge about adjectives and verbs in their narratives.

In summary, it was hypothesized that there would be a significant gap between the skills of native Hebrew speaking children (based on what is known from the research literature) and the second language learners of Hebrew. Grammatical knowledge that is related to inflections is expected to be demonstrated at the end of the third year of life among native speakers of

Hebrew, according to the literature, whereas the same knowledge was expected to begin to around age 5 and above among the second language learners of Hebrew, as a reflection of their exposure to Hebrew. In addition, it was hypothesized that the developmental trajectories of the morphological constructs would not be identical between the two groups. The L2 learners were expected to be familiar with nouns before adjectives and verbs because their instruction directed them in this way. According to the Hebrew program, at the end of JK most of the children were supposed to know second person pronouns, 70 words which are common to Hebrew and

English, 30 more words that are related to “the world of children” such as cake, candies, etc., and simple sentences. In SK the children are taught third person pronouns, and additional verbs, nouns and adjectives (see below for the detailed descriptions of measures). Furthermore, native speakers who are exposed to Hebrew most of the time acquire different aspects of morphological knowledge at the same time, in a parallel way. In comparison, the second

language learners who were not exposed to Hebrew most of the time were expected to express the specific knowledge that they were taught in their educational framework, e.g., nouns before adjectives and verbs.

It is also important to consider the advantages of available skills in the first language (in this case English) in acquiring the morphological constructs of the second language. In other words, it was hypothesized that there would be common constructs that the children would not need to acquire again. Once they know them in the first language, they would be able to apply them in the second language. For example, once the children know that ‘s’ signifies plural in

English, they will search for a parallel morphological formulation in Hebrew, even though the need to distinguish male/females markers of plurals in Hebrew would present an additional challenge since this distinction is not made in English.

Method

Participants. The demographic characteristics of the participants were described in chapter three.

Measures.

Narrative production in Hebrew. "A birthday party" narrative (see chapter three).

Data with this measure were collected at Time1, Time2 and Time3.

Results

Table 13 presents descriptive statistics for different counts of words in Hebrew narratives. Only eight variables were selected for further analysis (number of morphemes, number of words, morphemes per word, noun singular masculine, noun singular feminine, noun plural masculine, adjective singular masculine and compound). These categories were selected because their means were high enough to produce meaningful analyses. (Each marked with an asterisk). The entries not marked with an asterisk were either extremely low in number or showed insufficient 90

difference to justify further analysis. The N in table 13 represents measurements (child * 3 time points). This was done as a preliminary analysis to decide upon the better modeling strategy. As a preliminary analysis for further modeling strategy, table 13 shows descriptive statistics for all measurements without controling for within-subject correlation. Table 14 shows the results of

GEEs analyses (see Chapter 4 for additional details).

Table 13

Frequency of Morpheme Categories and Words in Hebrew Narratives

N Min. Max. Mean SD Morphemes * 213 0 92 5.54 10.38 Words * 213 0 67 4.32 7.14 Morphemes per word* 152 1 2 1.15 0.23 Nouns singular masculine * 213 0 5 0.77 1.11 singular feminine * 213 0 4 0.83 1.01 plural masculine * 213 0 4 0.22 0.60 plural feminine 213 0 2 0.08 0.28 Adjectives- singular masculine* 213 0 1 0.23 0.42 Verbs past plural masculine 213 0 5 0.05 0.41 past plural feminine 213 0 5 0.05 0.41 present singular masculine 212 0 2 0.13 0.44 present singular feminine 213 0 2 0.11 0.35 present plural masculine 213 0 3 0.08 0.41 present tense plural feminine 213 0 1 0.01 0.07 Compounds* 213 0 1 0.30 0.46 * Selected for further analysis. a Frequency over 3 years.

Table 14 Regression Results for Words and Morphemes in Hebrew Narratives Predicted by Grade

# of # of # of # of # of # of # of # of - Morphemes words Morphemes Nouns- Nouns- Nouns - Adjectives- Compounds per word singular singular plural singular masculine feminine masculine masculine Distribution NB NB Gamma NB NB NB Bernulli12 Bernulli model Means 5.54 4.32 1.15 0.77 0.83 0.22 0.23 0.30

Variance 107.81 51.02 0.05 1.24 1.02 0.36

Range 0-92 0-67 1-2 0-5 0-4 0-4 0-1 0-1

Constant 2.60*** 2.24*** 0.27*** -0.15 0.52*** -0.71** -3.04*** -1.17***

(0.19) (0.18) (0.03) (0.26) (0.12) (0.23) (0.86) (0.29)

Grade W=41.35*** W=33.29*** W=39.84** W=13.42** W=41.23*** W=8.22* W=5.01 W=0.18

JK vs. G2 -1.93*** -1.81*** -0.25*** -0.86* -2.54*** -1.58* 1.86* -0.06

(0.37) (0.34) (0.04) (0.34) (0.47) (0.62) (0.92) (0.37)

SK vs. G2 -1.01** -0.86** -0.19*** -0.08 -0.83*** -1.07* 2.04* 0.001

(0.31) (0.29) (0.04) (0.27) (0.18) (0.46) (0.91) (0.34)

G1 vs. G2 -0.91*** -0.76*** -0.11** 0.14 -0.41** -0.67* 1.93* -0.10

(0.21) (0.20) (0.04) (0.29) (0.15) (0.31) (0.92) (0.36)

Pairwise comparisons JK vs. SK -2.92 -2.45** -0.07* -0.43** -0.60*** -0.07

(0.85) (0.72) (0.03) (0.14) (0.11) (0.04)

JK vs. G1 -3.45*** -2.88*** -0.16*** -0.63*** -0.98*** -0.15

(0.90) (0.67) (0.04) (0.18) (0.15) (0.08)

JK vs. G2 -11.47*** -7.88*** -0.29*** -0.50* -1.55*** -0.39**

(2.52) (1.72) (0.05) (0.24) (0.22) (0.12)

SK vs. G1 -0.52 -0.43 -0.09** -0.20 -0.38** -0.08

12 Bernulli Distribution: In this distribution probability is the ratio between number of successes and number of trials.

SK vs. G2 -8.55** -5.43** -0.22*** -0.07 -0.95*** -0.32*

(2.70) (1.89) (0.05) (0.23) (0.23) (0.13)

G1 vs. G2 -8.02** -5.00** -0.13* 0.13 -0.57* -0.24*

(2.45) (1.69) (0.05) (0.27) (0.22) (0.11)

Estimated Marginal Means JK 1.96 1.54 1.02 0.37 0.13 0.10 0.24 0.29

(0.65) (0.45) (0.03) (0.09) (0.06) (0.06) (0.06) (0.07)

SK 4.88 3.99 1.09 0.80 0.73 0.17 0.27 0.31

(1.30) (0.91) (0.02) (0.12) (0.10) (0.07) (0.05) (0.05)

G1 5.40 4.41 1.18 0.99 1.11 0.25 0.25 0.28

(0.76) (0.57) (0.03) (0.16) (0.13) (0.08) (0.05) (0.06)

G2 13.43 9.41 1.31 0.87 1.68 0.49 0.05 0.31

(2.49) (1.68) (0.04) (0.22) (0.21) (0.11) (0.04) (0.09)

Goodness of 354.52 306.32 12.45 192.96 132.98 140.01 229.43 129.77 fit – QICC

Note. NB = Negative Binomial. SK = Senior kindergarten. JK= Junior kindergarten. G = Grade. SE = Standard Error. a In this distribution probability is the ratio between number of successes and number of trials. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

We can see that the most frequent distribution of these count variables was Negative

Binomial Distribution (for five types of words), except for the morpheme per word variable

(number of morphemes over number of words), which was Gamma13 distributed. Variances for

13 Gamma Distribution: Another type of distribution that is not symmetric, so that a variable that shows higher frequencies for

low numbers and smaller frequencies for high numbers can be represented, as in this case.

the Negative Binomial Distribution variable were over-dispersed with respect to the means, while the Gamma distribution showed little variance. This was clear for morphemes and words, but smaller for the other types, yet showed better fit when considered Negative Binomial

Distribution in comparison with Poisson. We can see that grade was significant across the five regression models: morphemes, words, nouns (singular masculine), nouns (singular feminine), and nouns (plural masculine), respectively. JK students performed more poorly on number of nouns (singular masculine) than did those in G2 (b=-0.86, p<.05), and no other effects in comparison with G2 were found with regard to number of singular masculine nouns produced.

As for the other types of words, differences in comparison with G2 were found and these differences decreased when the gap between grades was smaller. In other words, children's performance improved with age (e.g. total number of morphemes: b(JKvs.G2)=-1.93, p<.001; b(SK vs.G2)=-1.01, p<.01; b(G1 vs. G2)=-0.91, p<.001). A further pairwise analysis tested all possible pairs. Table 14 shows that in JK there were altogether a lower number of words, nouns

(singular masculine), and nouns (singular feminine) in comparison with SK. JK results were lower on morphemes, words, singular masculine nouns, and singular feminine nouns compares to G1. JK results were lower on all types of words in comparison with G2. Next, SK results were lower on number of singular feminine nouns compared to G1, and lower on morphemes, words, number of singular feminine nouns, and number of plural masculine nouns compared to

G2. Finally, G1 results were lower on morphemes, words, singular feminine nouns, and plural masculine nouns compared to G2.

As for the number of morphemes per word, estimates were similar to the ones described above. Children in the younger grades performed more poorly in comparison with their performance when they were older, but the difference decreased gradually (JK vs. G2: b=-0.25,

p<.001; SK vs. G2: b=-0.19, p<.001; G1 vs. G2: b=-0.11, p<.01). This difference was consistent across the pairwise comparisons. Singular masculine adjectives and compounds were also analyzed, but no significant grade differences were found across grades, a finding that also reflected their lower frequency overall.

Discussion

Morphological structures in Hebrew (L2).

This study investigated the developmental trajectories of specific Hebrew (L2) morphological structures that were produced in an open task spontaneously. It examined the emergence of Hebrew (L2) morpheme markers for nouns, adjectives and verbs and morpheme markers for gender and number. The research question aimed to compare the morphological developmental trajectories of young children who are native speakers of Hebrew (from what is known from the literature) with those of second language learners of Hebrew.

The emerging bilingual children were requested to tell, in Hebrew (L2), everything they knew about a “birthday party”. In reality, before G1 the children were unable to produce more than 5 words. Most of the children (72%) could produce at least one simple sentence by G2,

(e.g, yesh uga =“there is cake”).

In general, the findings of the present study indicate that young children who speak

English (L1) and have just begun to be exposed to Hebrew (L2) gradually improve their vocabulary from JK (around 2 words) to SK (around 4 words) and from G1 (around 4 words) to

G2 (around 9 words). It is worth noting that in JK and SK the children are exposed to Hebrew

(L2) at school for only half an hour per week. Beginning in G1 they have more intensive exposure to Hebrew (L2). There was not much difference between SK and G1 students’ ability to produce words related to “birthday party”. However, there was a significant boost between

G1 and G2. 95

There was also a positive development in the number of morphemes that the children were able to produce in Hebrew. Importantly, the number of morphemes per word, which can be thought of as an index of the development of morphology and of Hebrew (L2) proficiency,

“fanned out” by G2. In other words, between JK and G1 there was a more or less one-to-one correspondence between the number of words and number of morphemes produced. (Two morphemes in JK and five morphemes in SK and G1). However, by G2, one begins to notice a fanning out, such that the number of morphemes (13 on average) exceeds the number of words.

These findings indicate not only that vocabulary improves with grade, but also that there is a development in the ability to create words with more than one morpheme. As was mentioned above, with an increased exposure to Hebrew by G2 there was an acceleration in their ability to express themselves and to generate words that are more elabotrate and begin to reflect the constraints of Hebrew morphology on word generation.

In addition, by G2 the children began to include in their birthday narratives a small number of verbs in the present tense (e.g., oxel u’gah – eat (singular, masculine) cake), though they produced almost no verbs in the future or past tense. This small number of verbs was created for singular masculine or feminine by the verb pattern p1 (Qal). For example, they produced the formulation /ochel/, (=[he]‘eats’ in present tense singular masculine in the verb pattern p1 [Qal]). In addition, by G2 children began to use morphemes to indicate gender and number for nouns; for example, they produced the word /nerot/ (=candles [plural, feminine]) or the word /yeladim/ (=children [plural, masculine]). A small number of adjectives in the singular masculine were also present in some utterunces, e.g., . /samea’x/ (= ‘happy [singular, masculine]).

It is important to take into account the specific instructional approaches in this particular

Hebrew day school. Teachers reported that the emphasis at JK was on the differentiation

between male and female. The Hebrew teacher also exposed the children to cognates and borrowed words (e.g., banana). Most of the words that were taught in JK are nouns. In SK children were exposed to more verbs and adjectives. Therefore, the pattern of acquisition that is demonstrated at G2 and at earlier grades may reflect the unique instructional pattern that the children were exposed to in this specific school.

Among developing Israeli children, Hebrew grammatical morphological patterns such as number and gender distinctions emerge early, followed by verb tense and person, which appear normally in their speech before the end of the second year of life (Dromi, 1987; Ravid, 1997;

Ravid & Malenky, 2001). These children, by the end of their third year, are able to efficiently use all kinds of inflections that can be connected to nouns, verbs and adjectives. As was mentioned before, proficiency in stem changes and unique forms is acquired only at age 7

(Berman 1981, 1983; Ravid & Malenky, 2001). Bar-On and Ravid (2011) also reported that for young native Hebrew speaking children, the second grade is a critical juncture in learning to read Hebrew.

It can be inferred with caution that there are common patterns in the order of morphological acquisition between native speakers of Hebrew and second language learners, but there are also major differences. More specifically, it seems that at the second and third years of life, native speakers of Hebrew demonstrate parallel knowledge about nouns, adjectives and verbs. At the beginning, the knowledge of morphemes by Hebrew as L1 children is minimal and confined to inflectional rules; later, at age 7 and above, they start to produce more morphologically complicated words that also require knowledge of derivations. In contrast, the children who just started to be exposed to Hebrew at school first demonstrate the ability to create nouns and only later, adjectives and verbs. Their process of learning is more sequential than parallel. This difference can be related to the specific pattern of instruction at school, to

different amounts of exposure to Hebrew (L2), to the context in which exposure to Hebrew is available, namely, the classroom, and to the emergence of Hebrew reading skills. However, the process of first learning how to inflect words, followed by the rules for deriving words, is common to both populations. This suggests that G2 may indeed be a cognitive developmental cornerstone for both native speakers of Hebrew and for second language learners. Obviously, native speakers of Hebrew make more significant progress than Hebrew L2 children, but it seems that in both populations a cognitive maturity process takes place in G2 (Case, 1985). In the native Hebrew-speaking population, this cognitive maturity process is expressed through the process of learning morphologically complex words. In comparison, among L2 learners of

Hebrew, this process is expressed in an increase in vocabulary and number of morphemes per word.

The difference between these L1 and L2 groups appears to be explained primarily by amount of exposure to Hebrew, and the generalizability of the results may be limited by the instructional approach of the program. It would be interesting to replicate these results with

Hebrew (L2) children who are exposed to more intensive and even different Hebrew instruction in JK and SK. Perhaps it would yield different results. The developmental cornerstones exist from the second year of life. Therefore, more intensive exposure to Hebrew (L2) should accelerate the acquisition of the language and parallel linguistic trajectories of development will probably be demonstrated at an early age.

English as a native language can provide scaffolding for general linguistic knowledge that is common to both languages, but this assumption is beyond the focus of the present study and can be addressed in future studies.

Chapter Six

Study 2

Order of Acquisition of Phonological Awareness in Hebrew (L2)

The research questions were: (a) What is the order of acquisition and development of PA components (i.e., initial phoneme, final phoneme, sub-syllable, syllable) in Hebrew (L2)? (b) Do

PA in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency predict PA in Hebrew (L2)?

Research suggests that the ability to analyze larger phonological units (syllables) develops before the ability to analyze smaller units (Anthony et al., 2002; Anthony et al., 2003;

Branum-Martin et al., 2012; Cisero & Royer, 1995; Schatschneider et al., 1999; Stanovich,

1992; Ziegler & Goswami, 2005). It has been found that English-speaking pre-schoolers were more successful at learning the sounds of letters with sounds when the sounds are at the beginning of the letters' name in comparison to the end of their name (McBride-Chang, 1999;

Treiman, Mullennix, Bijeljac-Babic, & Richmond-Welty, 1995). This effect has been attributed to the perceptual salience of syllable onsets as opposed to codas (Treiman, 1992; Treiman &

Kessler, 2003). Until age 5 or 6, English as L1 children are typically unable to segment words into a series of phonemes (Blachman, 1994; Stanovich et al., 1984; Yopp, 1988). Around age 5 or 6, most of them are able to blend and segment words into syllabic units (Blachman, 1994).

The same pattern exists among native Hebrew speakers. It has been found that among Hebrew speakers awareness of multi-phonemic units precedes the ability to access phonemes (Share &

Blum, 2005). It has also been found that in Hebrew (L1), access to single (consonant) phonemes shifts from an early pre-literacy advantage for initial phonemes to a literacy-engendered preference for final phonemes (codas) (Share & Blum, 2005). According to Share and Blum

(2005), the literacy learning in Hebrew's CV-structured orthography facilitates awareness of final phonemes but not initial phonemes, which are always integrated into a CV unit. However, 99

as mentioned in Chapter 2, the nature of syllable splitting is different in Hebrew and English.

While both languages have a sub-syllabic supra-phonemic level of PA, Hebrew predisposes children to body-plus-coda units (CV+C) whereas English predisposes children to onset + rime units (C+VC; Goswami & Bryan, 1990; Share & Blum, 2005; Treiman & Zukowski, 1996). The literature shows strong evidence for cross-language transfer of children’s PA in diverse languages. Specifically, cross-language correlations between English and Hebrew in PA have been found (i.e., positive transfer) (Durgunoglu, 2002; Geva, 2008). However, as discussed above, typological differences also play a role in cross-language transfer, and difficulties in mastering second language structures may at times be attributed to differences between the learner’s first and second language (i.e., negative transfer). Similar structures will result in facilitation or positive transfer, whereas different structures will result in interference or negative transfer.

Based on theoretical frameworks of transfer of PA between languages and considering typological differences between English and Hebrew, as well as cognitive-developmental factors, it was hypothesized that SK children and cognitively mature JK children would have the general ability in Hebrew (L2) to blend and segment words into syllabic units. However, it was expected that only first and second graders who have been exposed to Hebrew longer and more intensely in G1 and G2 and have learned to decode in both languages would be able to segment

Hebrew words into phonemes. This is also in accordance with the "Belgian view" that phonemes are not part of a continuum from large units to small units (Morais et al, 1979).

It was hypothesized that kindergarten children would perform better on the initial phoneme task in comparison to the final phoneme task, whereas first graders who have been exposed to the pointed Hebrew orthography would show the opposite pattern. However, different linguistic features in English and Hebrew may result in unique developmental 100

trajectories of PA among children who speak English (L1) and have just started to be exposed to

Hebrew (L2). Kindergartners and first graders may have difficulties in isolating initial phonemes compared to final phonemes in Hebrew (L2) because of the structure of Hebrew words (i.e., Hebrew orthography predisposes children to body-plus-coda units (CV+C).

Accordingly, it was hypothesized that the pattern of acquisition would be identical to the one acquired by native Hebrew speakers. Nonetheless, positive transfer from English (L1) to

Hebrew (L2) may facilitate the ability to isolate initial phonemes so that the gap between acquisition of initial phoneme isolation and final phoneme isolation would diminish (i.e.,

English predisposes children to onset + rime units [C+VC]).

In sum, in the first part of study 2, it was hypothesized that the children would show similar developmental trajectories in English and in Hebrew (L2). Specifically, children would first demonstrate the ability to analyze words into syllable units and only later to break syllables into smaller units such as phonemes. Concerning the initial and final phoneme isolation tasks, it was not clear how the children would perform. Positive transfer from English to Hebrew may make it easier for them to analyze the initial phoneme at the head of the words. On the other hand, the influence of the Hebrew language may make task performance more challenging, especially in G1 and G2 when the children are more exposed to the Hebrew orthography and language.

The second part of study 2 focused on potential predictors of PA in Hebrew (L2) including PA in English (L1), and Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency. There is strong evidence for a cross-language transfer of children’s PA including in a variety of languages with different alphabetical and consonantal orthographies such as Turkish and Dutch (Verhoeven,

1994), English and Spanish (Durgonoglu et al., 1993), English and Arabic (Saiegh-Haddad &

Geva, 2008), and English and Chinese (Gottardo et al., 2001). As noted, cross-language

101

correlations between phonemic awareness assignments in English and Hebrew are in line with the notion that PA is a metalinguistic general skill that needs to be acquired only once

(Durgunoglu, 2002; Geva, 2008). In view of the above, it was hypothesized that PA in English would predict PA in Hebrew for all its components.

An additional hypothesis was that Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency would predict

PA in Hebrew. Morphological proficiency was measured by the number of morphemes that were created in the Hebrew birthday party script. The focus on number of morphemes rather than words was due to the specific characteristics of Hebrew. Because Hebrew is considered to have a rich and complex morphological construct, the number of morphemes was perceived as a finer and more precise indicator for Hebrew proficiency than number of words. In a review of

2006 it has been indicated that MA would have mutual and facilitating relationships with other linguistic achievements such as PA, vocabulary, learning to read and spell, and higher levels of reading and writing in Hebrew (Geva, 2008). The hypothesis that Hebrew MA would predict

Hebrew PA is based on the notion that morphological proficiency in Hebrew (L2) would increase linguistic flexibility and would enable the children to create phonological manipulations in Hebrew (L2).

In summary, in the second part of study 2, both PA in English (L1) and morphological proficiency in Hebrew (L2) were hypothesized to have a positive effect on PA in Hebrew (L2).

Method

Participants. The demographic characteristics of the participants were described in chapter three.

Measures. In the present study, three phonological Hebrew tasks were administered: syllable deletion (Hebrew version: Shany & Ben Dror, 1998); Initial consonant isolation

(Hebrew version: Schwartz, Leikin, & Share, 2005); and Final consonant isolation (Hebrew

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version: Schwartz et al., 2005). One phonological task was measured in English with the Elision subtest from the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen,

& Rashotte, 1999). Data were collected with the phonological measures in both languages at

Time1, Time2 and Time3. One cognitive measure for working memory that was used in the present study was administered in English in Time1 only: Digit span, WISC-R (Wechsler,

1996). To evaluate Hebrew proficiency Number of Morphemes produced in the Narrative production was used (See Chapters 3 and 5).

Results

The second study concerned the order of acquisition of PA components in Hebrew as a second language (L2). The dependent variables were frequencies of successes across PA assignments.

The independent variables were grade and the phonological components under investigation.

These independent effects on the development pattern were estimated in two steps. The first step was set to estimate the main effect and the second was set to include interaction effects between grade level and phonological component. This means that if the level of success was higher for the second grade in comparison with performance in the first grade, and the level of the third

(the third step from the set of steps by which the models are run) was higher in comparison with the second, we might conclude that there was a positive developmental trend, for the first step, and so it was for the phonological component effect. It means that when we introduced more covariates into the model we were able to show significant responses to that addition.

The interaction model sought to determine the relationship between grade level and phonological components, to determine whether there were different trends over time for different components. Table 15 shows the estimates of PA as a function of grade and phonological component.

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Table 15 shows that overall, the success level in the youngest age (JK) was lower than in

G2, and that differences gradually diminished as the grade levels moved closer together, respectively (b=-0.36, p<.001; b=-0.11, p<.001), so that the difference between G1 and G2 was not significant. As for differences between phonological components, we can see that initial was higher than syllable (b=0.08, p<.05). Model 2 includes the interactions between the two explanatory variables, namely, phonological component and grade. In order to uncover the source of this interaction, we computed all pairs of phonological components by grade. We can see in Table 15 that not all interaction pairs showed a significant effect. Note that goodness of fit may reduce from the main effect model to the interaction model, but the goal is to determine these interactions in order to better understand the change across ages. We followed this model with two sets of pairwise comparisons, where pairwise comparison analysis is a break down of the interaction sources. The first, shown in Table 16, compares grades for each phonological component, and the second, shown in Table 17, compares scores between phonological components for each grade. In this interaction source analysis we used age first as a moderator and as a main effect next.

An examination of pairwise comparisons between grades for each phonological component (Table 16) shows that JK students were lower on PA in comparison with SK (diff=-

0.83, p<.05) for the initial phoneme, and lower in comparison to all other grades for the final phoneme (-2.39, p<.001; -3.50, p<.001; -4.09, p<.001, respectively). This difference was also captured with regard to the syllable components analyses (-1.09, p<.05; -3.26, p<.001; -3.94, p<.001, respectively). Note that this difference (with regard to syllable components) increased with grade. Similar to JK results, SK data also showed lower PA in comparison with higher grades, and that was true for all phonological components; this difference increased by grade.

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Finally, G1 scores were lower than G2 on PA for the final phoneme and the syllable (-0.59, p<.01; -0.69, p<.01; respectively), but not for the initial phoneme.

Table 15 Regression Results of Phonological Awareness in Hebrew Predicted by Grade and

Phonological Awareness Components in Hebrew (Initial Phoneme, Final Phoneme, Syllable)

Model 1 Model 2 b (SE) Constant 2.13*** (0.02) 2.26*** (0.01) Grade JK vs. G2 -0.36*** (0.06) -0.53*** (0.07) SK vs. G2 -0.11*** (0.03) -0.36*** (0.04) G1 vs. G2 -0.05 (0.03) -0.08** (0.02) Phonological component First phoneme vs. syllable 0.08* (0.03) -0.35*** (0.06) Last phoneme vs. syllable 0.04 (0.03) 0.02 (0.02) Interactions JK vs. G2 X Initial phoneme vs. Syllable 0.63*** (0.09) JK vs. G2 X Final phoneme vs. syllable -0.01 (0.08) SK vs. G2 X Initial phoneme vs. Syllable 0.56*** (0.08) SK vs. G2 X Final phoneme vs. syllable 0.16*** (0.04) G1 vs. G2 X Initial phoneme vs. Syllable 0.07 (0.07) G1 vs. G2 X Final phoneme vs. syllable 0.01 (0.03) Wald 2 Grade 44.95*** 35.74*** Phonological component 6.32* 12.04** Grade X Phonological component 88.92*** Goodness of fit – QICC 163.66 167.57 Note. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

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Next we turn to paired components for each grade. Table 17 shows that in JK, performance on the initial phoneme was higher than that on final phonemes and final syllables, respectively (1.78, p<.001; 1.80, p<.001). However, by SK one sees differences between syllable and initial phoneme only (1.55, p<.001). That relationship switched in G1 and G2: PA was lower with regard to the initial phoneme in comparison to the final phoneme, and the syllable. For example, in G1 the difference was negative (-2.44, p<.001; -2.18, p<.001; respectively). PA was higher with regard to the final phoneme in comparison to the syllable in in SK (1.33, p<.001) and in G2 (0.17, p<.001).

Table 16

Phonological Components in Hebrew: Pairwise Comparisons between Grades

JK SK G1 G2 M (SE) Initial phoneme 7.40 (0.37) 8.24 (0.25) 6.68 (0.42) 6.70 (0.41) JK - SK -0.83* (0.42) - G1 0.73 (0.56) 1.56** (0.45) - G2 0.71 (0.56) 1.54*** (0.43) -0.02 (0.44) - Final phoneme 5.62 (0.44) 8.01 (0.26) 9.12 (0.22) 9.71 (0.11) JK - SK -2.39*** (0.46) - G1 -3.50*** (0.50) -1.11*** (0.31) - G2 -4.09*** (0.45) -1.69*** (0.25) -0.59** (0.22) - Syllable 5.60 (0.38) 6.68 (0.26) 8.86 (0.16) 9.54 (0.14) JK - SK -1.09* (0.46) - G1 -3.26*** (0.38) -2.17*** (0.29) - G2 -3.94*** (0.40) -2.86*** (0.30) -0.69** (0.21) - Note. JK = Junior kindergarten. SK = Senior kindergarten. G = Grade. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

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Table 17 Pairwise Comparisons between the Phonological Components in Hebrew by Grade

Initial phoneme Final phoneme Syllable M (SE) JK 7.40 (0.37) 5.62 (0.44) 5.60 (0.38) Initial phoneme - Final phoneme 1.78*** (0.35) - Syllable 1.80*** (0.35) 0.02 (0.42) - SK 8.24 (0.25) 8.01 (0.26) 6.68 (0.26) Initial phoneme - Final phoneme 0.22 (0.32) - Syllable 1.55*** (0.32) 1.33*** (0.29) - G1 6.68 (0.42) 9.12 (0.22) 8.86 (0.16) Initial phoneme - Final phoneme -2.44*** (0.35) - Syllable -2.18 (0.46) 0.27 (0.25) - G2 6.70 (0.41) 9.71 (0.11) 9.54 (0.14) Initial phoneme - Final phoneme -3.01*** (0.40) - Syllable -2.85 (0.44) 0.17*** (0.18) - Note. JK = Junior kindergarten. SK = Senior kindergarten. G = Grade. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

These comparisons are illustrated in Figure 1. It shows that in JK there was a higher success level for initial phoneme than final phoneme and syllable, which both were on similar success levels. This difference changed in SK, where final and initial phonemes were similar and there was a lower success level for the syllable. However, syllables and final phoneme levels of success were higher in comparison to initial phoneme in G1 and G2.

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Figure 1. Interactions between grade level and components of phonological awareness in Hebrew (L2)

Because the initial phoneme was inconsistent with the other measures, we measured it in a different way, by using sub-syllables. Sub-syllables or so called "supra phonemic units" are composed of initial consonant and vowel (CV or body level of PA, not onset-rime as in

English). We tested the difference in number of sub-syllables across grades. Table 18 shows that grade had an effect on number of sub-syllables produces across grades. The source of this effect was the larger number of sub-syllables in G1 in comparison with G2, while in a pairwise comparison we see that JK scores were smaller than those in both G1 and G2, and SK scores were only smaller than G1. In short, the G1 and not G2 data showed a larger number of sub- syllables than noted in JK and SK.

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Table 18 Regression Results of Sub-Syllable Responses in Hebrew (L2) Predicted by Grade

Sub-syllable

b (SE)

Constant 0.56** (0.21)

Grade (Wald) 22.26***

JK vs. G2 -0.73 (0.39)

SK vs.G2 -0.33 (0.28)

G1 vs.G2 0.42* (0.18)

Pairwise comparisons

JK vs.SK -0.42 (0.33)

JK vs.G1 -1.82*** (0.49)

JK vs.G2 -0.90* (0.47)

SK vs.G1 -1.40*** (0.40)

SK vs.G2 -0.49 (0.44)

G1 vs.G2 0.92* (0.37)

Estimated Marginal Means (SE)

JK 0.84 (0.26)

SK 1.26 (0.23)

G1 2.66 (0.39)

G2 1.75 (0.37)

Goodness of fit – QICC 310.10

Note. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

We further hypothesized that the preference of initial and final phoneme over syllable

(depicted in Figure 1) in SK may be correlated to other skills, such as working memory. 109

Specifically, working memory as measured by the backward digit span task in English

(considered to be a test of working memory) may predict PA, and this ability was expected to be a significant predictor, especially for SK (Hitch, 2006). Indeed, as shown in Table 19, performance on digit span backward had a positive effect on PA in Hebrew for SK children

(b=0.12, p<.05). That is, increased digit span correlated positively and significantly with PA in

Hebrew. In addition, working memory was shown to interact significantly with Hebrew phonological task in SK. Our analysis of sources of this interaction is shown in Table 20. We can see a positive correlation between backward digit span task and syllable, but not with the other two tasks.14

Other potential predictors of phonology in Hebrew are PA in English and number of morphemes in Hebrew. The Hebrew language is characterized by a rich and complex morphology. Therefore, number of morphemes was perceived as a finer and more reliable indicator than number of words. Table 21 shows these effects. We can see that there was no effect for either PA or number of morphemes in Hebrew as predictors on the initial phoneme task, but there was a positive effect of PA in English on the final phoneme and syllable (b=0.02, p<.001; b=0.02, p<.001; respectively), but not on the initial phoneme. Number of Hebrew morphemes had no significant effect on Hebrew phonology. This was also expressed in the pairwise comparisons. We can see that G1 and G2 results did not show any difference when the model was controlled for English PA. In all other comparisons, younger age children performed more poorly in comparison to the older age groups, except for the comparison between SK and

G1 in the case of the final phoneme in Hebrew, and the comparison between JK and SK in the case of the syllable. In sum, this analysis showed that number of Hebrew morphemes had no

14 A further analysis was performed which takes the digit span as control. Results do not show an advantage for that control when compared to the original model 110

significant effect on Hebrew phonology, but there was a positive effect of PA in English on the final phoneme and syllable tasks.

Table 19

The Contribution of Digit Span Backwards to Hebrew PA Components at SK

Distribution model

Negative Binomial b (SE) Constant 1.56*** (0.21) PA st SK (Wald) 7.47* Initial phoneme vs. Syllable 0.46* (0.21) Final phoneme vs. Syllable 0.55** (0.20) Digit span backwards 0.12* (0.6) Interactions PA x Digit span backwards (Wald) 5.98* Initial phoneme vs. Syllable x Digit span backwards -0.09 (0.06) Final phoneme vs. Syllable x Digit span backwards -0.13* (0.06) Goodness of fit – QICC 32.99 Note. PA = Phonological awareness. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Table 20 Interactions’ Sources between Hebrew Phonological Components and Digit Span Backwards

SK phonological awareness Relationship with digit span backwards Initial phoneme b = .02, p = .41 Final phoneme b = -.02, p = .51 Syllable b = .12, p = .05

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Table 21 Regression Results for Hebrew (L2) Phonology Predicted by Grade, Phonological Awareness in English (L1) and Number of Hebrew (L2) Morphemes

Initial phoneme Final phoneme Syllable b (SE) Constant 1.87*** (0.19) 1.98*** (0.08) 1.96*** (0.08) Grade (Wald) 10.55*** 18.53* 4.5 JK vs. G2 0.13 (0.15) -0.36*** (0.09) -0.35*** (0.08) SK vs. G2 0.23* (0.11) -0.07 (0.04) -0.22*** (0.05) G1 vs. G2 0.03 (0.07) -0.05 (0.03) -0.04 (0.03) Phonological awareness in English -0.003 (0.01) 0.02*** (0.01) 0.02*** (0.01) Number of Hebrew morphemes 0.007 (0.01) 0.002 (0.001) 0.002 (0.02) Pairwise comparisons JK vs. SK -0.70 (0.46) -2.03** (0.72) -0.82 (0.48) JK vs. G1 0.79 (1.32) -2.26*** (0.62) -2.21*** (0.59) JK vs. G2 0.98 (1.59) -2.65*** (0.68) -2.52*** (0.64) SK vs. G1 1.50 (1.38) -0.23 (0.40) -1.39*** (0.39) SK vs. G2 1.68 (1.67) -0.62* (0.29) -1.70*** (0.42) G1 vs. G2 0.18 (0.50) -0.39 (0.29) -0.31 (0.25) Estimated Marginal Means (SE) JK 7.54 (4.99) 6.18 (1.98) 6.03 (1.83) SK 8.24 (5.11) 8.22 (2.44) 6.85 (1.98) G1 6.74 (3.82) 8.44 (2.23) 8.24 (2.21) G2 6.56 (3.52) 8.83 (2.37) 8.55 (2.26) Goodness of fit - QICC 75.17 53.14 47.24 Note. JK = Junior kindergarten. SK = Senior kindergarten. G = Grade. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

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Discussion

Study 2 investigated the developmental trajectories of components and sub-components of PA in Hebrew (L2). Specifically, it examined whether the order of acquisition of these components

(syllable, initial phoneme, final phoneme) in Hebrew (L2) is parralell to the order of acquisition of PA in English (L1), according to what is known from the literature. Lastly, this study examined whether PA in English (L1) and Hebrew morphological proficiency (L2) predict each of the components of PA in Hebrew (L2).

The development of phonological awareness elements in Hebrew (L2).

In discussing the development of phonological awareness elements in Hebrew (L2), the following discussion will relate to the three theoretically motivated tasks administered in

Hebrew (L2): syllable deletion, final phoneme isolation, and initial phoneme isolation.

Syllable deletion. On this task the children were requested to delete a syllable from a spoken word that they heard. On all of the items, the portion that remains is a stand-alone morpheme. At SK, the performance of the children was lower on this task when compared to the performance on the initial phoneme isolation and final phoneme isolation tasks. At G1, however, there was a sharp increase in syllable deletion performance, which persisted into G2.

By G2, performance on this task was at the same level as that of final phoneme isolation, and performance on both these tasks was superior to that on the initial phoneme isolation task.

The above findings contradict evidence from previous studies. According to the literature, the ability to analyze larger phonological units (syllable and rhyme) is developed before the ability to analyze smaller units (Anthony et al., 2002; Anthony et al., 2003; Branum-

Martin et al., 2012; Cisero & Royer, 1995; Schatschneider et al., 1999; Stanovich, 1992; Ziegler

& Goswami, 2005), and similarities in the order of acquisition of PA in English (L1) and

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Hebrew (L1) have been found. For example, it has been demonstrated that the most common response to phoneme segmentation tasks is the production of sub-syllabic segments when compared to phoneme-based responses and syllable-level responses in young native Hebrew speakers (Bentin & Leshem, 1993). Others have shown that awareness of multi-phonemic units precedes the ability to access phonemes among native Hebrew pre-readers (Share & Blum,

2005). The findings of the current study may be interpreted in terms of the higher cognitive demands of the syllable deletion task. This task demands that the children remember a spoken word in Hebrew (L2) and perform a manipulation of deleting a syllable. Therefore, the task loads on working memory and requires cognitive resources in order to succeed in making a memory manipulation. This is in contrast to the other two tasks that require lesser cognitive resources, specifically, children are requested to say the first sound of the word (initial phoneme isolation) or the last sound of the word (final phoneme isolation) without performing any manipulation that loads on working memory. The syllable deletion task, by definition, requires the children to perform a manipulation with two-syllable words that are longer than the sounds that are produced in the other two tasks. Finally, the children do not know the meaning of the words in the syllable deleting task, which places an additional cognitive demand. Indeed, it was found that among SK children, where the gap between this task and the other two tasks is the largest, working memory was correlated with PA in Hebrew in general. The prediction of this correlation was moderated by the syllable task, but not by the other two tasks. In other words, in support of the above task-demand interpretation, working memory was significantly correlated with performance on the syllable detection task, but not with initial and final phoneme isolation tasks among SK children.

The sharp improvement in the performance of this task between SK and G1 may reflect the positive impact of cognitive developmental processes and higher levels of cognitive

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maturity, which increase children’s working memory capacity. This finding corroborates the notion that performance in all of the complex span tasks steadily improves across childhood

(Hitch, 2006). It has been found that a critical change occurs between the ages of 5 and 7 in the use of strategies to reactivate decaying memory traces (Camos & Barrouillet, 2011).

Specifically, a qualitative change in working memory develops at the age of 7 (Camos &

Barrouillet, 2011). In line with this, it has been found rehearsal related phenomena do not appear before 7 years of age, that is, children do not actively rehearse verbal material for maintenance purposes before seven years of age (Jarrold & Tam, 2010). Accordingly, it may be that in G1, there is a qualitative change in working memory that enabled the participants in the current study to perform the syllable deletion task much better than in SK. At the same time it is important to consider the impact of environmental factors such as the t the development of reading skills, type of instruction and time on task. The children in JK and SK are exposed to

Hebrew at school for half an hour a week. In G1 and G2 they are exposed to Hebrew for half a day, 5 days a week (approximately 12 hrs). The increase in the extent of exposure to spoken and written Hebrew in G1 and G2 is likely to enhance children’s task performance. It may be that a simpler task that poses a lesser load on the working memory, such as the division of word to syllables without the demand to remember and perform a manipulation of deletion, would yield a different pattern of results that is in line with the literature. This should be examined in future studies.

Final phoneme isolation. The findings indicate a consistent and significant improvement from year to year in the performance on the task of final phoneme isolation in

Hebrew. As with native Hebrew speakers, JKs who speak English (L1) had difficulties in isolating the final phoneme in Hebrew (L2). At SK a significant improvement on this task was found. This is in line with previous evidence from studies of native English speakers, which

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have shown that at around ages 5-6 children are more cognitively mature and are able to segment words into a series of phonemes (Blachman, 1994; Stanovich et al., 1984; Yopp, 1988).

In G1 and G2, after a gradual increase in their ability and increased exposure to the pointed

Hebrew orthography and to its body+coda construct, it was found that the same children increased their ability to isolate final phonemes and could do so better than they could isolate initial phonemes. The performance of many reached ceiling.

Interestingly, these findings echo studies of native Hebrew speakers. Native Hebrew speakers demonstrate a better ability to isolate the final phoneme when compared to the initial phoneme in G1, with increased exposure to the pointed Hebrew orthography (Share & Blum,

2005). Also, in the same study, it has been found that access to single (consonant) phonemes shifted from an early pre-literacy advantage for initial phonemes to a literacy-engendered preference for final phonemes (codas) (Share & Blum, 2005). These results may be related to the Hebrew syllabic structure. According to Share and Blum (2005), one third of all Hebrew syllables appearing in text are actually closed CVC syllables. The consonant stands alone only in word-final position. Consequently, it has been suggested that Hebrew script encourages

r/ in the/ ר access to singleton consonants (i.e., word final consonants, such as the consonant

& ga/ (Share/ גַַ g/ integrated into CV units/ ג gar, 'lives') rather than onset consonant גַר word

Blum, 2005). Also, it has been suggested that literacy learning in Hebrew's CV-structured orthography facilitates awareness of final phonemes but not initial phonemes, which are always integrated into a CV unit (Share & Blum, 2005). In the current study, G1 and G2 participants have been exposed to spoken Hebrew and have also been exposed to written language as they acquired Hebrew decoding and word recognition skills. Therefore, it is likely that their performance was influenced by more extensive exposure to the phonetic as well as orthographic characteristics of Hebrew. Indeed, G1 and G2 children in the present study performed better on

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the final phoneme isolation task overall in comparison to their performance in JK and SK, and in comparison to their performance on the initial phoneme isolation task, exactly as is the case with native Hebrew speakers.

The finding of a significant gap between the performance on initial and final phoneme isolation tasks among JK children in favor of the former is compatible with evidence from studies of native English and native Hebrew speakers. For example, it has been found that

English-speaking pre-schoolers were more successful at learning the sounds of letters when the sounds are at the beginning of the letters' name in comparison to the end of their name

(McBride-Chang, 1999; Treiman, Mullennix, Bijeljac-Babic, & Richmond-Welty, 1995).

Among native speakers of Hebrew, it has been found that spoken language structure (which affects kindergartners in a unique way) appeared to favor the initial phoneme, whereas orthographic structure (which affects school-aged children) highlights the final phoneme (coda)

(Share & Bloom, 2005).

Initial phoneme isolation. Several findings relating to the ability to isolate the initial phoneme in Hebrew emerged. JKs and SKs demonstrated better performance on this task when compared to other tasks (i.e., final phoneme isolation and syllable deletion). In contrast, at G1, the same children showed a significant decline in the ability to isolate the initial phoneme, and this task became the most difficult one. These findings corroborate previous evidence. For example and as was mentioned above, it has been found that low-literacy native Hebrew speakers kindergartners who are exposed to spoken Hebrew language structure appear to favor the initial phoneme over the final phoneme, whereas first and second graders (or high-litercay kindergartners) who are exposed also to the Hebrew orthographic structure prefer the final phoneme (coda) over the initial phoneme (Share & Bloom, 2005). Also, in study of 5- and 6- year-old native English speakers, it has been found that performance on the initial phoneme

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isolation task was superior to that on the final phoneme task (Hulme et al., 2002). According to

Share and Blum (2005), the Hebrew language, like English, has a sub-syllabic/supra-phonemic level of PA. However, Hebrew predisposes children to body-plus-coda (i.e., CV+C) rather than to onset-plus-rime (C+VC) units, as is the case in English (Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Treiman

& Zukowski, 1996). This is due to the fact that Hebrew prefers simple, open, CV syllables. In addition, it has been found that both literate and pre-literate children found the sub- syllabic/supra-phonemic level (body+coda) more accessible than individual phonemes (Share &

Blum, 2005). This preference is not solely the product of orthographic structure but rather is inherent in the phonology of Hebrew (Share & Blum, 2005). The children in JK and SK who participated in the current study have been barely exposed to spoken Hebrew, to its phonology

(two quarters of hour per week), and to its orthography. Thus, their ability to differentiate between the initial phoneme and the rest of the word may be related to what they can already do well in English their L1, and thus may be indicative of a positive transfer from English (L1) to

Hebrew (L2) of the ability to isolate the initial phoneme of words.

The results also revealed that in G1 and G2, children showed a significant decline in the ability to isolate the initial phoneme in Hebrew, and that this task became the most difficult one.

This may be due to an increase in exposure to Hebrew orthography and to its pointed script in

G1. G1 and G2 participants have been learning Hebrew daily for 2.5 hrs, and so have been exposed much more intensely to Hebrew and its orthographic features. In G1, the children are more exposed to Hebrew orthography and to the sub-syllabic units (body) at the head of the words and become more sensitive to it, just the way native Hebrew speaking children (Bentin et al. 1991; Share & Bloom, 2005) and adults do (Ben-Dror et al, 1995). Specifically, when asked to delete the first "sound" in a spoken word, participants typically deleted the initial consonant and vowel (CV or body) rather than the initial phoneme (Ben-Dror et al, 1995; Bentin et al.

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1991). Also, in a cross-sectional study of preliterate kindergarten and literate (G2) Hebrew speakers, it was found that awareness of multi-phonemic units involving body plus coda precedes the ability to access single phonemes (Share & Blum, 2005). Likewise, the present study suggests that the number of sub-syllables that were produced varied across grades with a larger number of sub-syllable units produced in G1 when compared to SK and JK. This finding demonstrates the change from singleton phonemes to bodies (CVs), explains the decline in performance of the initial phoneme isolation task between SK to G1, and provides an example of script structure changing the perception of spoken language.

Disentangling the impact of orthographic and phonology constructs among native

Hebrew speakers is difficult due to kindergartners’ exposure to the Hebrew script (Share &

Blum, 2005). A strength of the current study is the ability to show that the change in preference from singleton phonemes to bodies (CVs) is orthographic, due to the fact that G1 participants were only learning to decode Hebrew, and their Hebrew language proficiency was still rather minimal (as shown in study 1). In sum, it seems that the participants may have gained a subtle awareness of Hebrew construction and were thus influenced by linguistic processes that characterize the unique features of Hebrew orthography.

As was mentioned above, the performance of G1 and G2 children in the current study who speak English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) was in line with evidence on the performance of native Hebrew speakers. Specifically, G1 and G2 children showed inferior performance on the initial phoneme isolation task when compared to the syllable deletion or final phoneme isolation tasks. It is noteworthy that second graders produced fewer sub-syllabic units in comparison to first graders. It may be that while second graders gradually begin to understand that they have to separate and take apart sub-syllabic units, it is still difficult for them, given the influence of

Hebrew (L2). However, both G1 and G2 children performed adequately on the initial phoneme

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isolation task, which may indicate positive transfer from English (L1) to Hebrew (L2). English

(the L1) facilitates the ability to isolate initial phonemes in Hebrew (L2) and predisposes children to onset-plus-rime (C+VC), whereas Hebrew predisposes children to body-plus-coda

(i.e., CV+C; Goswami & Bryant, 1990; Share & Bloom, 2005; Treiman & Zukowski, 1996).

The English phonemic construct may help children who speak English (L1) to isolate the initial phonemes in Hebrew (L2) better than native Hebrew speakers who have not been exposed to

English. At the same time, clearly the Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis (Lado, 1964), is also relevant. It highlights typological similarities and differences between L1 and L2 that may affect the ease or difficulty of acquisition of specific aspects of literacy.

Summary. The findings of the current study indicate differences in the performance on three phonological tasks across grades as well as in the trajectories of each phonological component. This pattern of findings may be better understood by considering several factors including a positive transfer from English (L1) to Hebrew (L2), typological differences between

English and Hebrew, extent of exposure to Hebrew (L2) orthography and the relationship between the students’ skills and task characteristics.

The trajectory of the syllable deletion task performance was probably affected by the characteristic of the task, which loads on working memory, a qualitative improvement in working memory that occurred from SK to G1, and an improvement of reading skills.

The emergence of CV bodies awareness in Hebrew as L2 was confirmed through a switch from an initial preference for single phoneme isolation task among youngers, non-

Hebrew readers to a significant increase in sub-syllables units from SK to G1 with the increased exposure to Hebrew orthography. The integral CV syllable block has the advantage of obviating the established problems of co-articulating consonants and vowels within a syllable, that is, blending (Feitelson, 1988). It appears that whereas initial consonants are intimately linked to the

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following vowel in an indivisible CV unit, access to final singleton phonemes is important because these phonemes need to be blended into closed (CVC) syllables in Hebrew. In a process similar to that occurring among native Hebrew speakers, emerging bilingual participants in the current study showed a shift in preference for final phoneme (in a literacy environment) over initial phoneme (in pre-literacy environment) and a shift in preference to sub-syllabic units over the singleton phonemes.

The question of generalizability is important to consider. It is also important to note that the participating children were from a high socio-economic environment, had normal and above average phonological skills in English (their native language), and their bilingualism was being developed within an additive context (Baker, 2006). This may limit the generizability of the current findings. It may be that the occurrence of transfer requires a specific threshold of both

English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) proficiency, and that the above background characterstics facilitated the occurrence of transfer from English to Hebrew in the study population. Future studies utilizing samples of diverse SES and language profiency levels are warranted.

Predictors of phonological awareness in Hebrew.

The second part of study 2 examined whether the number of morphemes in Hebrew (L2) and PA in English (L1) predict PA in Hebrew (L2). It was found that number of morphemes in

Hebrew (L2) did not predict PA in Hebrew (L2), across all three phonological components

(syllable, initial phoneme, final phoneme). In addition, it was found that PA in English (L1) predicted syllable deletion and final, but not initial, phoneme isolation in Hebrew (L2).

The first part of the above hypothesis relates to the expectation that Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency would contribute to the ability to manipulate phonemes in Hebrew

(L2) words. Specifically, it was expected that the reciprocal relations among vocabulary, morphology and PA (Geva, 2008) would increase linguistic flexibility and the cognitive space to

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produce different phonemic and syllabic combinations. This hypothesis was not confirmed. It may be that the participating children did not achieve a threshold of linguistic proficiency in

Hebrew that would have enabled them to perform phonological manipulations in Hebrew. The participants have just started to be exposed to Hebrew (L2) and therefore it may be that their knowledge was not sufficient to have a positive effect on PA in Hebrew (L2). Another reason, can be related to the fact that beginning decoding in pointed Hebrew is about phonology, not morphology - which only comes into the picture later when reading switches to a more lexical- orthographic basis (during Grade 2 for native Hebrew speakers).

PA in English (L1) was positively related to final phoneme isolation and syllable deletion in Hebrew (L2), in line with the study hypothesis. These findings corroborate previous evidence on the transfer of PA across alphabetic languages regardless of typological differences

(e.g., Gottardo et al., 2001; Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008). Findings suggest that once children acquire PA, they are able to perform phonological tasks in their L1 as well as in their L2.

However, this observation is not the case across the board. Specifically, no association between

PA in English and initial phoneme isolation in Hebrew (L2) was found.

The latter finding complements the aforementioned findings regarding the different developmental trajectories of the three components of PA in Hebrew. As discussed above, the performance of the children in JK and SK on the initial phoneme isolation task is probably affected by their knowledge of English and by its construct. However, in G1 and G2, findings indicated shifts that reflect growth in Hebrew proficiency. It was found that children began to respond the way that their Hebrew as L1 counterparts would, namely, with shifts to a preference for sub-syllables over single phonemes, and for final phoneme over initial phoneme, occurring in the higher grades. These shifts may present unique processes that characterize the Hebrew phonology and orthography. In other words, the initial phoneme isolation task performance may

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reflect unique linguistic processes characteristic of Hebrew, and is not predicted by English PA.

A similar pattern was found among JK and SK children whose performance on final phoneme isolation and syllable deletion tasks correlated with English PA but not initial phoneme isolation task (Tables 9 and 10). However, the correlation that was found in G1 between the performance on the initial phoneme isolation task and that of the English PA task (Table 21) may be due to the deeper understanding of the Hebrew phonology. Specifically, the children who started to be aware of the construct of Hebrew phonology at G1 were the same children who succeeded in

English PA at G1. Nonetheless, no intercorrelations between all of the Hebrew PA tasks at G2 were found and performance on these tasks did not correlate with English PA. This suggests that at this stage each task taps different qualities and that a successful performance is based merely on the linguistic characteristics of each task. The lack of correlation between English PA and initial phoneme is consistent with the finding that initial phoneme isolation does not grow as literacy grows, that is, it's not a literacy-related ability, whereas final phoneme and syllable-level awareness are. Tolchinsky et al. (2011) and Bar-Kochva (2013) both found stronger correlations between final consonant isolation and word writing and reading than initial phoneme isolation - reinforcing the present findings regarding the correlation between English PA and Hebrew final phonemes but not initial phonemes. It's final phonemes that seem to be the relevant unit for literacy learning.

In sum, the findings of study 2 suggest that the construct of English PA relates differently to aspects of PA in Hebrew (L2), and is dependent on a concomitant increase in

Hebrew proficiency. The final phoneme isolation and the syllable deletion tasks appear to represent a more general ability of PA, which is correlated with English PA and probably with

Hebrew reading (not the focus of the present study). In contrast, the unique trajectory of the

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initial phoneme isolation task and the fact that it does not correlate with English PA suggest that performance on this task reflects unique processes of the Hebrew phonology and orthography.

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Chapter Seven

Study 3

Comparison of English and Hebrew Performance on Morphological Components

The research questions were:

(a) Are there differences between English (L1) and Hebrew (L2), in the order of acquisition and development of MA constructs (i.e., inflectional morphology, derivational morphology and compounds)?

(b) Are there differences in performance between different tasks that measure the same morphological construct in each language separately?

(d) Do grade, Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency, PA in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) and

English morphology predict performance on Hebrew morphological measures?

(a) Based on the research literature with regard to the order of morphological acquisition in English, reported by authors such as Carlisle (1995), Berko (1958), Anglin (1993), Brown

(1973), it was hypothesized that SK children would have the ability to generate, in English (L1), simple inflections involving the simple plural, the possessive and the progressive tense. It was anticipated that they would perform better on inflections than on transparent derivations (e.g., color-colorful). It was also assumed that first and second graders would be better able to produce with more ease words that are morphologically complex (e.g., long-length ). It was expected that they would display command of morphological components in the following order: inflections, transparent derivations and phonological change-derived forms. As to English words that are compounds, it was assumed that SK children would be able to understand the meaning of novel compounds and produce them by combining familiar morphemes. However, it 125

was hypothesized that the knowledge of compounds would not be complete even among the first and second graders, and that individual differences would emerge, particularly when items involved complex compounds with more than two constituent morphemes, or where phonological shifts such as stress alterations occured. On the whole, it was anticipated that a steady increase in inflectional, derivational and compound awareness would be demonstrated among the children from SK to G2.

As for Hebrew (L2), It was generally expected that a gradual increase in inflectional, derivational and compound awareness would be demonstrated from SK to G2. Moreover, in general it was expected that an acceleration in Hebrew morphological acquisition would take place with the increase in exposure to Hebrew, starting in grade 1. It was exected that children would demonstrate an increasing ability to notice crucial feastures in examples provided and use analogies pertaining to inflections of nouns and verbs, based on gender and number, and apply that knowledge to produce morphologically correct inflections. This hypothesis made sense given the findings reported by Geva and Shafman (2010) who conducted their research with a similar population, as well as information provided by teachers in interviews. It was also assumed that those Hebrew (L2) young learners would be able to apply from an early age high frequency, salient, simple inflectional patterns such as those including the plural marking of male-female nouns, as well as the cardinal manner of marking plurality. Furhtermore, it was expected that the children would gradually become aware of inflection patterns related to aspects such as male/female nouns, singular/plural nouns (male/female), plural noun pairs (yad- yadayim=hand- two hands), possessives (mine, him, us) and verb inflections (male/female, singular/plural). It was hypothesized that the Hebrew derivations tasks and in particular the productive task would be more difficult than tasks that require only recognition.

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(b) Another hypothesis was that children would perform better on the inflectional analogies task in comparison to the inflectional sentences task in both English and Hebrew. This hypothesis was based on consideration of differences in task demands. In both languages, the analogies task measures children’s ability to create the inflected version of a word in a manner analogous to a pair presented before. For example in Hebrew: (1) Adom-Adomim;

(red[singular]-red[plural]; green[singular] yarok-? green [singular]); expected response- yerukim

(green[plural]). On the inflectional sentences task in both languages, the children listened to a complete sentence, followed by another in which a word was missing. The children were requested to provide the missing word in its correctly inflected form by changing it so that it would fit in the new sentence. The word to-be-changed was heard in the first sentence as well as presented visually. For example in English: I play (pause). They are.....? (playing). The sentence-based task requires children to generate the correct form of the inflection; The analogies task may be less demanding cogniviely because children apply a prevsiouly presented analogy.

In addition, it was hypothesized that the differences in performance between these two tasks would be more striking in Hebrew (L2) than in English (L1). It was expected that the high proficiency in English would enable the children to express their morphological knowledge in a more flexible way and with less dependency on the task structure. In Hebrew, the children’s level of proficiency was lower and thus its expression could be more limited.

An additional hypothesis was that in both languages the children would perform better on the derivational decomposition task than on the derivational structure task. On both derivations tasks, the children heard a word, followed immediately by a sentence with missing word. The children were requested to fill in the missing word by changing the previously presented word, so that it would fit in the sentence. It was expected that in both languages, the derivational

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structure tasks would be more demanding and would require deep and accurate knowledge of the different forms of derivations. In comparison, in the decomposition tasks, if one identified the basic root word one would be able to infer which morpheme was tied to it. An example of the derviations structre task is: farm (pause). My uncle is a ....?. An example of the derivations decomposition task is: runner (pause). How fast can she....?. With one exception, both derivations tasks were administered in the same manner in English and Hebrew. In English, the items were constructive and the children were required to generate the answer by themselves. In

Hebrew, the children were required to select the correct answer from two available options. As explained earlier, this was necessary as children’s Hebrew proficiency was limited.

In summary, the hypothesized difference in children’s performance on the inflectional analogies task vs. the inflectional sentences task in both languages was attributed to the nature of the measures themselves. The analogies task provided the scaffolding for the answers, whereas the sentences task relied more on children’s knowledge and was less directed. In contrast, the hypothesized difference in children’s performance on the structure vs. decomposition task in both languages was attributed to different linguistic task demands. In the decomposition task the child was required to identify the root word and then to remove the morphemes that were combined, whereas in the structure task the child was requested to create or select the correct morphemes that fit to a given root word in a specific context.

(c) The inflectional analogies task and the inflectional sentences task were rather comparable in English and Hebrew, because underlying construct, namely, inflectional morphology, methods of administration, and scoring procedures were identical in both languages. The other tasks were not comparable due to differences in these domains. It was hypothesized that performance on both comparable tasks (inflectional analogies and inflectional sentences) would be higher in English than in Hebrew. A gradual distinct development across

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grades was expected in each task and in each language.

(d) The hypothesis for the last part of the study 3 was that Hebrew (L2) morphological

"proficiency" and parrellel measures of English morphology would predict Hebrew morphology. Hebrew morphological proficiency was measured by spontaneous production of morphemes in Hebrew (L2) in the birthday task. This measurement served as a general indicator of the level of morphological proficiency/fluency in Hebrew (L2), and was hypothesized to predict performance in different discrete morphological constructs in Hebrew. In addition, the production of morphemes in Hebrew was expected to correlate with inflectional morphological knowledge, derivational morphological knowledge, and compounds knowledge in Hebrew.

English morphology was measured with five discrete experimental measures (i.e, inflectional analogies, inflectional sentences, derivation structure, deriviation decomposition, compounds) that are parallel to the same five discrete experimental measures in Hebrew. With regards to the hypothesis that parallel tasks in English (L1) would predict performance of morphological tasks in Hebrew (L2), transfer of MA between English and Hebrew was expected. In other words, general linguistic knowledge, common to both languages and assessed in the same way in both languages, was hypothesized to "transfer" from the strong language to the weak language. In this regard, it was noted that evidence on the transfer of morphology skills between languages is inconsistent and not always observable, and may depend on the similarities and differences between the constructs (Geva, 2014). Accordingly, transfer of morphological knowledge between English and Hebrew, two different typological languages, may or may not occur.

Finally, it was hypothesized that PA in English would correlate with PA in Hebrew and that both would predict morphological performance in Hebrew (L2). This hypothesis was based on previous evidence supporting cross-language transfer of children’s PA (Durgonoglu et al.,

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1993; Gottardo et al., 2001; Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008; Verhoeven, 1994), the mutual and facilitating relationships between PA and MA (Geva, 2008), and the notion that PA is a metalinguistic general skill that needs to be acquired only once (Durgunoglu, 2002; Geva,

2008).

Method

Participants. The demographic characteristics of the participants were described in chapter three.

Measures. In the present study, five parallel morphological tasks were administered in

English and Hebrew: 1) Inflection Awareness, Analogies for English and Hebrew (Geva &

Shafman, 2010) 2) Inflection Awareness, Sentences for English, based on Nunes et al. (1997) and revisions were carried out by Deacon and Kirby (2004) and for Hebrew, developed by the author. 3) Derivational Awareness – A modified version of the Test of Morphological Structure

(Carlisle, 1988; Carlisle, 2000) was used for English. A forced-choice derivational awareness test was developed by the author and was used for Hebrew. Derivitional awareness was measured by a derivational decomposition task and a derivational structure task. 4) English

Compounds- This test was adapted from Nagy et al. (2003) and was used for English. Hebrew compounds- This test was developed by David (2013) and was used for Hebrew. Data were collected with these morphological measures in both languages in Time2 and Time3. The measure for Hebrew proficiency that was used in the previous studies was used also in the present study, known as Number of Morphemes which were produced in the Narrative production task in Hebrew- "A birthday party". Two additional PA measures were used in the present study (and were used also in study 2): Initial consonant isolation in Hebrew (Hebrew version: Schwartz, Leikin, & Share, 2005) and Elision subtest from the Comprehensive Test of

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Phonological Processing in English (CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999). (A detailed description of all these measures was provided in chapter three).

Results

The third study focused on a comparison of performance on morphological components in

English and Hebrew. We developed a test for this question in several steps to follow the order of acquisition and development of MA. First, we looked at the performance of each language separately with a focus on the effect of age on performance. Second, we compared the two languages for those items which are comparable across the languages (that is, inflectional analogies and inflectional sentences tasks). Lastly, we ran comparisons within each language and between the languages simultaneously.

Table 22 presents regression results for morphological performance in English. The upper part of the table presents information about the dependent variables, the performance variables. The first row shows the type of distribution, which indicates the type of regression used to estimate independent effects on that performance variable. As shown in the table, the

Poisson regression was a better choice and in the "range" row, one can see the range of values

(potential success) this variable took. As can be noted, the variances and the means are similar, thus requiring no correction for over-dispersion.

In terms of regression results, age was a major factor in explaining performance success across all morphological measures. However, a closer examination shows that inflectional analogies, inflectional sentences, derivation structures, and derivation decomposition in SK were lower in comparison with G2 (b=-0.23, p<.001; b=-0.28, p<.001; b=-0.58, p<.001; b=-

0.53, p<.001, respectively), but this was not the case for compounds. G1 scores were lower than

G2 on inflectional sentences, derivation structures, derivation decomposition, and compounds

(b=-0.13, p<.001; b=-0.17, p<.001, b=-0.20, p<.001; b=-0.20, p<.001, respectively), but not on

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inflectional analogies. Note that JK children were not included in this test. A pairwise comparison across all pairs (Least Significant Difference test) followed the regression results, but was expanded to include all possible pairs. In addition to what we learnt from the regression estimates, the comparison between SK and G1 showed that differences in performance existed also between closer ages. Overall, differences exited across all performance variables including compounds, but children’s performance was higher in SK than in G1 (diff.=0.88, p<.05) (see

Figure 2).

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Table 22

Regression Results for English (L1) Morphology Predicted by Grade

Inflectional Inflectional Derivation Derivation Compounds analogies sentences structure decomposition Distribution model: Poisson M 5.73 12.27 8.44 10.58 8.81 Variance 1.66 7.02 7.04 7.87 4.71 Range 0-8 5-17 2-14 3-15 2-15 No. of Items 8 17 15 15 16 b (SE) Constant 1.84*** 2.66*** 2.38*** 2.61*** 2.30*** (0.04) (0.02) (0.03) (0.02) (0.04) Grade (Wald) 20.14*** 53.21*** 121.81*** 162.33*** 18.79*** SK vs. G2 -0.23*** -0.28*** -0.58*** -0.53*** -0.10 (0.05) (0.04) (0.05) (0.05) (0.05) G1 vs. G2 -0.06 -0.13*** -0.17*** -0.20*** -0.20*** (0.04) (0.03) (0.04) (0.02) (0.05) Pairwise comparison SK vs. G1 -0.90*** -1.78*** -3.03*** -3.07*** 0.88* (0.22) (0.47) (0.33) (0.38) (0.41) SK vs. G2 -1.28*** -3.57*** -4.73*** -5.54*** -0.94 (0.31) (0.50) (0.40) (0.40) (0.52) G1 vs. G2 -0.38 -1.80*** -1.70*** -2.48*** -1.81*** (0.26) (0.36) (0.38) (0.28) (0.44) Estimated Marginal Means (SE) SK 5.04 10.71 6.02 8.04 9.04 (0.20) (0.40) (0.28) (0.35) (0.33) G1 5.94 12.48 9.06 11.10 8.17 (0.13) (0.28) (0.28) (0.23) (0.24) G2 6.32 14.28 10.75 13.57 9.98 (0.25) (0.31) (0.29) (0.21) (0.40) Goodness of fit – 45.33 68.72 75.88 59.77 18.79 QICC Note. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

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Table 23 presents the regression results for performance in Hebrew. The same dependent variables appeared in this analysis. Because the variance of inflectional sentences was twice larger than the mean, the Negative Binomial Distribution was used to correct the regression. The compound variable was found to approximate a Gamma distribution, which indicated a continuous distribution. The other variables approximated a Poisson distribution. The ranges across which the performance was measured were not the same as the ranges of the English performance variables, thus the comparison between English and Hebrew could only be done on those variables that were measured on the same scale. In the Hebrew language, derivation decomposition performance showed no difference between grades. The overall effect of grade on derivation structure and derivation decomposition was not significant. It appeared that performance on these variables was at chance and that students were relying on guessing (see

Table 24). SK students showed lower performance on derivation structure in comparison with

G2 (b=-0.20, p<.05). The performance of SK and G1 students on derivation structure task was the result of random guesses. That is, children did not have the knowledge in Hebrew to answer these questions, but were encouraged to respond the best they could. However, by G2 there was an improvement on this measure, and the students' performance was above chance.

There were grade differences on inflectional analogies and inflectional sentences for SK vs. G2 and G1 vs. G2 (b=-0.89, p<.001; b=-1.22, p<.005; b=-0.25, p<.001; b=-0.63, p<.05, respectively). There were also differences on compounds between SK and G2 (b=-0.64, p<.001) and between G1 and G2 (b=-0.34, p<.001). A further comparison between SK and G1 followed the age differences already captured in the regression estimates. SK scores were lower on inflectional analogies, inflectional sentences, and compounds (diff.=-2.48, p<.001; diff.=-0.61, p<.05; diff.=-4.96, p<.01, respectively), but the difference between G1 and G2 was only significant for inflectional analogies and compounds (see Figure 2).

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Table 24 presents ratios of success on different performance measurements. As scales differed between the languages, we needed to standardize English and Hebrew scales in order to make them comparable. One alternative was to calculate Z-scores; however, these scales were sometimes discrete and count variables, or not normally distributed. That brought us to ratios: the proportion between successes and number of trials. These proportions are presented in Table

24 and are the base for a transformation that turns them into a continuous variable (Logistic

Units: LN(p/[1-p]), p stands for proportion). We saw that for each variable at each grade we could compare this ratio (first value in each cell) to the logit units (last value in each cell).

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Table 23

Regression Results for Hebrew (L2) Morphology Predicted by Grade

Inflectional Inflectional Derivation Derivation Compounds analogies sentences structure decomposition Distribution model Poisson Negative Poisson Poisson Gamma Binomial M 4.66 1.35 4.89 5.01 18.30 Variance 6.33 4.85 3.80 4.80 121.47 Range 0-11 0-14 0-8 0-10 0-36 Items 14 15 9 10 12 b (SE) Constant 1.90*** 0.94*** 1.70*** 1.63*** 3.28*** (0.05) (0.25) (0.06) (0.09) (0.06) Grade (Wald) 50.81*** 7.14* 5.44 0.17 33.39*** SK vs. G2 -0.89*** -1.22* -0.20* -0.001 -0.64*** (0.12) (0.49) (0.08) (0.11) (0.12) G1 vs. G2 -0.25*** -0.63* -0.09 -0.03 -0.34*** (0.07) (0.28) (0.07) (0.11) (0.08) Pairwise comparisons SK vs. G1 -2.48*** -0.61* -0.49 0.14 -4.96** (0.35) (0.30) (0.36) (0.36) (1.76) SK vs. G2 -3.94*** -1.80** -0.97* -0.01 -12.57*** (0.45) (0.70) (0.42) (0.55) (2.11) G1 vs. G2 -1.46*** -1.19 -0.48 -0.15 -7.60*** (0.41) (0.65) (0.34) (0.54) (1.76) Estimated Marginal Means (SE) SK 2.75 0.75 4.48 5.12 13.91 (0.32) (0.32) (0.29) (0.30) (1.55) G1 5.23 1.36 4.98 4.98 18.87 (0.27) (0.18) (0.24) (0.28) (1.26) G2 6.69 2.55 5.45 5.12 26.48 (0.33) (0.63) (0.31) (0.45) (1.51) Goodness of fit – 163.01 159.24 137.81 162.17 265.20 QICC Note. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

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Table 24 Success Ratio in English and Hebrew across Morphological Measures

Inflectional Inflectional Derivation Derivation Compounds analogies sentences structure decomposition N % (SE) English SK 43 63.06 (2.44) 63.00 (2.36) 40.05 (1.86) 53.64 (2.31) 56.51 (2.08) Ratio .53 .53 -.40 .15 0.26 G1 66 74.22 (1.65) 73.46 (1.65) 60.31 (1.86) 73.96 (1.52) 51.04 (1.48) Ratio 1.06 1.02 .42 1.04 .04 G2 26 79.03 (3.07) 83.99 (1.83) 71.70 (1.96) 90.39 (1.37) 62.42 (2.52) Ratio 1.33 1.66 .93 2.24 .51 Total 135 72.10 (1.53) 73.48 (1.24) 57.35 (1.23) 72.66 (1.15) 56.66 (1.23) Ratio .95 1.02 .30 .98 .27 Hebrew SK 42 19.81 (2.27) 5.09 (2.15) 49.87 (3.24) 51.17 (3.01) 39.62 (4.30) Ratio -1.40 .04 -.01 .05 -.42 G1 65 37.05 (1.88) 8.83 (1.18) 55.31 (2.70) 49.79 (2.77) 51.91 (3.46) Ratio -.53 2.02 .21 -.01 .08 G2 26 47.74 (2.32) 16.94 (4.17) 60.53 (3.41) 51.23 (4.52) 72.93 (4.19) Ratio -.09 -1.59 .43 .05 .99 Total 133 34.87 (1.36) 10.29 (1.66) 55.24 (2.02) 50.73 (2.09) 54.82 (2.64) Ratio -.62 -2.16 .21 .03 0.19 Note. Ratio = Ratio*100 (std) Logit Units. SE = Standard error.

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A further illustration of progress in Hebrew versus English on morphological measures is shown in figure 2. Hebrew shows a lower progress on most measurements. The only measurements that show similar behavior over time are compounds and derivation structure. In derivation decomposition, Hebrew shows a flat trend over time, while in English children make a significant progress over time.

Figure 2. Hebrew versus English performance on morphological measures across grades

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Next, we compared performances within each language. Table 25 shows a comparative model that compares inflectional analogies to sentences and derivation structure to derivations decomposition. These comparisons were done in two steps. The first step tested main effects only, and the second step included interactions between effects. We used the GEE procedure to perform this comparative test, where the task was repeatedly measured (e.g. inflectional analogies was the first repeat and inflectional sentence was the second repeat). It was shown that grade had an overall effect on inflections, but there was no significant main effect of task. That is, there was no difference between the two tasks in English language performance. Once again, we saw that language development over time was significant and that younger SK children performed less well on the two tasks. Interesting results were shown for the derivation comparison. We saw that the performance on derivation structure was lower in comparison with derivation decomposition (b=-0.84, p<.001).

In the second step of this analysis, interactions between grade and task were also shown to have significant effects (Wald 2=15.32, p<.001). These were expressed in two different combinations, SK vs. G2 times T1 vs. T2 (b=1.71, p<.001), and G1 vs. G2 at Time1 vs. Time2

(b=1.50, p<.01). This interaction is depicted in Figure 3. As can be seen, a pairwise comparison of the differences between the two tasks by grade indicated that at each grade level, the performance on derivation structure was lower than the performance on derivation decomposition (SK: diff.=-0.54, p<.001; G1: diff.=-0.75, p<.001; G2: diff.=-2.25, p<.001, respectively), and that difference increased when grade increased, which provided the source of that significant interaction.

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Table 25

Regressions of Performance on English Morphological Tasks Predicted by Grade and Task (Domain of Morphology)

Inflectional analogies (task 1) vs. Derivation structure (task 1) vs. Sentences (task 2) Decomposition (task 2) Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 b (SE) Constant 2.17*** (0.31) 2.12*** (0.29) 2.52*** (0.23) 3.21*** (0.40)

Grade (Wald) 41.53*** 41.85*** 159.01*** 163.64*** SK vs. G2 -1.71*** (0.34) -1.52*** (0.31) -2.24*** (0.22) -3.07*** (0.41) G1 vs. G2 -0.90** (0.34) -0.89** (0.29) -1.21*** (0.21) -1.97*** (0.41)

Task (Wald) 0.58 0.37 58.70*** 56.76*** Task 1 vs. Task 2 0.14 (0.19) 0.25 (0.51) -0.84*** (0.11) -2.25*** (0.43)

Grade * Task (Wald) 1.34 15.32*** SK G2 X Task 1 -0.35 (0.56) 1.71*** (0.44) vs. Task 2 G1 G2 X Task 1 -0.01 (0.55) 1.50** (0.45) vs. Task 2 Pairwise comparisons SK G1 -0.81*** (0.16) -1.03*** (0.10) SK vs. G2 -1.71*** (0.34) -2.24*** (0.22) G1 vs. G2 -0.90** (0.34) -1.21*** (0.21) Goodness of fit – 589.50 591.56 297.64 273.43 QICC Note. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

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Figure 3. Source of interaction between grade and task (Derivation vs. Decomposition) on English morphology.

Table 26 shows a similar comparison between different inflectional tasks in Hebrew. In this analysis there was a difference between the two inflectional tasks, analogies versus sentences (b=3.27, p<.001). Specifically, the higher performance was on inflectional analogies.

Interactions between grades and tasks showed no significant difference.

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Table 26 Regression of Hebrew Inflectional Tasks Predicted by Grade and Task (Analogies and Sentences)

Inflectional analogies (task 1) vs. Sentences (task 2) Model 1 Model 2 b (SE) Constant -3.43*** (0.36) -3.49*** (0.49) Grade (Wald) 35.53*** 40.37*** SK vs. G2 -2.02*** (0.39) -1.94*** (0.55) G1 vs. G2 -0.56 (0.34) -0.52 (0.52) Task (Wald) 155.95*** 153.36*** Task 1 vs. Task 2 3.27*** (0.26) 3.37*** (0.49) Grade * Task (Wald) 0.22 SK vs. G2 X Task 1 vs. Task 2 -0.20 (0.59) G1 vs. G2 X Task 1 vs. Task 2 -0.01 (0.54) Pairwise comparisons SK vs. G1 -1.46*** (0.28) SK vs. G2 -2.02*** (0.39) G1 vs. G2 -0.56 (0.34) Goodness of fit – QICC 1098.34 1104.70 Note. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Next, we compared performances between the two languages. Table 27 shows the estimates for this comparison. The comparison was done on two performance variables: inflectional analogies and inflectional sentences. The model took the repeated measures structure, that is, English was the first repeat and Hebrew was the second repeat. In both analyses, Hebrew showed lower performance than English; for inflectional analogies the effect of Hebrew -2.49 lower (p<.001), and for the inflectional sentences the effect of Hebrew was -

5.51 (p<.001). Interactions between tasks and grades showed no significant effect, except that

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the overall interaction effect on inflectional sentences was significant (Wald 2=489.73, p<.001). A further comparison between Hebrew and English on inflectional sentence differences by grade showed that across grades, Hebrew performance was lower in comparison with

English, but the change across grade was similar for both. That is, there is a difference between

SK and G1 and between SK and G2, but not between G1 and G2. There was no interactive difference between Hebrew and English on the first task, inflectional analogies. The interaction on inflectional sentences is illustrated in Figure 4. One can see that there was a significant increase in both English and Hebrew performance. Thus the source of interaction in that case is the independent differences between the two languages and between grades.

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Table 27 Regression of Inflectional Analogies and Inflectional Sentences Tasks Predicted by Grade and

Language

Inflectional analogies Inflectional sentences Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 b (SE) Constant 2.39*** (0.33) 2.37*** (0.49) 1.84*** (0.36) 1.65*** (0.30) Grade (Wald) 41.68*** 39.86*** 28.58*** 29.76*** SK vs. G2 -2.03*** -1.88*** -1.59*** -0.96** (0.32) (0.36) (0.52) (0.44) G1 vs. G2 -0.69* (0.34) -0.87 (0.52) -0.37 (0.42) -0.41 (0.30) Language (Wald) 205.12*** 175.47*** 453.01*** 489.73*** Hebrew vs. English -2.49*** -2.45*** -5.51*** -5.22*** (0.17) (0.43) (0.26) (0.45) Grade * Language (Wald) 2.64 6.64* SK vs. G2 X Hebrew vs. -0.31 (0.53) -0.86 (0.53) English G1 vs. G2 X Hebrew vs. 0.29 (0.50) 0.01 (0.52) English Pairwise comparisons SK vs. G1 -1.33*** -1.22*** (0.25) (0.25) SK vs. G2 -2.03*** -1.59*** (0.36) (0.44) G1 vs. G2 -0.69* -0.37 (0.34) (0.42) Goodness of fit – QICC 716.00 714.12 1007.16 994.76 Note. SE = Standard error. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

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Figure 4. Source of interaction between grade and language performance on inflectional sentences tasks.

Lastly, we tested morphological performance in Hebrew with respect to grade, Hebrew proficiency (as was measured by number of Hebrew morphemes that were produced in the

"birthday party" narrative), Hebrew PA (as was measured by initial phoneme isolation), English

PA (as was measured by the CTOPP) and number of English morphological performance indicators: Table 28 presents model results for morphological counts in Hebrew (Inflectional

Analogies, Inflectional Sentences, Derivation Structure, Derivation Decomposition, and

Compounds). Grade (SK vs. G2) mattered for Hebrew inflectional analogies and Hebrew compounds (b=-0.46, p<.001; b=-0.36, p<.05; respectively). The younger the children were the lower they performed, as expected. On Hebrew inflectional analogies, there were several other indicators for level of performance. The measure of Hebrew analogies was positively associated with English inflectional analogies (b=0.13, p<.05), number of Hebrew morphemes, English

PA, and initial phoneme isolation in Hebrew- all these measures were all positively associated with Hebrew inflectional analogies (b=0.01, p<.01; b=0.03, p<.001; b=0.06, p<.01; respectively). Only the positive effect of number of Hebrew morphemes was consistently

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significant across all Hebrew morphological measurements, while grade (SK vs. G2) was negatively associated with compounds (b=-0.36, p<.05); similarly as with inflectional analogies.

In addition, the measure of English inflectional sentences was positively associated with

Hebrew inflectional sentences performance (b=0.11, p<.05).

In sum, English (L1) inflectional analogies predicted Hebrew (L2) inflectional analogies and English (L1) inflectional sentences predicted Hebrew (L2) inflectional sentences. In addition, number of Hebrew (L2) morphemes predicted the following morphological measures in Hebrew (L2): inflectional analogies, inflectional sentences, derivations-structure, derivations- decompositions and compounds. Lastly, English PA and Hebrew initial phoneme isolation predicted Hebrew inflectional analogies.

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Table 28 Regression Results for Hebrew (L2) Morphology Predicted by Grade, Phonological Awareness in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2), Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency, and English morphology

Inflectional Inflectional Derivation Derivation Compounds analogies sentences structure decomposition b (SE) Constant -0.01 (0.19) -2.03* (1.04) 1.14*** (0.27) 0.98* (0.38) 1.80*** (0.47) Grade (Wald) 16.03*** 3.88 0.31 2.16 6.44* SK vs. G2 -.46*** (0.12) -.81 (0.52) -0.06 (0.11) 0.20 (0.15) -.36* (0.15) G1 vs. G2 -13 (0.07) .01 (0.33) -0.02 (0.07) 0.06 (0.11) -.16 (0.09) Parrallel measure in .13*** (0.03) .11* (0.06) 0.02 (0.02) -0.004 (0.02) .05 (0.02) Englisha Number of Hebrew .01** .04*** 0.004* 0.01*** .01** morphemes (0.002) (0.01) (0.001) (0.002) (0.003) English phonology 0.03*** (0.01) 0.01 (0.03) 0.00 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) 0.02 (0.02) Hebrew phonology – 0.06** (0.02) 0.07 (0.09) 0.03 (0.02) 0.04 (0.03) 0.06 (0.03) initial phoneme Pairwise comparisons SK vs. G1 -1.34 (0.73) -0.72 (1.63) -0.17 (0.46) 0.72 (1.09) -3.21 (2.87) SK vs. G2 -1.98 (0.96) -0.73 (1.68) -0.29 (0.45) 1.01 (1.48) -5.67 (3.30) G1 vs. G2 -.63 (0.43) -0.01 (0.43) -0.12 (0.36) 0.29 (0.62) -2.46 (1.60) Estimated Marginal Means (SE) SK 3.40 (1.67) 0.58 (1.58) 4.76 (3.18) 5.58 (5.15) 14.97 (18.48) G1 4.74 (2.24) 1.30 (3.19) 4.93 (2.95) 4.87 (4.13) 18.31 (21.72) G2 5.38 (2.49) 1.31 (3.21) 5.05 (3.01) 4.58 (3.78) 21.44 (24.65) Goodness of fit – QICC 42.67 131.52 44.83 45.30 114.43 Note. SE = Standard error. a The parallel morphological measure in English, e.g., English inflectional analogies as a predictor of Hebrew inflectional analogies *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

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Discussion The development of morphological awareness in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2).

Study 3 investigated the developmental trajectories of MA components in English (L1) and

Hebrew (L2). The developmental trajectories between English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) were compared, and the order of acquisition of each of these component in each language was examined. Comparisons between different tasks that measure the same morphological construct were also conducted per language. In addition, a comparison between the two languages was conducted for tasks that are comparable across languages (i.e., inflectional analogies, inflectional sentences). Lastly, the impact of different predictors including morphological proficiency in Hebrew (L2), English PA, Hebrew initial phoneme isolation task performance, and parallel morphological measures in English on Hebrew morphological constructs was examined. The following discussion focuses separately on five parallel tasks that were administered in English and Hebrew (i.e., inflectional awareness- analogies; inflectional awareness- sentences; derivational awareness- structures; derivational awareness- decomposition, and compounds), which assessed three morphological constructs: inflections, derivations and compounds.

Inflectional skills in the L1 and L2 - analogies. As expected, in their L1 there was a gradual improvement from JK to Grade 2 in children’s skills with regard to inflections. In line with previous evidence (e.g., Berko, 1958), participants were able to produce simple inflected versions of words involving the simple plural, the progressive tense, the regular past tense, and regular comparatives and superlatives. Gradually, from to Grade 2 there was also an increase in their ability to handle irregular inflections (e.g., child-children), irregular past tense verbs (e.g., write-wrote), and regular 3rd person present tense (e.g., like-likes). Likewise, in Hebrew (their

L2), a gradual improvement was noted between SK and Grade 2 in children’s familiarity with

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basic inflectional principles. In line with previous findings (Geva & Shafman, 2010), those children who had just started to be exposed to Hebrew showed a steady growth in their awareness of some morphological rules in their L2 and an ability to recognize the rules that govern morphemes that signal Hebrew inflections. They began to demonstrate knowledge involving the plural marking of male and female nouns and verb inflections for gender in the present tense (e.g., shar-shara [=he sings-she sings]). At the same time, they were still unable to handle irregular plurals (e.g., beitza-beitzim =egg, [singular, female] – eggs [plural, male]), and transitions between tenses (e.g., kofetz-kafatz [=he jumps vs. he jumped]) even in Grade 2. The remarkable improvement between SK and Grade 1 may be related to a three interrelated factors:

(a) an increase in the “dosage” of exposure to Hebrew starting in Grade 1 (b) the salience of certain inflectional principles that appear to also be acquired early in young Hebrew as L1 children, and (c) transfer of general linguistic knowledge that the children acquire in their L1 to the L2. Specifically they can apply a cognitive metalinguistic understanding of how one can use language to mark distinctions between singular-plural, present and past tense, and gender and use these abstract concepts in their L2.

Inflectional skills in the L1 and L2 - sentences. As was the case with the “easier” analogies procedure, the results indicated consistent improvement on inflectional rules in the more demanding sentence base task where they had to generate the correct inflections on the basis of sentence context. The children demonstrated a steady increase in their ability to create different forms of inflections in English, their L1. SK children demonstrated morphological knowledge of markers for simple plurals (e.g., book-books) and started to show morphological skills related to markers for comparatives (e.g., tall-taller) and to infinitive forms of verbs (e.g., wrote-to write). By Grade 2 children also demonstrated greater facility with each of these morphological markers. However, they were still in the process of acquiring the morphological

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markers that indicate transitions between tenses including regular past simple (e.g., is jumping- jumped) and the progressive tense (e.g., skips-skipping) and continued to experience difficulties when they had to generate irregular plurals (e.g., goose-geese).

The findings from a parallel Hebrew task also showed a significant improvement between SK (5%) and Grade 2 (17%). As noted earlier the requirement to generate correctly inflected words is more demanding than tasks that enable children to rely on analogies. While there was a floor effect in SK, by Grade 2 children were somewhat more successful in doing it.

They started to demonstrate an ability to generate words that include simple plural in Hebrew

(L2). In addition, and as was the case on the analogies task, the children started to differentiate between morphological markers for male and female verbs in the present tense. This knowledge did not exist at SK but emerged at Grade 1 and Grade 2. Children were still unable to generate irregular plurals. They were also unable to carry out yet transformations between tenses that in

Hebrew should reflect number, gender and tense. For example: Hayom Noa kofetzet. Etmol

Noah...? (‘Today Noa jumps. ‘yesterday Noa…?’; Response: kaftza ([singular, female] jumped’).

In sum, in English (L1), SK children were able to produce simple inflected versions of words involving the simple plural, the progressive tense, the regular past tense, comparison words, and infinitive forms of verbs (e.g., wrote-to write). These skills became more established with age. SK children did not master irregular inflections (e.g., child-children), with irregular past tense verbs (e.g., write-wrote), and with regular 3rd person present tense (e.g., like-likes).

Learning to monitor for exceptions to morphological inflection rules continued to develop through Grade 1 and Grade 2.

In Hebrew, SK children demonstrated rudimentary familiarity with the plural marking of male and female nouns (e.g., Yalda-Yeladot =girl, girls), and verb inflections for gender in the

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present tense (e.g., shar-shara [=he sings-she sings]). This knowledge manifested itself in a more integrated way in Grade 1 and Grade 2. However, children were still unfamiliar with irregular plurals (e.g., beitza-beitzim =egg, [singular, feminine] – eggs [plural, masculine]), and were still unable to carry out the obligatory tense transformations (e.g., kofetz-kafatz [=he jumps vs. he jumped]) even in Grade 2.

Derivational awareness–structure. In general there was consistent improvement in chidlren’s ability to provide the correctly derived words in sentences between SK and Grade 2.

In line with the research literature and as was hypothesized, it was found that SK children were inconsistent in their ability to derive transparent forms. More specifically, they were able to derive transparent forms when the words were familiar and more frequent (e.g., teach-teacher and swim-swimmer), but they were unable to apply the principles governing these derivations to transparent but less frequent and less familiar words (e.g., appear-appearance, wash-washer).

However, by Grade 1 and Grade 2 the children performed well when they were asked to derive transparent forms (e.g., four-fourth, perform-performance). Yet, they continued to struggle with more complex morphological relations in English that are less semantically transparent and involve phonological shifts (e.g., long-length, express-expression).

Not surprising was the observation that in Hebrew there was a floor effect when children were asked to generate derived forms. When, instead, they were asked to select between two available options, JK and SK children continued to perform at chance level. However, a significant improvement was noted between SK (50%) and Grade 2 (61%)- probably due to the increase in the dosage of exposure to Hebrew coupled with emerging Hebrew reading skills.

The significant improvement in the forced- choice version points to a budding intuition about the relations between root words and their derivations.

Derivational awareness - decomposition. In the derivational awareness- decomposition

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task children were asked to provide, in English, a missing word in its correctly decomposed form in the sentence. A consistent improvement between SK (53%) and Grade 1 (74%), and between Grade 1 and Grade 2 (90%) was found. In line with the research literature, this finding suggests that derivational principles that involve transparent structures and semantic relations are mastered before more complex morphological relations that are less semantically transparent and involve phonological shifts. Grade 2 children were able to create phonological change- derived decompositions (e.g., decision-decide, discussion-discuss), but their knowledge was still incomplete and they made errors on some items (e.g., strength-strong, division-divide).

However, both Grade 1 and Grade 2 children were able to derive transparent decompositions

(e.g., agreeable-agree, dangerous-danger).

In Hebrew (L2), children were unable to decompose words and derive the correct morphological elements, and there was no significant improvement between SK and grade 2.

This was noted when asked to generate the derivations. Nor were they able to provide correct answers when the task required them to merely select one of two options. Clearly, this is an aspect of Hebrew morphology that emerges later in L2 learners.

Compounds. In English the head noun of compounds appears on the right (e.g., baseball, football) and the modifier is on the left. The English compounds task is a forced- choice task in which children needed to identify implicitly the head noun of and modifier of two compound words and select the correct option for made-up compounds. SK and Grade 1 children performed this task at chance level, but their performance began to improve by Grade

2., as they began to demonstrate partial knowledge about compounds (e.g., when they were asked "Which is the better name for a turtle that sings songs?" The knew to choose the correct answer "Turtle song" instead the distractor "Song turtle"). These findings contradict those from a previous study of 3- and 4-year-old English monolingual children, in which children

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understood the meaning of novel compounds and even produced them by combining recognized morphemes (Nicoladis, 2003). However, knowledge of compounds is not complete even among older children (Nagy et al., 2003), and different compounds tasks may yield different outcomes, depending on their demands. It may be that the items on the specific compounds task in the present study required a higher level of compounds knowledge such as manipulation of complex compounds with more than two constituent morphemes, low-frequency compounds, or with phonological shifts.

Unlike English, in Hebrew the head noun is on the left and the modifier appears on the right (e.g, beit sefer (school, literally “house of books”), beit Knesset (synagogue, literally,

“house of gathering”). The Hebrew version of the compounds task was different from the

English one in that in Hebrew, children were asked to generate the new compounds. However, the scoring was not dichotomous (correct/incorrect) but instead allowed for partially correct responses. A significant improvement was noted between SK (39%) and Grade 1 (52%), and between Grade 1 and Grade 2 (73%). This steady improvement may be due to some extent to the fact that even among the most rudimentary Hebrew vocabulary that these children were acquiring at school there was an abundance of compound words such as (beit-sefer (school), beit-Knesset (synagogue), rosh- Hashanah (literally, head of the year), and simchat-torah

(literaclly, celebration of torah). The compound in Hebrew is composed of two words that constitute a phrase, in which the head noun precedes the modifier adjective and a specific letter

'joins the nouns to create a compound (e.g., 'uga' [cake], 'shokolad (ת -taph/ (in Hebrew/

[chocolate] becomes 'ugat-shokolad' [Chocolate cake]). Once the children develop at least an implicit awareness of the position of the head noun and modifier they are gradually able to generate new compounds in Hebrew. Children perceive the structure of the compound in

Hebrew, after being exposed to various examples, and through this highly salient examples they

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probably develop implicit sensivity to Hebrew compounds and are able to to apply their knowledge to novel items.

It can be concluded that morphology is not a unified construct. In both languages some morphological aspects, such as inflections are acquired early and other are acquired later

(derivations, compounds). In English the principles that involve transparent structures are acquired before more complex morphological relations that are less semantically transparent and involve phonological shifts. In Hebrew, the children figure out the morphological combinations that are more frequent, consistent, or salient.

Comparisons between different tasks assessing the same morphological constructs

within each language separately.

One of the implications of the research conducted here is that it is important to pay attention to the nature of the tasks one uses when studying the development of specific language skills in the L1 or L2. Over and above isseus such as extent of exposure, individual differences and age of onset, it is important to pay attention to task demands and the extent to which tasks in the L1 and L2 assess the same skills. This is a challenging area, especially when one does not deal with balanced bilinguals, but rather with children whose L2 is in very early stages of development, so that vocabulary and grammatical skills are minimal. At the same time, because the L2 proficiency is so limited it is possible to track more clearly what is learned. In this section we focus not on L1-L2 comparisons, but instead on what we can learn about the development of morphological skills when different tasks that purport to measure the same skills are compared.

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Inflectional morphology. In this study we found children’s performance on the English analogies task and the English inflectional sentences task yielded consistent information about children’s command of inflections. However, when the same comparison was conducted in

Hebrew, performance on the analogies task was significantly better when compared to the sentences task. This difference reflects the fact that chidlren’s Hebrew language proficiency was flegling. This difference suggests that when language profiency is well established obvervations about specific language skills may not be as sensitive to task demands. Children have clearly mastered the relatively simple inflectional morphology in English their L1. It appears that children’s command of English (L1) inflectional morphology was stable and consistent and less affected by the extent of linguistic clues provided in the tasks. However, when L2 proficiency is fledgling, the structure of the task may play an important role. Stated differently, children’s knowledge of Hebrew (L2) inflectional morphology was more fragile and more dependent on the characteristics of the task. While both tasks involve discrete items, the inflectional sentences task posed heavier demands and required the generation of a correct form of inflections, in comparison to the analogies task that involved selecting the correct response from a previously provided parallel analogy. Thus, children may demonstrate their emerging knowledge of inflections when completing an easier task format (with a parallel analogy previously provided), while struggling when they have to generate the correct inflected form themselves.

Derivational morphology. Children performed significantly better on the English derivational decomposition task when compared to the English derivational structure task. In addition, the gap in the performance between the two tasks increased significantly across the grades. By Grade 2 the gap was the largest with children reaching a near-ceiling level (90%) on the decomposition task when compared to the structure task (71%). These findings suggest that it was easier for children to break English words into their basic constituent morphemes in

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comparison to locating the correct morpheme and adding it to a root word. The decomposition task required the child to identify the morpheme that was combined with the root word and remove it. So, if the child identified the basic root word s/he could infer which morpheme was tied to it. This task did not require deeper knowledge of the range of derivations that exists in

English and that one had to choose from. In constrat, the derivational structure task required accurate knowledge of the various derivations and the correct manner of putting them together with the basic root words and thus it was more demanding. It also required the child to compose the syntactic function that best fit the sentence. Sometimes the items included structures that were transparent, had semantic relations (e.g., "swim. She was a strong...?"), But at other times the derivation involved more complex morphological relations and phonological shifts (e.g.,

"long. They measured the ladder's...?"). In the second year of formal schooling, children whose

L1 was English continued to develop this knowledge gradually, from oral language and from reading, but have not mastered this linguistic skills completely (Carlisle, 1995).

In Hebrew (L2), the children were unable to create derivations, not even in Grade 2.

Moreover, even in the forced-choice task their performance was at chance. As discussed earlier, derivation in Hebrew is complex and is based on principles that are very different from those guiding derivaitons in English (Geva, 2008). Clearly it takes a long time to develop derivational morphology skills in Hebrew and the challenge is even bigger when exposure to Hebrew occurs only within the confines of the school. This renders a comparison between the decomposition task and the structure task in Hebrew (L2) meaningless. It appears that when the task is much more complex and when children have not yet had the opportunity to develop an awareness of the rules governing derivaitons, not much insight can be gained from comparing tasks which present different task demands.

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Comparisons of the same inflectional morphological tasks between English (L1) and

Hebrew (L2). In support of the hypothesis, significant differences between English (L1) and

Hebrew (L2) in both the analogies and the inflectional sentences tasks were found. Not suprisingly children’s performance was better in English than in Hebrew on these two parallel pairs of tasks. Also, significant differences among grades were found in both tasks. The overall interaction effect on inflectional sentences performance was due to independent differences between the two languages and between the grades. Accordingly, the change across grades on the inflectional sentences task was similar in both languages.

Predictors of Hebrew morphology-related skills. Results (summarized in Table 28) indicated that performance on the English analogies task significantly predicted performance on the Hebrew analogies task, and the English sentences inflection task significantly predicted performance on the Hebrew sentences inflection task. However, the English compound task did not predict the Hebrew compound task, and the derivations tasks in English did not predict the derivations tasks in Hebrew. Taken together, it may be concluded that morphological development in Hebrew (L2) is not a simple and unified construct. Morphological development draws on the first language at times. It is also affected by age and extent of exposure to the L2 at other times. However, some language components are more complex and take longer to develop.

Importantly, general linguistic knowledge in Hebrew (L2), assessed by the number of morphemes produced in a spontanseous narrative task was a significant predictor of the five

Hebrew morphological tasks. This indicates that general linguistic knowledge in Hebrew positively relates to performance on specific Hebrew morphological tasks, even when the structures assessed on the various discrete tasks do not yet occur in children’s spontaneous language. Thus, it appears that spontaneous language production ability and performance on

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specific morphological skills are interrelated and possibly form jointly a morphological construct.

The study provides strong evidence for transfer of morphological inflectional knowledge from English (L1) to Hebrew (L2). In general, children who do well on the English analogies task also do well on the Hebrew analogies task. Likewise, performance on the English inflectional sentences task is related to that on the Hebrew inflectional sentences task. However, as indicated earlier, derivations and compound tasks in English (L1) are not predictive of the derivations and compound related morphological skills in the L2. This has to do with the fact that the structures of the derivations tasks in English and Hebrew are not similar, nor are the principles governing the generation of compounds similar across English and Hebrew (see above).

Both English PA and Hebrew PA (initial phoneme isolation) predicted performance on the Hebrew inflectional analogies task but not on other Hebrew morphological tasks. As noted earlier, the Hebrew analogies task enabled children to select the correct response from a previously provided parallel analogy. Children may demonstrate their emerging knowledge of inflections in Hebrew in an easier task format, though they may have difficulties generating the correct inflected form themselves, as is the case in Hebrew inflectional sentences. In line with the hypothesis that inflections are acquired before derivations, of all the Hebrew discrete morphological tasks including the compounds, the Hebrew analogies task may serve as a basic indicator for the perception of the Hebrew language. As presented in the discussion of study 2,

Hebrew initial phoneme isolation task is mainly influenced by the Hebrew orthography and phonology structure, which prefers the body + Coda structure over the Onset+Rime observed in

English. Indeed, of all the Hebrew phonological tasks, the initial phoneme isolation task was the

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only one that predicted the Hebrew inflectional analogies task. These two early emerging aspects of Hebrew phonology and Hebrew morphology are related to each other.

While not the focus of this series of studies, the findings suggest that grade level (a proxy for age and cognitive development), combined with exposure to a bilingual high quality program that emphasizes both oral language proficiency and literacy skills contributes to

Hebrew (L2) morphological acquisition. (Of course to support this overall statement better, it would be necessary to compare across schools that vary in quality of instruction, extent of exposure to Hebrew and perhaps parental education). The present results also demonstrate that

Hebrew language proficiency is related to discrete components such as PA in both languages, and command of morphology components in English and Hebrew.

While the contrastive transfer framework (described in chapter 2) might suggest that because English and Hebrew are typologically different, one would not expect to find positive transfer between these two languages that are characterized by qualitatively different statistical properties. However, recent statistical learning frameworks suggest that learning the structural semitic properties of Hebrew (e.g., morphological complexity) may be facilitated by individual differences in cognitive systems that seek correlations of forms and meaning in the linguistic environment and by implicit assimilation of event co-occurrences (Frost et al., 2013). In line with this notion of statistical learning, in the current study, children’s ability to figure out the

“Im/ot” suffixes for masculine and feminine plurals, respectively, may reflect statistical learning. In other words, the children notice and pick up patterns that go together and figure out implictly the combinations that are more frequent, consistent, or salient. These individual differences in the propensity for statisitcal learning may explain why we find correlations among apparently dissimilar language compoennts. In terms of order of morphological acquisition, an association between English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) order of acquisition was

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found. This finding supports the notion that second language learners begin to acquire the linguistic elements that occur together more frequently.

On the whole, the results underscore the importance of considering complementary frameworks for L2 development, including typological differences (Lado, 1956), statistical learning (Frost et al., 2013), the notion of a threshold and extent of exposure (Cummins, 1976), the transfer facilitation model (Koda, 2008), and teaching and assessment approaches (Geva,

2014).

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Chapter Eight

General Discussion and Conclusion

Metalinguistic abilities (e.g., PA, MA) form the basis of language development in one’s first and second language and are crucial for the development of various language skills including reading acquisition, vocabulary, spelling, and reading comprehension (Wang, Perfetti, & Liu,

2005). Nonetheless, there is a dearth of research on MA and its order of acquisition in Hebrew

(L2). This dissertation investigated the development of meta-linguistic abilities in young bilingual children whose L2 is English and who are exposed to English at home, in the community, and for most of the day at school. Those young children have just began to be exposed to Hebrew (L2) at school. In this dissertation we focused on the development of various components of morphological skills, on production and order of acquisition.

Special attention was given to a differentiation between productive and spontaneous morphological proficiency (e.g., as measured by the "birthday party" narrative task) and more structured discrete knowledge (implicit or explicit) of various aspects of morphology. Different morphology domains were investigated, including inflections, derivations, and compounds in both English (L1) and Hebrew (L2).

The current research is comprised of three related studies. The first study focused on the production of obligatory morphological structures in Hebrew (L2), namely, Hebrew morpheme markers for nouns, adjectives, verbs, gender, and number. The second study focused on Hebrew

(L2) phonological development and its order of acquisition in Hebrew as L2. In addition, it examined potential predictors of Hebrew (L2) PA, such as Hebrew (L2) morphological proficiency and English (L1) PA. The third study examined morphological development and its order of acquisition in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2). It also examined potential predictors for

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Hebrew morphological measures, such as parallel morphological measures in English (L1), morphological proficiency in Hebrew (L2), and PA in both languages.

In both languages, a positive growth from SK to G2 was found across morphological domains. However, different levels of performance on tasks that measure the same morphological domain in each of the languages were found. Thus, it may be concluded that observations about performance on morphological tasks are mitigated by task-specific linguistic and cognitive demands. The gap in performance between tasks that measure the same domain of knowledge was larger in the weak language (Hebrew). For example, in the more structured morphological tasks in English (e.g., inflectional analogies task), children demonstrated an ability to apply simple inflections (e.g., producing versions of words involving the simple plural, the progressive tense, the regular past tense, and comparison words) while experiencing difficulties with irregular inflections (e.g., child-children) or irregular past tense verbs (e.g., write-wrote). In comparison, on the inflectional sentences task in English, children had difficulties in transitions between present simple and regular past tense, but demonstrated knowledge of markers for simple plural and comparisons. Thus, it may be concluded that in

English, knowledge of simple plural and comparisons words is more consistent and stable at

Grade 2 in comparison to tenses-related knowledge, and that this was reflected the selective task performance. In Hebrew, Grade 2 children demonstrated emerging knowledge of plural marking of masculine and feminine nouns and verb inflections in the present tense that consider gender in a consistent manner. This knowledge was reflected in children’s performance in Hebrew on the morphological (narrative) proficiency task, the inflectional analogies, and the inflectional sentences tasks. However, gaps in performance across the three tasks were found, with superior performance on the analogies task in comparison to the sentences task, both of which were superior to the birthday party task performance. Not suprisingly, these gaps were more

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pronounced in Hebrew (L2) than in English (L1).

In line with the hypothesis, in both English and Hebrew, command of inflections was ahead of command of derivations. In Hebrew, children were challenged when faced with the demand to generate derivations. This was evidenced in their performance on the narrative task and on the experimental morphological tasks that utilized discrete items. In English, knowledge of derivations was better yet dependent on task demands and on linguistic characteristics. When dealing with the derivations structure task, experienced difficulties when the derivations required phonological changes, but were able to generate derived words that were transparent.

By Grade 2 children were already able to decompose morphemes even when the change involved phonological changes, although their knowledge was not completely stable yet.

When the tasks in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) were comparable (i.e., inflectional analogies, inflectional sentences), evidence for transfer from English (L1) to Hebrew (L2) was noted. No evidence for transfer was found on the compounds task. In other words, performing well on an L1 task was reflected in the L2 learning on some tasks but not on others. As discussed in study 3, the principles for generating compounds in English and Hebrew are different. This difference was also indicated in the different developmental trajectories of the compounds in English (L1) and Hebrew (L2). Findings suggest that the transfer of MA from

English (L1) to Hebrew (L2) is dependent on common features between these two languages or on general linguistic knowledge that is expressed in both languages, and that its detection is sensitive to measurements used.

In line with the Contrastive Analysis Theory (Lado, 1958) and the cognitive capacity for statistical learning view (Frost et al., 2013), current findings underscore the notion that English and Hebrew are contrasting languages characterized by qualitatively different statistical properties. In sptie of these typological differences, we argue that learning the structural semitic

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properties of Hebrew (e.g., morphological complexity) is facilitated by cognitive systems that seek correlations of forms and meaning in the linguistic environment and by implicit assimilation of event co-occurrences. For example, children’s ability to figure out the “Im/ot” suffixes for masculine and feminine plurals, respectively, reflects statistical learning. In other words, the children notice and pick up patterns that go together and figure out the combinations that are more frequent, consistent, or salient. From this perspective it is not surprising that one finds parallels between Englsih and Hebrew in spite of the typological differences in how morphemes are used to generate words and reflect syntax. In line with this argument it was interesting to note that an association between English (L1) and Hebrew (L2) order of acquisition was found. This finding supports the notion that second language learners begin to acquire the linguistic elements that occur together more frequently and that are therefore more salient.

Grade differences in performance on three phonological tasks (i.e., initial and final phoneme isolation and syllable deletion) in Hebrew (L2) were found. The trajectory of the syllable deletion task may be affected by task demands and a qualitative improvement in working memory that occurs from SK to G1 and has been documented in the literature (Camos

& Barrouillet, 2011; Hitch, 2006). The role of CV bodies in Hebrew was confirmed by the unique developmental trajectory of the initial phoneme isolation task and the significant increase in sub-syllables units from SK to G1 with increased exposure to Hebrew orthography. A shift in preference of final phoneme (in literacy environment) over initial phoneme (in pre-literacy environment) was found as well as a shift in preference of the sub-syllabic unit over the singalton phoneme with increased exposure to Hebrew orthography, thus reflecting a process comparable to that among native Hebrew speakers. A strength of the current study is the ability to show that the change in preference from singleton phonemes to bodies (CVs) is orthographic,

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due to the fact that Grade 1 participants were learning to decode Hebrew in the absence of oral language proficiency.

PA in English (L1) was positively related to final phoneme isolation and syllable deletion in Hebrew (L2), in line with the study hypothesis. These findings corroborate previous evidence on transfer of PA across alphabetic languages regardless of typological differences

(e.g., Gottradio et al., 2001; Saiegh-Haddad & Geva, 2008). Children that have acquired PA were able to perform phonological tasks in their L1 and L2. However, this was not the case across the board. Specifically, PA in English did not predict initial phoneme isolation in Hebrew

(L2). This is another example of how performing well on an L1 task is reflected in the L2 learning on some tasks, but not on others (e.g., initial phoneme isolation). The children in Grade

1 were more exposed to the Hebrew phonology and orthography and to its body plus coda construct, and therefore there was no correlation between the initial phonme task in Hebrew and the PA task in English, due to the fact that the children began to use different rules. The developmental trajectory of the initial phoneme isolation task reflects unique linguistic characteristics of the Hebrew language and therefore is not predicted by English (L1) PA.

Limitations and Future Directions

A strength of the project is its longitudinal design. In tracking gradual phonological and morphological development of young children in two different typological languages at different stages of development, this study provides a comprehensive view of emergence of phonological and morphological skills over time, and of language-specific developmental trajectories. The observation that often there was an acceleration in the command of specific skills in the primary grades suggests the cumulatiave effects of language exposure coupled with the onset of systematic process of learning to read in English and Hebrew.

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An additional strength is the ability of the study to distinguish between PA and MA, and investigate each of these constructs separately. Finally, this study utilized various tasks that assess different domains of phonological and morphological constructs, thus enabling a deeper understanding of the emergence of various metalingstic skills in the L1 and L2. Furthermore, the use of multiple measures per construct increases the construct validity of the constructs under study. On a practical level, this may promote a finer level of decision-making, reasoning, and diagnosing. For example, lessons plan at school may include separate lessons for different aspects of morphology accompanied by explicit instructions and explanations on general rules and exceptions.

The sample in the current study included two cohorts within a single school. This may limit the generalizability of the findings to the specific educational system in the school, and other contextual factors such as SES, and instructional methods that may have affected the children’s language development. Future studies utilizing samples from various geographic locations and schools are warranted. Participants’ high SES may pose another limitation on generalizability due the indirect effect of SES on reading (Schiff & Lotem, 2010). Future investigations should utilize samples of children with a wider range of SES characteristics.

The study utilized only oral language proficiency measures. Future studies focusing on literacy measures (e.g., reading accuracy, reading comprehension) are needed. For example, it would be interesting to examine the applicability of Koda’s (2008) transfer facilitation model, which claims that there is a cross-linguistic transfer of meta-linguistic abilities in L1 to reading development in L2. It would also be interesting to interpret future studies in terms of statistical learning, to identify similar and disimlar language statistical properties between English and

Hebrew and to search for correlations between the cognitive ability for statistical learning and other cognitive abilities, such as working memory.

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All measures were carefully chosen, adapted, or developed for this study. Some measures had low inter-item test reliability, which may be related to the different levels of difficulty that characterize the items in each task. Accordingly, in several tasks high inter-item test reliability was not expected. Also, inter-item test reliability may have been affected by the small number of items on the tasks, which was due to the difficulty of generating items when children’s Hebrew proficiency was just emerging. The Hebrew derivation task was a forced- choice task of a dichotomous nature. This choice of task was based on children’s low Hebrew proficiency and the difficulty involved in listening and processing more than two response options, especially given the complexity of Hebrew morphology. It may be that having a greater number of available responses would have enhanced the measure’s reliability. At the same time, it may be that this task was too difficult for the population in this study. While inflectional awareness was measured with similar types of tasks within each language, the derivations and compound tasks were measured with different types of tasks, and therefore were not comparable between the two languages. Finally, children in the present study were assessed at the end of JK, end of SK, end of G1 and end of G2. Future longitudinal studies of children into higher grades are needed in order to promote the understanding of the language developmental trajectories of

PA and MA in Hebrew L2 learners.

Conclusions

This study focused on young children, native speakers of English, who just started to be exposed to Hebrew (L2) at school. The dissertation is composed of three theoretical interrelated studies that deal with phonological and morphological awareness which are both crucial meta-cognitive abilities for literacy acquisition. The first study dealt with Hebrew (L2) spontaneous morphological proficiency as was produced by a birthday narrative task, while the third study dealt with complementary aspects of morphology measured with descrete items in English (L1)

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and Hebrew (L2). The second study focused on Hebrew (L2) PA and its relationship with

English (L1) PA and Hebrew (L2) morphology.

Children first demonstrated the ability in Hebrew (L2) to create nouns, and only later to crease adjectives and verbs. Findings show that their learning process is more sequential than parallel, while native speakers of Hebrew express their knowledge in parallel trajectories.

Findings show that in this population children first learn how to inflect words and only after that, how to derive words, in a process similar to that of native Hebrew speakers.

It seems an important cognitive development takes place at G2 in both populations. This process was reflected by an increase in vocabulary and number of morphemes per word among second language learners of Hebrew. According to the literature on native Hebrew speakers, developmental cornerstones exist from the second year of life. Therefore, it may be that a more intensive exposure to Hebrew (L2) might serve to accelerate language acquisition and facilitate parallel linguistic trajectories of development at an early age.

In both languages and as expected, a positive development from SK to G2 was found across morphological domains. However, different levels of performance on tasks that measure the same morphological domain in each of the languages were found. In both languages, derivations were developed later than inflections. The transfer of MA from English (L1) to

Hebrew (L2) was found to be dependent on common features between the two languages or on general linguistic knowledge that is expressed in both languages, as well as on transfer measurements. With regards to the order of phonological acquisition in Hebrew (L2), it was found that the method of measuring and the different constructs of the English and Hebrew languages affected the developmental phonological trajectories and produced a pattern that is not supported by the literature. Specifically, the syllable deletion task loaded on working memory and therefore was not the easiest, and the initial phoneme separation task was

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influenced by the typological differences between English and Hebrew and its developmental trajectory was not typical. Complementary findings indicated transfer of PA from English (L1) to Hebrew (L2) for the final phoneme isolation and the syllable deletion tasks in Hebrew, but not for the initial phoneme isolation task.

The current project contributes to the literature on bilingual and second-language literacy acquisition by documenting the progress of young JK and SK children across two consecutive years in three points in time in the context of English (L1) and Hebrew (L2). The study also contributes to knowledge on the order of acquisition of phonological and morphological constructs among emerging English (L1)-Hebrew (L2) bilingual children. From a theoretical perspective, the findings support a view that considers the role of unique phonological and morphological characteristics in different typological languages, such as English (L1) and

Hebrew (L2). Findings highlight the need to increase the awareness of researchers, teachers and other professionals who work with young bilingual children regarding the appropriateness of certain tasks for young children, the importance of explicit instructions, and the match between specific tasks and the type of language knowledge that they aim to tap (Clark, 1978; Van

Kleeck, 1982).

With regard to school instruction, especially in the English-Hebrew bilingual context, findings indicate that there are parallel processes that take place in both languages and can be taught explicitly at school (e.g., adding im/ot for plurals in Hebrew and adding s in English to indicate plurals), taking into consideration language-specfic characteristics (e.g., in English there is not a differentiation between masculine plural and feminin plural). It is important to teach each morphological domain using a different measure to increase linguistic flexibility and facilitate a complete construct acquistion. It is important to pay attention to transfer process from English to Hebrew which may underlie children’s difficulties in their L2 in some respects

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but be faciliative in others. Future studies are needed to replicate the present findings in different

English-Hebrew bilingual contexts with more diverse groups exposed to different approaches to

L2 and L2 language and literacy instruction.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Parent Questionnaire Hello! Thank you for agreeing to take part in this project that focuses on bilingual early-childhood education, and for agreeing to fill out this questionnaire. Remember that your identity will be kept anonymous and only an ID number will be used in the data files. There are no right or wrong answers. Please try to answer all the questions. If there are two parents in your household we ask each of you to fill out the questionnaire separately. After you have completed the questionnaire, please put it in the attached envelope, seal it, and hand it to the teacher.

My name is ______

My child’s name is ______

Name of school/program ______

Thank you very much for your participation and contribution to this project!

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Section 1: Background questions regarding your childַ

Name of the early-childhood school/program that your child attends:______

1.1 Sex of the child: 1- male 2-female (please circle) 1.2 Primary home language :______1.3 Additional languages used at home: 1.______2. ______1.4 The child’s best language ______1.5 Date of birth of the child: year ______month______Day ______1.6 Is this your first born child? 1- Yes; 2- No (please circle) 1.7 At what age did your child begin to speak? ______1.8 At what age did your child begin to attend a bilingual early-childhood school/program?______1.9 Did your child attend an early childhood school or program of a different nature previously? 1- Yes; 2- No (please circle). If yes, what kind of a program? ______1.10 Below are questions concerning the time period in which you decided to register your child in a bilingual early-childhood school (please circle) Yes No

1. Did you consider different early-childhood education programs? 1 2 2. Did you visit other early-childhood schools or programs in order to 1 2 assess them? 3. Did you visit this bilingual early-childhood school or program 1 2 before you registered your child?

1.12. Did you discuss these options before making a decision? 1- Yes; 2- No (please circle) If yes, with whom? ______1.13 Did you receive advice from someone before you reached your decision?

1- Yes; 2- No (please circle) If yes, from whom? ______200

1.14 What was the importance of each of the following when choosing the bilingual early- childhood school/ program?

Not at all Somewhat Important Very Extremely important important Important Important 1. Operating hours of the 1 2 3 4 5 early-childhood school 2. Location 1 2 3 4 5 3. Cost 1 2 3 4 5 4. The professionalism of 1 2 3 4 5 the staff 5. The size of the class 1 2 3 4 5 6. Resources (games, 1 2 3 4 5 computers, other equipment) 7. Educational 1 2 3 4 5 method/philosophy 8. Instruction in Hebrew 1 2 3 4 5 and English 9. Recommendations of 1 2 3 4 5 family, friends 10. Facilities (yard, gym, 1 2 3 4 5 music room, size of the premises etc.) 11. Transportation 1 2 3 4 5

Please comment below about additional considerations on how you chose the particular early- childhood school/ program: ______

1.15 In Canada there are different types of bilingual early-childhood schools and programs. If you had the opportunity to choose, which bilingual early-childhood school or program would you want to send your child to? (please circle) 201

1- Chinese-English 2-French-English 3-Chinese-French 4- Hebrew-English 5- English-Russian 6- other ______

Section 2: Your opinions about the use of two languages- English and Hebrew - in the bilingual early-childhood school or program 2.1 What, in your opinion, needs to be the ratio between the use of Hebrew and English for different age groups? The main The main The use of The main The main I am not language is language is Hebrew language is language is sure Hebrew Hebrew, and English, English, and a little but use English in but use and a little English English as equal Hebrew as Hebrew Age: well proportions well 2-3 years 1 2 3 4 5 6 3-4 years 1 2 3 4 5 6 4-5 years 1 2 3 4 5 6 5-6 years 1 2 3 4 5 6 6-7 years 1 2 3 4 5 6

2.2 What is the actual ratio of the two languages- Hebrew and English- in your child's school/program?

The The main Hebrew and The main The main language I am not main language is English in equal language is is English, and sure language Hebrew proportions English, but Hebrew is used a is but use of Hebrew is little Hebrew English as used as well and a well little English 1 2 3 4 5 6

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Section 3: Your opinions and beliefs about bilingual early-childhood

education

1.3 There are differing opinions regarding bilingual education and language learning among children. Please circle the number that matches your opinion with regard to each of the statements below. 1- Definitely do 2- Mostly do 3- Partially 4- Mostly agree 5- Definitely

not agree not agree agree agree

1. In the modern world, English is the accepted international 1 2 3 4 5 language, and is more important for my child's future than the Hebrew language 2. I value very much maintaining the Hebrew language and culture 1 2 3 4 5 3. Bilingual education promotes shared values between the 1 2 3 4 5 country's residents and immigrants. 4. Acquiring two languages in early childhood delays the 1 2 3 4 5 development of the mother tongue and confuses the child 5. Bilingual education guarantees multiculturalism in Canada 1 2 3 4 5 6. Bilingual education promotes understanding and equality 1 2 3 4 5 between nations 7. I value the English language and Canadian culture 1 2 3 4 5 8. It is beneficial to raise a bilingual child in a multicultural country 1 2 3 4 5 like Canada 9. Simultaneous learning of English and Hebrew may have negative 1 2 3 4 5 outcomes, or the child will not learn either language well 10. Knowing English and Hebrew provides advantages in finding a 1 2 3 4 5 job in Canada 11. The child needs to know English well; it is the language of the 1 2 3 4 5 country in which s/he lives and learns 12. Acquiring two languages in early childhood is beneficial for 1 2 3 4 5 linguistic and intellectual development 13. The child needs to know Hebrew, the family's heritage language 1 2 3 4 5 14. Bilingual education leads to loss of language and ethnic 1 2 3 4 5 identity 15. Fluency in two languages such as Hebrew and English- is very 1 2 3 4 5 important for successful life in Canada 16. Acquiring two languages in early childhood confuses the child 1 2 3 4 5

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17. Being instructed in Hebrew and English simultaneously is not 1 2 3 4 5 beneficial 18. The child needs to become bicultural 1 2 3 4 5 19. Hebrew-English bilingual education weakens the bi-national 1 2 3 5 and bilingual (French-English) character of Canada 20. Someone who was educated in a bilingual framework will have 1 2 3 4 5 an advantage in their future academic achievements 21. Bilingual children are more sensitive to their peers 1 2 3 4 5 22. I do not care about Canadian multiculturalism policy 1 2 3 4 5 23. Bilingual education undermines the language and identity of 1 2 3 4 5 those who learn it 24. Acquiring two languages in early childhood is beneficial for the 1 2 3 4 5 child 25. Bilingual English-Hebrew educations enhances the child’s 1 2 3 4 5 identity

3.2 Imagine your child at age 25. How do you see his/her future?

What country does s/he live in? ______

What languages does s/he know? ______

Section 4: The use of Hebrew and English in your family 1.3 What languages do you speak in your home (please write your responses below): Main language Additional language 1. With my spouse 2. With the child 3. With the extended family 4. With friends

4.2 What is your level of English proficiency (circle the number that applies)

Not Not that Not proficient Quite highly proficient proficient enough Proficient proficient 204

at all 1. Understanding 1 2 3 4 5 spoken English

2. Communicating in 1 2 3 4 5 English 3. Reading in English 1 2 3 4 5 4. Writing in 1 2 3 4 5 English

4.3 What is your child's level of English in comparison with his/her friends (circle the number that applies)

Not Not that Not proficient Quite highly proficient proficient enough Proficient proficient at all 1. Understands 1 2 3 4 5 spoken English 2. Communicates 1 2 3 4 5 in English 3. Familiar with 1 2 3 4 5 the alphabet 4. Can write name 1 2 3 4 5 in English 5. Understands 1 2 3 4 5 English television programs

3.4 How frequently do you do these behaviors? For each question please circle the number that best describes what happens in your home with the Hebrew and English languages

How often do you: Never Once Once Several Once A a a times a a few month week week day times a day 1. Ask your child to translate a word 1 2 3 4 5 6 from Hebrew to English 2. Expose your child to English 1 2 3 4 5 6 language television programs

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3. Invite English speaking children to 1 2 3 4 5 6 play at your home 4. Take your child to a play or watch a 1 2 3 4 5 6 movie in English 5. Take your child to a play or watch a 1 2 3 4 5 6 movie in Hebrew 6. Invite Hebrew speaking children to 1 2 3 4 5 6 play at your home 7. Expose your child to Hebrew 1 2 3 4 5 6 language television programs? 8. Ask your child to translate a word 1 2 3 4 5 6 from English to Hebrew?

4.5 a. My child’s mother tongue (or best language) is: 1. English 2. Hebrew (please circle) b. What has changed as a result of your child attending a bilingual early-childhood school or program? How has it influenced members of the family?

Yes No 1. The child has begun to understand the second language better 1 2 2. The child has begun to speak better in the second language 1 2 3. The child's mother tongue has improved 1 2 4. The child's mother tongue has weakened 1 2 5. The child has begun to use more words in the second language 1 2 6. The child has begun to say more sentences in the second language 1 2 7. The child has begun to watch more television programs in the second 1 2 language 8. The child has begun to speak more frequently with children in the second 1 2 language 9. The child has begun to communicate more frequently with the preschool 1 2 teacher in the second language 10. The child has begun to communicate more frequently with adults in the 1 2 second language

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4.6 a. Please circle the number that matches your opinion with regard to each of the statements below. Definitely Mostly do Partially Mostly Definitel do not not agree agree agree y agree agree 1. I am pleased that I chose a bilingual early childhood school/program for my child

2. I would repeat the experience and send another child to a bilingual early childhood school/program

3. My child is happy in the early childhood school/program

b. If your child is not that happy at the school or program, what in your opinion are the reasons. Please, explain. ______c. Will your child continue in this school/program next year? 1- Yes; 2- No (please circle)

4.7 a. Please circle the answer that matches your situation with regard to each of the statements below Yes No 1. you have friends or relatives who send their children to a similar

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bilingual early-childhood school/program

2. you are 1st generation immigrant 3. you have in Canada extended family members who are English/Hebrew bilingual? 4. you have in Canada extended family members who speak only Hebrew

5. You have in Canada extended family members who speak only English

6. Most of my friends are English and Hebrew bilingual speakers

7. I have some friends who primarily speak English

8. I have some friends who primarily speak Hebrew

9. I have friends whose primary language is neither English nor Hebrew

b. If you are 1st generation immigrant , in what year did you move to Canada?______c. If you have friends whose primary language is neither English nor Hebrew, please specify what languages they speak ______

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Section 5: Literacy practices in your family

5.1 How old was your child when you first began to read to him/her? (fill in the blanks) The child was ______year(s) old 5.2 a. How many books do you have in your home in any language? (check one) 0 to 10 ______11 to 20 ______21 to 50 ______50 to 100 _____more than 100____ b. How many children’s books do you have in your home in any language? (check one) 0 to 10 ______11 to 20 ______21 to 50 ______50 to 100 _____more than 100____ 5.3 Who do you think should be responsible for teaching a child to read and write in English? (Select one answer) 1. Parents 2. Primarily parents, then the teacher 3. Both parents and teachers equally 4. Primarily teacher, then parents 5. Teacher 5.4 Who do you think should be responsible for teaching a child to read and write in Hebrew? (Select one answer) 1. Parents 2. Primarily parents, then the teacher 3. Both parents and teachers equally 4. Primarily teacher, then parents 5. Teacher 5.5 a. We would like to learn more about reading and writing in English in your home. For each question please circle the number that best describes what happens in your home with the English language.

How often do you: Never Once a Once a week Several Every day month times a week 1. Read newspapers, 1 2 3 4 5

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books, or magazines in

English?

2. Write messages, 1 2 3 4 5 notes, or lists magazines in English? 3. Write letters, 1 2 3 4 5 greeting cards, diaries, stories, or poems in English?

b. How often do you do these with your child? Never Once a Once a week Several Every day month times a week 1. Read books 1 2 3 4 5 in English to your child

2. Teach your 1 2 3 4 5 child how to count things in English

3. Teach your 1 2 3 4 5 child the English alphabet 4. Teach your 1 2 3 4 5 child to read words in English 5. Teach your 1 2 3 4 5 child how to write his/her name in English 6. How often 1 2 3 4 5 does your 210

child ask you to read to him/her in English 7. How often 1 2 3 4 5 does your child look at English books by him/herself 8. My child 1 2 3 4 5 does not care in what language I read to him/her 5.6 a. We would like to learn more about reading and writing in Hebrew in your home. For each question please circle the number that best describes what happens in your home with the Hebrew language.

How often do you: Never Once a Once a week Several Every day month times a week 1. Read newspapers, 1 2 3 4 5 books, or magazines in Hebrew

2. Write messages, notes, 1 2 3 4 5 or lists magazines in Hebrew 3. Write letters, greeting 1 2 3 4 5 cards, diaries, stories, or poems in Hebrew

b. How often do you do these with your child?

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Never Once a Once a week Several Every day month times a week 1. Read books 1 2 3 4 5 in Hebrew to your child 2. Teach your 1 2 3 4 5 child how to count things in Hebrew

3. Teach your 1 2 3 4 5 child the Hebrew alphabet 4. Teach your 1 2 3 4 5 child to read words in Hebrew 5. Teach your 1 2 3 4 5 child how to write his/her name in Hebrew 6. How often 1 2 3 4 5 does your child ask you to read to him/her in Hebrew 7. How often 1 2 3 4 5 does your child look at Hebrew books by him/herself

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Section 6:General questions about the person who filled out this questionnaire

6.1 Are you: 1. Male 2. Female 6.2 What age group do you belong to? 1- 20-30 2- 30-40 3- 40-50 4- 50-60 5- 60-70 6.3 Family status: 1- Single 2- Married 3- Divorced 4- Widowed 5-Live with a partner 6- live with extended family 6.4 What is your mother tongue? 1- Hebrew 2- English 3- Other______6.5 What is your spouse's mother tongue? 1- Hebrew 2- English 3- Other______6.6 Do you have other children? 1- Yes 2- No 6.7 What is your highest level of education (please circle one)? a. I have elementary school education b. I am a high school graduate c. I completed vocational high school d. I have post secondary vocational training e. I am a college graduate f. I have an undergraduate university degree g. I have a graduate university degree h. other

Please feel free to add below comments and additional issues with regard to bilingualism and early education ______We thank you for your contributions and patience!

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Date:______ID Number:______Tester’s Name:______

Appendix B: Digit Span Forward/Backward

Say: “I want you to listen to some numbers one after another. Listen carefully, and after you hear the numbers, you have to say them in the same order that you heard them”. “Let’s try it: if I say 5-7, you will say…..?” (wait to the child’s answer). If he does know, then say: “5-7”. “Let’s do another example, if I say 8-2, you will say….?” (wait to the child’s answer).

Stop point: Stop if the child was wrong on both trials in the same row.

# Trial 1 Score Trial 2 Score Sum 0/1 0/1 .1 2-9 4-6 .2 3-8-6 6-1-2 .3 3-4-1-7 6-1-5-8 .4 8-4-2-3-9 5-2-1-8-6 .5 3-8-9-1-7-4 7-9-6-4-8-3

.6 5-1-7-4-2-3-8 9-8-5-2-1-6-3 .7 1-6-4-5-9-7-6-3 2-9-7-6-3-1-5-4 .8 5-3-8-7-1-2-4-6-9 4-2-6-9-1-7-8-3-5 Digit forward score (Max=16):______

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Date:______ID Number:______Tester’s Name:______

Digit Span -Backward

Say: “I am going to say some numbers. Listen carefully, and after you hear the numbers, I want you to say them backwards. So, if you hear “8-2”, (then pause), you say _____ (wait for the child’s response). If you hear “5-6” (then pause), you say ______(wait for the child’s response). Score: 1 point for each correct answer.

Stop point: Stop if the child was wrong on both trials in the same row.

Trial 1 Score Trial 2 Score Sum 0/1 0/1 Sample 8-2 5-6

.1 2-5 6-3

.2 5-7-4 2-5-9

.3 7-2-9-6 8-4-9-3

.4 4-1-3-5-7 9-7-8-5-2

.5 1-6-5-2-9-8 3-6-7-1-9-4

.6 8-5-9-2-3-4-2 4-5-7-9-2-8-1

.7 6-9-1-6-3-2-5-8 3-1-7-9-5-4-8-2

Digit backward score (Max=14):______

Total score (Forward + Backward) (Max=30):______

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Appendix C: Initial Phoneme Isolation, Final Phoneme Isolation and Syllable Deletion (in Hebrew)

תאריך: ______מס' סידורי:______שם הבוחן:______

מודעותַפונולוגית

בידודַפונמהַראשונה הוראותַלנבדק:ַ"אני אראה לך תמונה ואתה תגיד לי מה אתה רואה בה )שיום התמונה( ומהו הצליל הראשון במילה. לדוגמה: 1. אנו רואים תמונה של בננה. המילה "בננה" מתחילה בצליל 'ב'.2. אנו רואים תמונה של צפרדע. המילה "צפרדע" מתחילה בצליל 'צ'.

“I will show you a picture and you will tell me in Hebrew what you see. If you do not know the word, I will tell you what the word means in Hebrew and then you will repeat it. After that, I would like you to say in Hebrew the first sound of the word in Hebrew. For example, we see here a picture of a banana. Banana in English is also banana in Let us try another .’ בַ‘ /Hebrew. The word banana in Hebrew begins with the sound /b "צפרדע"The wordַ ."צפרדע" example. We see here a picture of a frog. Frog in Hebrew is ." צַ" /begins with the sound /tz

הוראות לבוחן: במהלך הדוגמאות, מאשרים תשובה נכונה. במידה וניתנה תשובה שגויה, אומרים לנבדק את התשובה הנכונה. במידה והנבדק מתקשה בהבנת המטלה, ניתן לתת לו עוד דוגמה אחת נוספת. במידה והילד מתקשה בשיום התמונה בעברית, יש לעזור לו. חשוב לרשום את תשובתו של הילד באופן מדויק, אם בידד את הפונמה הראשונה או את הצירוף הראשון )עיצור + תנועה(. לדוגמה: במילה – בננה הילד בידד " ב " במקום " ב ". בעת העברת המבחן אין לתת משוב לנבדק ואין לתת יותר פריטים לדוגמה. אם נבדק מהסס במתן התשובה, יש לעודד אותו לנחש. במידה והנבדק לא נתן תשובה במשך עשר שניות, יש לסמן פריט זה כשגוי ולהמשיך לפריט הבא. לא לשכוח לכתוב את התשובה שהילד נתן.

ציינון: על כל תשובה נכונה- נקודה אחת. תשובה שגויה- אפס.

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מס' הוראות לבוחן במידה הוראה לבוחן צליל תשובה ציון והילד יודע את המילה במידה והילד אינו יודע את המילה המטרה 0\1 בעברית ואומר אותה בעברית 1 נר Say:” Candle in Hebrew is נ "באיזה צליל מתחילה ’נר‘ המילה "נר"? . ’נר‘ :Please say אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה בעברית, אמור: “Now, say, the first sound of ’נר‘ the word 2 גלידה Say:” Ice cream in Hebrew is ג באיזה צליל מתחילה ’גלידה‘ המילה "גלידה"? . ’גלידה‘ :Please say “Now, say,the first sound ’גלידה‘ of the word

3 דוב Say:” Bear in Hebrew is ד באיזה צליל מתחילה ’דוב‘ המילה "דוב"? . ’דוב‘ :Please say “Now, say, the first sound ’דוב‘ of the word

4 סנאי Say:” Squirrel in Hebrew is ס באיזה צליל מתחילה ’סנאי‘ המילה "סנאי"? . ’סנאי‘ :Please say “Now, say, the first sound ’סנאי‘ of the word

5 מצלמה Say:” Camera in Hebrew is מ באיזה צליל מתחילה ’מצלמה‘ המילה "מצלמה"? . ’מצלמה‘ :Please say “Now, say, the first sound ’מצלמה‘ of the word

6 זבוב ’זבוב‘ Say:” Fly in Hebrew is ז באיזה צליל מתחילה . ’זבוב‘ :Please say המילה "זבוב"? Now, say the first sound“ ’זבוב‘ of the word

7 תות Say: ”Strawberry in Hebrew ת באיזה צליל מתחילה ’תות‘ is המילה "תות"? . ’תות‘ :Please say “Now, the first sound of ’תות‘ the word 217

8 כרובית Say:” Cauliflower in Hebrew כ

באיזה צליל מתחילה ’כרובית‘ is

המילה "כרובית"? . ’כרובית‘ :Please say

“Now, say, the first sound

’כרובית‘ of the word

9 לימון Say:” Lemon in Hebrew is ל באיזה צליל מתחילה ’לימון‘ המילה "לימון"? . ’לימון‘ :Please say “Now, say, the first sound ’לימון‘ of the word

10 דלי Say:” Bucket in Hebrew is ד באיזה צליל מתחילה ’דלי‘ המילה "דלי"? . ’דלי‘ :Please say “Now, say, the first sound ’דלי‘ of the word

ציון סופי: ______

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תאריך: ______מס' סידורי:______שם הבוחן:______

מודעותַפונולוגית

בידודַפונמהַאחרונה

הוראותַלנבדק:ַ"אני אראה לך תמונה ואתה תגיד לי מה אתה רואה בה )שיום התמונה( ומהו הצליל האחרון במילה. לדוגמה: 1. אנו רואים תמונה של סוס. המילה "סוס" מסתיימת בצליל 'ס'. 2. אנו רואים תמונה של קשת. המילה "קשת" מסתיימת בצליל 'ת'.

“I will show you a picture and you will tell me in Hebrew what you see. If you do not know the word, I will tell you what it means in Hebrew and then you will repeat it. After that, I would like you to say in Hebrew the last sound of the word in Hebrew. For "סוס"ַ The word ."סוס" example, we see here a picture of a horse. Horse in Hebrew is .Let us do another example: We see here a picture of a rainbow .’ ס ‘ ends with the sound ." ת " ends with the sound "קשת"The wordַ ."קשת" Rainbow in Hebrew is

הוראות לבוחן: במהלך הדוגמאות, מאשרים תשובה נכונה. במידה וניתנה תשובה שגויה, אומרים לנבדק את התשובה הנכונה. במידה והנבדק מתקשה בהבנת המטלה, ניתן לתת לו עוד דוגמה אחת נוספת. במידה והילד מתקשה בשיום התמונה, יש לעזור לו. חשוב לרשום באופן מדויק את תשובתו, אם בידד את הפונמה האחרונה או את ההברה האחרונה. לדוגמה: במילה קשת הילד בידד "שֶ ת" – במקום "ת". בעת העברת המבחן אין לתת משוב לנבדק ואין לתת יותר פריטים לדוגמה. אם נבדק מהסס במתן התשובה, יש לעודד אותו לנחש. במידה והנבדק לא נתן תשובה במשך עשר שניות, יש לסמן פריט זה כשגוי ולהמשיך לפריט הבא. לא לשכוח לכתוב את תשובת הילד לכל פריט.

ציינון: על כל תשובה נכונה- נקודה אחת. תשובה שגויה- אפס. 219

מס' הוראות לבוחן הוראה לבוחן צליל תשובה ציון במידה והילד יודע במידה והילד אינו יודע את המילה המטרה 0\1 את המילה בעברית בעברית ואומר אותה 1 כוס ’כוס‘ Say:” Cup in Hebrew is ס "באיזה צליל . ’כוס‘ :Please say מסתיימת המילה אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה "כוס", מה הצליל בעברית, אמור: האחרון במילה? Now, say, the last sound of“ ’כוס‘ the word 2 ורד ’ורד‘ Say:” Rose in Hebrew is ד "באיזה צליל . ’ורד‘ :Please say מסתיימת המילה אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה "ורד", מה הצליל בעברית, אמור: האחרון במילה? Now, say, the last sound of“ ’ורד‘ the word 3 מסרק Say:” Comb in Hebrew is ק "באיזה צליל ’מסרק‘ מסתיימת המילה . ’מסרק‘ :Please say "מסרק", מה הצליל אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה האחרון במילה? בעברית, אמור: “Now, say, the last sound of ’מסרק‘ the word 4 מגהץ ’מגהץ‘ Say:” Iron in Hebrew is צ "באיזה צליל . ’מגהץ‘ :Please say מסתיימת המילה אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה "מגהץ", מה הצליל בעברית, אמור: האחרון במילה? Now, say, the last sound of“ ’מגהץ‘ the word 5 ברווז Say:” Duck in Hebrew is ז "באיזה צליל ’ברווז‘ מסתיימת המילה . ’ברווז‘ :Please say "ברווז", מה הצליל אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה האחרון במילה? בעברית, אמור: “Now, say, the last sound of ’ברווז‘ the word 6 שעון Say:” Watch in Hebrew is נ "באיזה צליל ’שעון‘ מסתיימת המילה . ’שעון‘ :Please say "שעון", מה הצליל אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה האחרון במילה? בעברית, אמור: “Now, say, the last sound of ’שעון‘ the word

220

7 דג ’דג‘ Say:” Fish in Hebrew is ג "באיזה צליל . ’דג‘ :Please say מסתיימת המילה אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה "דג", מה הצליל בעברית, אמור: האחרון במילה? Now, say, the last sound of“ ’דג‘ the word

8 שמש ’שמש‘ Say:” Sun in Hebrew is ש "באיזה צליל . ’שמש‘ :Please say מסתיימת המילה אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה "שמש", מה הצליל בעברית, אמור: האחרון במילה? Now, say, the last sound of“ ’שמש‘ the word

9 פיל Say:” Elephant in Hebrew is ל "באיזה צליל ’פיל‘ מסתיימת המילה . ’פיל‘ :Please say "פיל", מה הצליל אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה האחרון במילה? בעברית, אמור: “Now, say, the last sound of ’פיל‘ the word 10 טבעת Say:” Ring in Hebrew is ת "באיזה צליל ’טבעת‘ מסתיימת המילה . ’טבעת‘ :Please say "טבעת", מה הצליל אחרי שהילד חזר על המילה האחרון במילה? בעברית, אמור: “Now, say, the last sound of ’טבעת‘ the word

ציון סופי: ______

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תאריך: ______מס' סידורי:______שם הבוחן:______

מודעות פונולוגית

השמטתַהברות הוראות לנבדק: " אני אומר לך מספר מילים בעברית. אתה תחזור על כל מילה ואחר-כך תאמר אותה בלי חלק/ צליל ממנה.

ננסה מספר דוגמאות: 1. אמור – ס פ ר. כעת אמור ספר בלי ' ס '– מה נשאר? ' פ ר'.

“I will tell you several words in Hebrew. You will repeat in Hebrew every word that I say. After that, I would like you to say what is left in Hebrew when we take away a :Say ."ספר" small part of the word.” For example, the word ‘book’ in Hebrew is without saying "ספר"ַ Wait until the child repeats the word). “Now, say the word)’ספר‘ ." פַר" ?What is left , ַ’ סַ‘ Wait) ’פנים‘ :Say ." .’פנים‘ Let us do another example: “The word ‘face’ in Hebrew is“ without saying "פנים"ַ until the child repeats the word). “Now, say the word ."פַַן" ?What is left , ַ’ים‘

הוראותַלבוחן: במהלך הדוגמאות, מאשרים תשובה נכונה. במידה וניתנה תשובה שגויה, אומרים לנבדק את התשובה הנכונה.

במידה והנבדק מתקשה בהבנת המטלה, ניתן לתת לו עוד דוגמה אחת נוספת. יש לרשום את התשובה השגויה של הנבדק במדויק.

בעת העברת המבחן אין לתת משוב לנבדק ואין לתת יותר פריטים לדוגמה. אין לחזור על פריטי המבחן. אם נבדק מהסס במתן

התשובה, יש לעודד אותו לנחש. במידה והנבדק לא נתן תשובה במשך עשר שניות, יש לסמן פריט זה כשגוי ולהמשיך לפריט

הבא. לא לשכוח לרשום את תשובת הילד.

ציינון: על כל תשובה נכונה- נקודה אחת. תשובה שגויה- אפס.

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אמור: אמור: תשובה:ַ ציון: רישוםַ 0\3 תשובהַ שגויה 3. גשם Now, say“ ש ם :Say: “The word ‘rain’ in Hebrew is ' גַ שַם' Wait until the child say) ’גשם‘ Say .’גשם‘ Without saying the word) ' גַ' 2. כפתור Now, say“ כַ ף :Say: “The word ‘button’ in Hebrew is 'כַַ פַתֹור' Wait until the child say) ’כפתור‘ Say .’כפתור‘ Without saying the word) 'תֹור'

3. יקר Now, say“ קַ ר Say: “The word ‘expensive’ in Hebrew ' ַי קַַר' Wait until the child say) ’יקר‘ Say .’יקר‘ :Without is saying the word) ' ַי '

4. מדחום Now, say“ חֹום Say: “The word ‘thermometer’ in 'מַַ דַחֹום' Wait until) ’מדחום‘ Say .’מדחום‘ :Without Hebrew is saying the child say the word) 'מַַד'

5. חדרון Now, say“ חַ ד Say: “The two words ‘small room’ in 'חַַ דַרֹון' Wait until) ’חדרון‘ Say .’חדרון‘ :Without Hebrew is saying the child say the word) 'רֹון'

6. בדרן Now, say“ בָ ד Say: “The word ‘entertainer’ in Hebrew ' בַ דַרַַן' Wait until the child) ’בדרן‘ Say .’בדרן‘ :Without is saying say the word) 'רַַן' 7. ספסל Now, say“ סַ ל :Say: “The word ‘bench’ in Hebrew is ' סַ פַסַַל' Wait until the child say) ’ספסל‘ Say .’ספסל‘ Without saying the word) ' סַ פַ'

8. קלמר Now, say“ קָ ל Say: “The word ‘pencil case’ in Hebrew ' קַ לַמַַר'

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Wait until the child) 'קלמר' Say .'קלמר' :Without is saying say the word) 'מַַר'

9. שחור Now, say“ חֹור :Say: “The word ‘black’ in Hebrew is ' שַחֹור' Wait until the child say) ’שחור‘ Say .’שחור‘ Without saying the word) ' שַ'

11. קרחון Now, say“ קָ ר :Say: “The word ‘iceberg’ in Hebrew is ' קַ רַחֹון' Wait until the child say) ’קרחון‘ Say .’קרחון‘ Without saying the word) 'חֹון'

ציון סופי: ______

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Appendix D: English Elision CTOPP

Date:______ID Number:______Tester’s Name:______

CEILING: Stop after child misses 3 test items in a row. FEEDBACK: Give feedback on all practice items and test items 1-5 only. SCORING: Record correct answers as 1 and incorrect answers as 0. The total raw score for this subtest is the total number of correct test items up to the ceiling. DIRECTIONS: Say, “Let’s play a word game.” You should listen to the recording and follow the instructions. PRACTICE ITEMS: Correct Response/ Score 0/1

a. Say toothbrush. Now say toothbrush without saying tooth.” Brush If correct say, “That’s right. Let’s try the next one.” If incorrect say, “That’s not quite right. Toothbrush without saying tooth is brush.”

Continue to give correct/incorrect feedback as before. Say, “Let’s try some more.” (play remaining practice items, stop after each item to give feedback) b. Say airplane. Now say airplane without saying plane. Air c. Say doughnut. Now say doughnut without saying dough. Nut TEST ITEMS: Continue to give correct/incorrect feedback as before

1. Say popcorn. Now say popcorn without saying corn. Pop 2. Say baseball. Now say baseball without saying base. 3. Say spider. Now say spider without saying der. Ball

Spy

PRACTICE ITEMS: Say, “Okay, now let’s try some words where we take away smaller parts of the words.” Continue to give correct/incorrect feedback. Important - Say the phoneme, (not the letter name). (e.g., /k/ is the sound made by the letter k).

Each item is scored as 0 or 1

d. Say cup. Now say cup without saying /k/. up

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If correct say, “That’s right. Let’s try the next one.” If incorrect say, “That’s not quite right. Cup without saying /k/ is up.” e. Say meet. Now say meet without saying /t/. me f. Say farm. Now say farm without saying /f/. arm TEST ITEMS: Continue to give correct/incorrect feedback as before 4. Say bold. Now say bold without saying /b/. old ______5. Say mat. Now say mat without saying /m/. at ______REMAINING TEST ITEMS: Provide no feedback on remaining items. 6. Say tan. Now say tan without saying /t/. an ______7. Say mike. Now say mike without saying /k/. my ______8. Say time. Now say time without saying /m/. tie ______9. Say tiger. Now say tiger without saying /g/. tire ______10. Say powder. Now say powder without saying /d/. power ______11. Say winter. Now say winter without saying /t/. winner ______12. Say snail. Now say snail without saying /n/. sail ______13. Say faster. Now say faster without saying /s/. fatter ______14. Say sling. Now say sling without saying /l/. sing ______15. Say driver. Now say driver without saying /v/. dryer ______16. Say silk. Now say silk without saying /l/. sick ______

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17. Say flame. Now say flame without saying /f/. lame ______18. Say strain. Now say strain without saying /r/. stain ______19. Say split. Now say split without saying /p/. slit ______20. Say fixed. Now say fixed without saying /k/. fist ______

Total score:______

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Appendix E: PPVT – English Receptive Vocabulary Measure (Individual)

Materials: Binder with pictures, individual student score sheet

Notes: Use Practice Test Plate A; Look at the list below to determine what set to begin with.

Directions: Say, “I am going to show you a page with some pictures on it. Then, I’m going to say a word. I want you to point to the picture of the word that I say, or you can tell me the number of the picture. Let us do an example”.

Practice Items: 1. Turn to Training Page B 2. Say “laughing” 3. Wait for the student to point to the picture that matches the word you said. 4. Repeat steps 1 – 3 for the remaining three practice words (B2- sleeping, B3- hugging, B4- walking).

Feedback: Give feedback only on the practice items. If the student does not answer correctly/completely, model the correct answer for the child. Point to Plate B1 and say: “I think that this picture looks like they are laughing”

The Start Item: is the first item in the age- appropriate item set.

The Complete Set Rule requires the administration of all 12 items in the set in a sequential order, beginning with the first item in the set.

The Basal Set Rule is one (1) or zero (0) errors in a set. Establish the Basal Set first. If necessary, administer earlier sets until the rule is met or until Set 1 is completed. Then test forward by sets until a Ceiling Set is obtained.

The Ceiling Set Rule is eight (8) or more errors in a set. Stop testing after giving all items in the Ceiling Set.

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Scoring: Record the examinee’s response (1, 2, 3, or 4) on the record form by circling the number corresponding to the stimulus word for each item. The correct response is bolded in the answer sheet. Indicate an error (incorrect or no response) by drawing an oblique line through the E.

Ages 4 Through Adult

Training Page B

B1 laughing 1 2 3 4 E

B2 sleeping 1 2 3 4 E

B3 hugging 1 2 3 4 E

B4 walking 1 2 3 4 E

Remember! If the child did not succeed on any of the B1 to B4 practice items then go back to training page A

Ages 2:6 Through 3:11

Training Page A

A1 Boy 1 2 3 4 E

A2 Chair 1 2 3 4 E

A3 Puppy 1 2 3 4 E

A4 Bike 1 2 3 4 E

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Start SET Start SET Ages 1 Age 4 2 2:6- 3:11 1. Ball 1 2 3 4 E 13. Pencil 1 2 3 4 E 2. Dog 1 2 3 4 E 14. Cookie 1 2 3 4 E 3. Spoon 1 2 3 4 E 15 Drum 1 2 3 4 E 4. Foot 1 2 3 4 E 16. Turtle 1 2 3 4 E 5. Duck 1 2 3 4 E 17. Red 1 2 3 4 E 6. Banana 1 2 3 4 E 18. Jumping 1 2 3 4 E 7. Shoe 1 2 3 4 E 19. Carrot 1 2 3 4 E 8. Cup 1 2 3 4 E 20. Reading 1 2 3 4 E 9. Eating 1 2 3 4 E 21. Toe 1 2 3 4 E 10. Bus 1 2 3 4 E 22. Belt 1 2 3 4 E 11. Flower 1 2 3 4 E 23. Fly 1 2 3 4 E 12. mouth 1 2 3 4 E 24. Painting 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

SET Start SET 3 Age 5 4 25. dancing 1 2 3 4 E 37. Farm 1 2 3 4 E 26. Whistle 1 2 3 4 E 38. Penguin 1 2 3 4 E 27. Kicking 1 2 3 4 E 39. Gift 1 2 3 4 E 28. Lamp 1 2 3 4 E 40. Feather 1 2 3 4 E 29. Square 1 2 3 4 E 41. Cobweb 1 2 3 4 E 30. Fence 1 2 3 4 E 42. Elbow 1 2 3 4 E 31. Empty 1 2 3 4 E 43. Juggling 1 2 3 4 E 32. Happy 1 2 3 4 E 44. Fountain 1 2 3 4 E 33. Fire 1 2 3 4 E 45. Net 1 2 3 4 E 34. Castle 1 2 3 4 E 46. Shoulder 1 2 3 4 E 35. Squirrel 1 2 3 4 E 47. Dressing 1 2 3 4 E 36. Throwing 1 2 3 4 E 48. Roof 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

230

Start SET Start SET Age 6 5 Age 7 6 49. Peeking 1 2 3 4 E 61. Picking 1 2 3 4 E 50. Ruler 1 2 3 4 E 62. Target 1 2 3 4 E 51. Tunnel 1 2 3 4 E 63. Dripping 1 2 3 4 E 52. Branch 1 2 3 4 E 64. Knight 1 2 3 4 E 53. Envelop 1 2 3 4 E 65. Delivering 1 2 3 4 E 54. Diamond 1 2 3 4 E 66. Cactus 1 2 3 4 E 55. Calendar 1 2 3 4 E 67. Dentist 1 2 3 4 E 56. Buckle 1 2 3 4 E 68. Floating 1 2 3 4 E 57. Sawing 1 2 3 4 E 69. Claw 1 2 3 4 E 58. Panda 1 2 3 4 E 70. Uniform 1 2 3 4 E 59. Vest 1 2 3 4 E 71. Gigantic 1 2 3 4 E 60. Arrow 1 2 3 4 E 72. Furry 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

Start SET Start SET Age 8 7 Age 9 8 73. Violin 1 2 3 4 E 85. Hyena 1 2 3 4 E 74. Group 1 2 3 4 E 86. Plumber 1 2 3 4 E 75. Globe 1 2 3 4 E 87. River 1 2 3 4 E 76. Vehicle 1 2 3 4 E 88. Timer 1 2 3 4 E 77. Chef 1 2 3 4 E 89. Catching 1 2 3 4 E 78. Squash 1 2 3 4 E 90. Trunk 1 2 3 4 E 79. Ax 1 2 3 4 E 91. Vase 1 2 3 4 E 80. Flamingo 1 2 3 4 E 92. Harp 1 2 3 4 E 81. Chimney 1 2 3 4 E 93. Bloom 1 2 3 4 E 82. Sorting 1 2 3 4 E 94. Horrified 1 2 3 4 E 83. Waist 1 2 3 4 E 95. Swamp 1 2 3 4 E 84. Vegetable 1 2 3 4 E 96. Heart 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

231

Start SET Start SET Age 10 9 Ages 10 11-12 97. Pigeon 1 2 3 4 E 109. Luggage 1 2 3 4 E 98. Ankle 1 2 3 4 E 110. Directing 1 2 3 4 E 99. Flaming 1 2 3 4 E 111. Vine 1 2 3 4 E 100. Wrench 1 2 3 4 E 112. Digital 1 2 3 4 E 101. Aquarium 1 2 3 4 E 113. Dissecting 1 2 3 4 E 102. Refueling 1 2 3 4 E 114. Predatory 1 2 3 4 E 103. Safe 1 2 3 4 E 115. Hydrant 1 2 3 4 E 104. Boulder 1 2 3 4 E 116. Surprised 1 2 3 4 E 105. Reptile 1 2 3 4 E 117. Palm 1 2 3 4 E 106. Canoe 1 2 3 4 E 118. Clarinet 1 2 3 4 E 107. Athlete 1 2 3 4 E 119. Valley 1 2 3 4 E 108. Towing 1 2 3 4 E 120. Kiwi 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

Start SET Start SET Age 13 11 Age 12 14-16 121. Interviewing 1 2 3 4 E 133. Inhaling 1 2 3 4 E 122. Pastry 1 2 3 4 E 134. Links 1 2 3 4 E 123. Assisting 1 2 3 4 E 135. Polluting 1 2 3 4 E 124. Fragile 1 2 3 4 E 136. Archaeologist 1 2 3 4 E 125. Solo 1 2 3 4 E 137. Coast 1 2 3 4 E 126. Snarling 1 2 3 4 E 138. Injecting 1 2 3 4 E 127. Puzzled 1 2 3 4 E 139. Fern 1 2 3 4 E 128. Beverage 1 2 3 4 E 140. Mammal 1 2 3 4 E 129. Inflated 1 2 3 4 E 141. Demolishing 1 2 3 4 E 130. Tusk 1 2 3 4 E 142. Isolation 1 2 3 4 E 131. Trumpet 1 2 3 4 E 143. Clamp 1 2 3 4 E 132. Rodent 1 2 3 4 E 144. Dilapidated 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

Start SET Start SET Ages 13 Ages 14 232

17-18 19- Adult 145. Pedestrian 1 2 3 4 E 157. Primate 1 2 3 4 E 146. Interior 1 2 3 4 E 158. Glider 1 2 3 4 E 147. Garment 1 2 3 4 E 159. Weary 1 2 3 4 E 148. Departing 1 2 3 4 E 160. Hatchet 1 2 3 4 E 149. Feline 1 2 3 4 E 161. Transparent 1 2 3 4 E 150. Hedge 1 2 3 4 E 162. Sedan 1 2 3 4 E 151. Citrus 1 2 3 4 E 163. Constrained 1 2 3 4 E 152. Florist 1 2 3 4 E 164. Valve 1 2 3 4 E 153. Hovering 1 2 3 4 E 165. Parallelogram 1 2 3 4 E 154. Aquatic 1 2 3 4 E 166. Pillar 1 2 3 4 E 155. Reprimanding 1 2 3 4 E 167. Consuming 1 2 3 4 E 156. Carpenter 1 2 3 4 E 168. Currency 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

SET SET 15 16 169. Hazardous 1 2 3 4 E 181. Lever 1 2 3 4 E 170. Pentagon 1 2 3 4 E 182. Apparel 1 2 3 4 E 171. Appliance 1 2 3 4 E 183. Talon 1 2 3 4 E 172. Poultry 1 2 3 4 E 184. Cultivating 1 2 3 4 E 173. Cornea 1 2 3 4 E 185. Wedge 1 2 3 4 E 174. Peninsula 1 2 3 4 E 186. Ascending 1 2 3 4 E 175. Porcelain 1 2 3 4 E 187. Depleted 1 2 3 4 E 176. Detonation 1 2 3 4 E 188. Sternum 1 2 3 4 E 177. Cerebral 1 2 3 4 E 189. Maritime 1 2 3 4 E 178. Perpendicular 1 2 3 4 E 190. Incarcerating 1 2 3 4 E 179. Submerging 1 2 3 4 E 191. Dejected 1 2 3 4 E 180. Syringe 1 2 3 4 E 192. Quintet 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

233

SET SET 17 18 193. Incandescent 1 2 3 4 E 205. Wildebeest 1 2 3 4 E 194. Confiding 1 2 3 4 E 206. Coniferous 1 2 3 4 E 195. Mercantile 1 2 3 4 E 207. Timpani 1 2 3 4 E 196. Upholstery 1 2 3 4 E 208. Pilfering 1 2 3 4 E 197. Filtration 1 2 3 4 E 209. Pestle 1 2 3 4 E 198. Replenishing 1 2 3 4 E 210. Reposing 1 2 3 4 E 199. Trajectory 1 2 3 4 E 211. Cupola 1 2 3 4 E 200. Perusing 1 2 3 4 E 212. Derrick 1 2 3 4 E 201. Barb 1 2 3 4 E 213. Convex 1 2 3 4 E 202. Converging 1 2 3 4 E 214. Embossed 1 2 3 4 E 203. Honing 1 2 3 4 E 215. Torrent 1 2 3 4 E 204. Angler 1 2 3 4 E 216. Dromedary 1 2 3 4 E Number Number of of Errors Errors

SET 19 217. Legume 1 2 3 4 E 218. Cairn 1 2 3 4 E 219. Arable 1 2 3 4 E 220. Supine 1 2 3 4 E 221. Vitreous 1 2 3 4 E 222. Lugubrious 1 2 3 4 E 223. Caster 1 2 3 4 E 224. Terpsichorean 1 2 3 4 E 225. Cenotaph 1 2 3 4 E 226. Calyx 1 2 3 4 E 227. Osculating 1 2 3 4 E 228. Tonsorial 1 2 3 4 E

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Appendix F: Hebrew Narrative, Birthday Party Script

שם הבוחן:______מס' סידורי:______תאריך: ______

תיאור: בתת מבחן זה הנבדק מתבקש לתאר את הסיטואציה המוצגת לפניו ולספר אודותיה סיפור. הוראותַהעברה: יוםַהולדת אני יודעת שאתה יודע הרבה על יום הולדת , אתה יכול לספר לי על יום הולדת? \ אתה יכול לספר לי מה קורה כשחוגגים יום הולדת? שאלותַמתווכות:ַמתיַחוגגיםַיוםַהולדת?ַמהַעודַקרה?ַמיַעודַהיה?ַאיךַחוגגיםַיוםַהולדתַבגן?ַמהַעשיתַביוםַ ההולדתַשלך?ַמיַהגיעַליוםַההולדתַשלך?ַמהַהדברַהראשוןַשקורהַכשחוגגיםַיוםַהולדת?ַמהַקורהַאחרַכך?ַמהַ קורהַבסוף? Instructions: Script: A Birthday Party. Say: “I know that you know a lot about Birthday Parties, Can you tell me in Hebrew about Birthday Parties? “ “Can you tell me what happens when there is a birthday party?” If the participant hesitates, the tester continues to ask: "What did you do on your birthday party?” “Who came to your birthday party?” “When do you celebrate a birthday?” “What is the first thing that happens when you celebrate your birthday party?” "What happens next?" "What happens at the end?" “Can you tell me more about the birthday party?”

ישַלתעדַאתַסיפורַהנבדק,ַמילהַבמילהַולהקליט.

תשובתַהנבדק:

235

Props participants Activities location time/reason Fillers

)מילותַ cohesions )אביזרים(

תסריט(

Appropriate

236

Appendix G: Hebrew Inflectional Morphology - Word Analogies

תאריך: ______מס' סידורי:______שם הבוחן:______

Introduce Puppets (name them – use finger puppets only). “I will be Froggy and you will be Lucy. Now we are going to play a game that goes like this: Froggy is going to say a word and then Froggy is going to change the word. Froggy will also say another word and then Lucy will have to change again. Here is an example:” ”?now what should Lucy say“ ..... כדור :Froggy ספורים ספור :Froggy ”.כדורים If correct: “that right. Lucy would say Listen and watch again” [repeat whole item with the . כדורים If incorrect: “Lucy would say answer] – do this a few times if needed. “do you understand?” Let’s do some more. (Remember to record the child’s answer with vowels)!!! ONLY READ THE BOLD. Answers are in italic Score (0/1) Answer Given TEST ITEMS Score (0/1) Answer Given TEST ITEMS 1 ירוק ירוקים 10 רקדנית רקדן אדום אדומים פחדנית פחדן 2 פרח פרחים 11 שַב שַבּו שיר שירים לְך ל כּו 3 פַ חַים פַח 12 שּולחן שולחנות עַ צַים ע ץ כסא כסאות 4 ָאכַַל אכלתי 13 רֹו צַה רוצַה ַי שַן י ש נתי אוכַל אוכֶ לֶ ת

5 פועַל פועַ לַת 14 רוקד רוקדת

שואַל שואֶ לת שותַה שות ה

6 בַיצים ביצה זיתים זית 7 נעלײם נעל שבועײם שבוע 8 קֹו פַץ קַפַַץ ּכֹו תַב כ ת ב 9 קַ חַי קַח שַ בַי ש ב 237

Appendix H: English Inflectional Morphology - Word Analogies Introduce Puppets (name them – use finger puppets only). “I will be Piggy and you will be Chickee. Now we are going to play a game that goes like this: Piggy is going to say a word and then Piggy is going to change the word. Piggy will also say another word and then Chickee will have to change again. Here is an example:” (don’t say the names- just wiggle the puppet) Piggy: PUSH Piggy: PUSHED Piggy: JUMP ..... “now what should Chickee say?” If correct: “that right. Chickee should say jumped.”

If incorrect: “Chickeey would say jumped. Listen and watch again” [repeat whole item with the answer] – do this a few times if needed. “do you understand?” Let’s do some more. [you keep both puppets]

Piggy: FINISH Piggy: FINISHED Piggy: WATCH ..... “now what should Chickee say?” If correct: “that right. Chickee would say watched.”

If incorrect: “Chickee would say watched. Listen and watch again” [repeat whole item with the answer] – do this a few times if needed. Remember - ONLY READ THE BOLDED words. Correct answers are in italics and use the puppet to indicate the child’s turn. Test Items Answer Given Score (0/1) 1 Push Pushed Jump ??? Jumped 2 Bird Birds Cow ??? Cows 3 Mouse Mice Child ??? Children 4 High Higher Low ??? Lower 5 Read Reading Paint ??? Painting 6 Doll Dolls Car ??? Cars 7 Draw Drew Write ??? Wrote 8 Drink Drinks Like ??? Likes Total Score: ______238

Appendix I: English Inflectional Morphology – Sentences Level

Introduce Puppets (name them – use finger puppets only). “I will be Piggy and you will be Chickee. Now we are going to play a game that goes like this: Piggy is going to say a sentence. Then Piggy will say another sentence with a word missing. Chickee will fill in the missing word by changing it so that it fits in the new sentence. Chickee has to say what the missing word is in the new sentence. The word that needs to be changed is also in front of you” Let’s try one. Piggy: “I play”. (pause) They are??? (exaggerate that you want them to say the word)....playing. If the child says playing- acknowledge that it is correct. If not- explain: “The missing word was play so Chickee should say they are playing” Let’s try another. Piggy: “Three toys” (pause) One???... toy. (Follow same protocol as above. Make sure Chickee is giving the actual answer) Practice

I play. They are Playing ???______Three toys. One ??? Toy ______

“Now you take Chickee. Piggy will say the sentences and Chickee will give the answer. Do you understand?” Say mmm to indicate where the word is missing or use an upward intonation. For example: “Jack has one book. Rachel has three???”; Or “Mark wrote a letter. Tomorrow, David will mmm a letter”

239

1 Jack has one book. Rachel has three??? ______books

2 Today Noah is jumping. Yesterday Noah??? ______jumped

3 Laura will throw the ball. Right now, Maya is mmm______the ball throwing

4 The baby will cry. Yesterday the baby??? ______cried

5 Mark wrote a letter. Tomorrow, David will mmm ______a letter write

6 Shawn is bouncing a ball right now. Earlier today, Corey mmm______a ball bounced

7 Tomorrow Aviva will go to the store. Yesterday her sister mmm ______to went the store 8 This morning my puppy woke up. Tomorrow morning my puppy will mmm wake ______up 9 Alyssa skips rope. All her friends are mmm______rope skipping

10 Jesse is helping his teacher clean up the class now. Earlier today, Aaron mmm helped ______his teacher set up the class 11 Steven collected stickers. Steven’s sister wants to mmm ______stickers collect

12 There is one goose. There are two ???______geese

13 Tomorrow we will celebrate Julie’s birthday. Yesterday we mmm ______celebrated Marsha’s birthday 14 Noam feels awake today. Yesterday Noam mmm ______awake felt 15 Yesterday Joey did it. Today Sara will mmm ______it do 16 Zack has five dogs. Ashley has one??? ______dog

17 Joey is getting tall. Joey’s dad is much??? ______taller

Test Items Answer Score (0/1)

Total Score: ______

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Appendix J: Hebrew Inflectional Morphology – Sentence Level Introduce Puppets (name them – use finger puppets only). “I will be Froggy and you will be Lucy. Now we are going to play a game that goes like this: Froggy is going to say a sentence. Then Froggy will say another sentence with a word missing. Lucy will fill in the missing word by changing it so that it fits in the new sentence. Lucy has to say what the missing word is in the sentence. The word that needs to be changed is also in front of you”. “Let’s try one.” Froggy:

: "אניַמשחק". (pause)ַ"הם...... ???" )exaggerate that you want them to say the wordַ) :If they do not- explain ."משחקים say: "Yes, it is ,משחקים If they say) "משחקים"-ַ ”The missing word is“ ”הםַמשחקים"ַ Lucy should say “Let’s try another one”. )אחד pause...mmm) : "שלושהַתפוחים." Froggy (exaggerate that you want them to say the word) (Follow the same protocol as above. Make sure Lucy is giving the actual answer) Practice אני משחק. הם ??? ______משחקים שלושה תפוחים.ַמממַ______אחד תפוח

Say mmm to indicate where the word is missing or use an upward intonation. For ”שלושה תפוחים. מממ אחד.“ Or ;”אני משחק. הם ???“ :example Now you take Lucy. Froggy will say the sentences and Lucy will give the answer. Are you ready? Score (0/1) Answer Test Items 1 לג'ק יש ספר אחד. לרחל יש שלושה??? ______ספרים 2 היום נועה קופצת. אתמול נועה??? ______קפצה 3 מחר התינוק ישתה חלב. אתמול התינוק מממ ______חלב שתה 4 מחר ליאורה תכתוב מכתב. עכשו מאיה מממ ______מכתב כותבת 5 אתמול מרק ישב על כיסא. מחר דוד מממ ______על כיסא ישב 6 לדורון יש חמישה כלבים, אבל לגלית יש רק מממ______אחד כלב 7 עכשו שון אוכל סנדוויץ. היום מוקדם בבוקר סטיבן מממ ______סנדוויץ אכל 8 עכשו יהודית כותבת סיפור. עכשו גם משה מממ ______סיפור כותב 9 מחר יהודית תקרא מכתב. מחר גם משה מממ ______מכתב יקרא 10 אתמול שירה חגגה יום הולדת. מחר ענת מממ ______יום הולדת תחגוג 11 היום בבוקר אתם אכלתם עוגה. אתמול אנחנו מממ ______עוגה אכלנו 12 היום הבנים לובשים חולצה כחולה. היום גם הבנות מממ ______חולצה כחולה לובשות 13 בבית הספר שלי שלושה עצים. בבית הספר שלו יש רק מממ ______אחד עץ 14 יש לי כיסא אחד. לדנה יש שלושה ??? ______כיסאות 15 המיטה שלי גדולה. גם המיטות שלהם ??? ______גדולות

Total Score: ______

241

Appendix K: Hebrew Test of Morphological Structure (receptive) Introduce Puppets (name them – use finger puppets only). “I will be Froggy and you will be Lucy. Froggy is going to say a word. Then Froggy is going to say a sentence with a word missing. Then Lucy will change that word so that it fits properly to the sentence. After each sentence, there are two choices. Lucy will choose the best answer for each sentence. Let’s try one.

Please repeat each sentence twice, each time with a different choice. e.g., "אכל.ַבמקררַישַהמוןַ???ַאכילה"orַ"אכל.ַבמקררַישַהמון ??? אוכל" DERIVATION Practice : a אכל. במקרר יש המון ???______א. אוכל ב. אכילה אוכל b ישב. אני אוהבת מממ ______ברכבת א. יושבת ב. לשבת לשבת

Item test : 1/1 1 צילם. דוד הוא מממ ______טוב א. צילום ב. צלם צלם 2 שילם. ה מממ______היה גבוה א. תשלום ב. שילמתי תשלום 3 קפץ. ה מממ______שלו הייתה גבוהה א. קופץ ב. קפיצה קפיצה 4 נסע. כל ה מממ______ברכבת יושבים על א. נסעו ב. נוסעים נוסעים ספסלים 5 פתח. קר לי כי החלון ??? ______א. פותח ב. פתוח פתוח 6 שמר. ה מממ______עובדים כל הלילה א. שומרים ב. שמורים שומרים

7 אכל. לא קל מממ ______תירס א. אכילה ב. לאכול לאכול

8 ישן. ה מממ______שלו מאד עמוקה א. לישון ב. שינה שינה

9 קרא. חשוב לתרגל את ה ???______א. קריאה ב. קריאות קריאה

Total score______DECOMPOSITION :Practice

a לבוש. הוא מממ ______מכנסיים וחולצה א. לבש ב. לבוש לבש

b מאפיה. הוא מממ ______את הלחם אתמול א. אפייה ב. אפה אפה

Test Items1/1 1 צלילה. אתמול הוא מממ______במים העמוקים א. צלול ב. צלל צלל 2 כתיבה. אתמול הוא מממ______את הספר א. כתוב ב. כתב כתב

3 שירה. אתמול הוא מממ______לפני כולם א. שיר ב. שר שר 4 אמירה. אתמול הוא מממ______שיגיע עוד מעט א. אמר ב. לאמור אמר

242

5 שתיה. אתמול הוא מממ______את המים מהברז א. לשתות ב. שתה שתה 6 גדילה. התינוק מממ______מהר מאד א. גדל ב. גדול גדל 7 ישיבה. אתמול הוא מממ______בשקט א. יושבת ב. ישב ישב 8 בכי. אתמול התינוק מממ______כי היה רעב א. בכייה ב. בכה בכה 9 מחיקה. אתמול הוא מממ______את שגיאת הכתיב א. מחוק ב. מחק מחק 11 שמיעה. אתמול הוא מממ______את השיחה א. שמע ב. לשמוע שמע

Total score______Grand total______

Appendix L: Test of Morphological Structure 243

“Piggy is going to say a word. Then Piggy is going to say a sentence with a word missing. Chickee will change that word so that it fits properly in the sentence. Let’s try one”. Remember to write the child’s response DERIVATION Practice: a. Farm. My uncle is a ???______. [farmer] b. Help. My sister is always ???______. [helpful]

1. swim. She was a strong ??? ______. [swimmer] 0 1

2. wash. Put the laundry in the ??? ______. [washer] 0 1

3. thought. The smart boy was very ??? ______. [thoughtful] 0 1

4. protect. She wore a helmet for ??? ______. [protection] 0 1

5. teach. He is a very good ???______. [teacher] 0 1

6. four. The runner came in ???______. [fourth] 0 1

7. appear. The movie star cared about her ??? ______. [appearance] 0 1

8. mystery. The dark glasses made the man look very ??? ______. [mysterious] 0 1

9. assist. The helper will give you ???______. [assistance] 0 1

10. adventure. The camping trip sounded ???______. [adventurous] 0 1

11. long. They measured the ladder’s ???______. [length] 0 1

12. perform. Tonight is the show’s last ??? ______. [performance] 0 1

13. express. ‘OK’ is a common ??? ______. [expression] 0 1

14. active. He was tired after so much ??? ______. [activity] 0 1

15. play. The puppies are very ???______. [playful] 0 1

Total DECOMPOSITION Practice: a. Driver. Children are too young to??? ______. [drive] b. Improvement. My teacher wants my spelling to ???______. [improve] 1. runner. How fast can she ???______? [run] 0 1 2. agreeable. With that statement I cannot ???______. [agree] 0 1 3. dangerous. Are the children in any ???______? [danger] 0 1 4. growth. She wanted her plant to _???______. [grow] 0 1 5. dryer. Put the wet clothes out to ???______. [dry] 0 1 244

6. strength. The athlete is very __???______. [strong] 0 1 7. popularity. The boy wants to be ???______. [popular] 0 1

8. fifth. The girl can count from one to ???______. [five] 0 1 9. division. The pizza is hard to _???______. [divide] 0 1 10. width. The movie screen is very __???______. [wide] 0 1 11. description. The book was hard to __???______. [describe] 0 1

12. baker. She put the bread in to __???______. [bake] 0 1 13. discussion. The parents have a lot to __???______. [discuss] 0 1 14. decision. The boy found it hard to ___???______. [decide] 0 1 15. courageous. The soldier showed great _???______. [courage] 0 1

Total Grand ______

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Appendix M: Hebrew Test of Morphological Structure (productive) Introduce Puppets (name them – use finger puppets only). “I will be Froggy and you will be Lucy. Froggy is going to say a word. Then Froggy is going to say a sentence with a word missing. Then Lucy will change that word so that it fits properly to the sentence. Let’s try two examples”. If the child has difficulties provide the answer.

"אכל.ַבמקררַישַהמון ??? )אוכל(" A שתה. במקרר יש המון ???? שתיה B אכל. אני אוהבת ????? פיצה לאכול

Item test 0/1 3. צייר.ַדודַהואַמממ______ַטוב צייר 2. גמל.ַהַ-מממ______ַהיהַגבוה תגמול 1. נסע.ַה-ַמממַ______ַהייתהַארוכה נסיעה 1. שמר.ַכלַה-ַמממַ______חובשיםַ שומרים כובע 5. סגר.ַעכשוַהברזַמממ______סגור 6. רקד.ַכלַה-ַמממ______ַקיבלוַפרחים רוקדים 7. ישן.ַקרַמממ______ַבחוץ לישון 8. ידע.ַה-ַמממ______ַשלוַמאדַחשובה דיעה 9. שמר.ַהכלבַישןַבזמןַמממַ______שמירה Total score______DECOMPOSITION :Practice .a רכוש.ַהואַמממַ______ַבגדיםַחדשים רכש .b מעשיה.ַהואַמממַ______ַאתַהמעשה עשה 0/1 Test items 1 קריאה.ַהואַמממ______אתַהספר קרא 2 גדילה.ַהתינוקַמממ______ַמאד גדל 3 דירה.ַהואַמממ______ַכאןַעכשו דר 4 ישיבה.ַהואַמממַ______ַבשקט ישב 5 קנייה.ַהואַמממַ______ַלחם קנה 6 נפילה.ַהילדַמממַ______ַמהנדנדה נפל 7 עמידה.ַהואַמממַ______ַבשקט עמד 8 בכי.ַהתינוקַמממַ______ַכיַרצהַאתַהצעצוע בכה 9 כתיבה.ַהואַ______אתַהספר כתב 10 נשימה.ַהואַ______ַאתַהאוירַהצח נשם

Total score______Grand

total______

246

Appendix N: Compound Structure Task Materials: Individual student score sheets Directions: “I am going to read you some questions as you follow along. After each question, there are some choices. I would like you to circle the best answer for each question.” Add space for writing response and remind testsers to write what the child says Practice Items: “Let’s try a few together.” Which is the better name for a bee that lives in the grass?

A. Bee grass B. Grass bee 1. Which is the better name for a type of fish that looks like a hat?

A. Hat fish B. Fish hat

2. If you have a lid for a dish to keep candy in, what would you call it?

A. dish lid candy

B. candy dish lid

C. dish candy lid

D. candy lid dish

1. Which is the better name for a box you keep your lizard in?

A. Box lizard B. Lizard box 0 / 1

2. Which is the better name for a swamp with lots of flowers in it?

A. Flower swamp B. Swamp flower 0 / 1

3. Which is the better name for a doll made out of paper?

A. Paper doll B. Doll paper 0 / 1

4. Which is the better name for ants that like to crawl around on rocks?

247

A. Ant rock B. Rock ant 0 / 1

5. Which is the better name for bread you feed to the birds?

A. Bird bread B. Bread bird 0 / 1

6. Which is the better name for a snake that hides by trying to look like a stick?

A. Stick snake B. Snake stick 0 / 1

7. Which is the better name for a fly that only eats spiders?

A. Spider fly B. Fly spider 0 / 1

8. Which is the better name for a turtle that sings songs?

A. Turtle song B. Song turtle 0 / 1

9. Which is the better name for a kind of soap you use for washing dishes?

A. Soap dish B. Dish soap 0 / 1

10. Which is the better name for a fire that is started in a pit?

A. Pit fire B. Fire pit 0 / 1

11. Which is the better name for a pet that lives at school?

A. School pet B. Pet school 0 / 1

12. Which is the better name for the hand you use to throw balls?

A. Hand ball B. Ball hand 0 / 1

13. You want to buy wood that is especially good for building a table to put a television on. What kind of wood would you ask for? 0 / 1

248

A. wood table television

B. table television wood

C. table wood television

D. television table wood

14. There is a drawer in my dresser where we keep books and I have a key that locks it. What would be the best name for the key? 0 / 1

A. drawer book key

B. book key drawer

C. book drawer key

D. key book drawer

15. An inventor is building a vacuum cleaner so strong it can take the old chewing gum off the bottom of chairs. What should it be called? 0 / 1

A. chair bottom gum vacuum

B. bottom chair gum vacuum

C. vacuum chair bottom gum

D. vacuum bottom chair gum

16. My mother is annoyed because there is always dust on the window where we keep the plants. She complains about: 0 / 1

A. window dust plant

B. plant window dust

C. dust window plant

D. window plant dust

Total Score:

249

Appendix O: Hebrew Compounds

יש להציג לילד את צמד המילים הראשון ולשאול איך ייקרא ביחד לצמד המילים השני.

"עכשוַנשחקַבמשחקַשממציאיםַבוַכלַמיניַמילים.ַאניַאתןַלךַדוגמאַשלַמילהַהמורכבתַמצמדַמיליםַואשאלַאותךַ

איךַאומריםַמילהַאחרתַהמורכבתַאףַהיאַמצמדַמיליםַאחר?"ַ"ישַלפניךַתמונותַואתהַיכולַלהיעזרַבהן"

Show the child an expression which is composed of two words. Then, ask him, how would he make an expression from two other separated words. “Now we will play a game by inventing all sorts of words. I'll give you an example of a word which is composed of two words and I will ask you how do you say another word which is also made up of two other words” “You have also pictures in front of you” לתת משוב על שלושת הפריטים הראשונים.

לרשום את התשובה עם ניקוד ובכתב פונטי אם נדרשת הבהרת תשובת הילד.

1. לעוגה משוקולד קוראים "עוגת שוקולד". איך תקרא לעוגה מסוכריות? ______)"עוגת סוכריות"( "עוגת שוקולד" A cake which is made from chocolate is called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew a cake which is made from candies? סוכריות Candies in Hebrew are 2. לפרחים בשדה קוראים "פרחי שדה". איך תקרא לפרחים ביער? ______)"פרחי יער"( "פרחי שדה" Flowers in the field are called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew to flowers in the forest? יער Forest in Hebrew is 3. לבגד שהולכים איתו בים קוראים "בגד ים". איך תקרא לבגד שהולכים איתו בהר? ______)"בגד הר"( "בגד ים" A cloth which is used for swimming in the sea is called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew a cloth which is used for walking on the mountain? הר Mountain in Hebrew is הפסקת משוב 4. לעצים שנותנים פרי קוראים "עצי פרי". איך תקרא לעצים שנותנים ריח? ______)"עצי ריח"( "עצי פרי" Trees that give fruits are called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew to trees that give smell? ריח Smell in Hebrew is

5. לשמלה של כלה קוראים "שמלת כלה". איך תקרא לשמלה של מלכה? ______)"שמלת מלכה"( "שמלת כלה" A dress which is made for a wedding is called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew a dress which is made for a queen? מלכה Queen in Hebrew is

6. לנרות לכבוד שבת קוראים "נרות שבת". איך תקרא לנרות לכבוד פסח? ______)"נרות פסח"( "נרות שבת" Candles for Saturday are called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew to candles for passover?

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פסח passover in Hebrew is

7. למשחה לרחיצת שיניים קוראים "משחת שיניים". איך תקרא למשחה לניקוי ציפורניים? ______)"משחת ציפורניים"( "משחת שיניים" A cream for washing teeth is called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew a cream for washing nails? ציפורניים Nails in Hebrew are

8. לבגדים של ילדים קוראים "בגדי ילדים". איך תקרא לבגדים של בובות? ______)"בגדי בובות"( "בגדי ילדים" Cloth for children are called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew to cloth for dolls? בובות Dolls in Hebrew are

9. לגן של ילדים קוראים "גן ילדים". איך תקרא לגן של חתולים? ______)"גן חתולים"( "גן ילדים" A kindergarten for children is called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew a kindergarten for cats? חתולים Cats in Hebrew is

10. למשקפיים שהולכים איתם בשמש קוראים "משקפי שמש". איך תקרא למשקפיים שהולכים איתם בגשם? ______)"משקפי גשם"( "משקפי שמש" Eyeglasses which protect from the sun are called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew to eyeglasses which protect from the rain? גשם Rain in Hebrew is

11. לסירה עם מפרש קוראים "סירת מפרש". איך תקרא לסירה עם גלגל? ______)"סירת גלגל"( "סירת מפרש" A boat with a sail is called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew a boat with a wheel? גלגל wheel in Hebrew is

12. למשחק שקולעים כדור לסל קוראים "כדול-סל". איך תקרא למשחק שקולעים כדור שמים? ______)"כדור שמיים"( "כדור סל" A game which you hit a ball to a basket is called in Hebrew How would you call in Hebrew a game which you hit a ball to the sky? שמים Sky in Hebrew is

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Appendix P: Semi-Structured Interview – Teachers 1. Personal, educational and professional background:

 Name, Country, Position, Age, length of residence in the host country

 Educational and professional experience in the country of origin

 Educational and professional experience in the host country

 Languages

2. Language use:

 What language(s) do you use in the kindergarten/grade 1?

 ask child to do…

 instruction

 in what situation, if at all, do you switch from one language to another?

 How do you feel about the well spread opinion that children who are raised in a

bilingual environment experience language delay in both languages?

3. Emergent literacy:

 How do you define the term "emergent literacy"?

 How do you think emergent literacy develops among pre-school and grade 1 children?

 Is it important to instruct emergent literacy skills before the onset of the primary school?

 Do you teach emergent literacy in your bilingual kindergarten/class ? If, yes, in what

language(s)?

 Do you teach bilingual children that study also in heritage language programs?

 What literacy skills do you teach to bilingual children?

 What level of emergent literacy will be acquired by the end of this school year?

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 Can you compare your approaches towards the emergent literacy instruction in L1 vs.

L2? What are the similarities? What are the differences?

 What are the challenges of teaching emergent literacy skills within the bilingual

kindergarten context?

 Do you need to negotiate between L1 and L2 approaches?

 Do you have a structured emergent literacy program?

 Please predict the trajectory of literacy and language development of the bilingual

children in the next five years.

 Do parents ask you about children's progress or express their opinions concerning

literacy and language instruction in the kindergarten/grade 1?

 What are parents' expectations about this bilingual kindergarten/grade 1?

 Is there any discrepancy between the parents' expectations and your linguistic and

educational policy?

 To what extent are Hebrew curriculum and English curriculum matched?

 Why don’t parents see their children progress without formal assessment?

 What is the ratio between Hebrew and English use in the kindergarten/grade 1 for both

you and the children (balanced ration, predominant English or predominant Hebrew)?

 Do you modify your linguistic and educational policy- based on parents' comments?

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Appendix Q: Information & Invitation Letter to School Principals

Dear Principal,

I, Inbal Gral Azulay, am working with professor Esther Geva at the University of Toronto, and are inviting you to participate in our study – Bilingual Development in Early Childhood: The Interface of Context, Attitudes and Emergent Language and Literacy Skills. This study was granted clearance by the General Research Board for compliance with the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans. We would like to invite your school to participate in this research project. The objective of this study is to explore the developmental language trajectory of Hebrew speaking Canadian children as compared to English monolingual children in Canada. In addition, this study will examine the way that minority language parents describe and ground their language strategies (“lay theories”) concerning their children’s bilingual development and education in Canadian context. Eventually, this study seeks to find out the teachers’ approaches to emergent literacy instruction and development in first language (L1) and second language (L2) within the framework of bilingual pre-school and grade 1 settings. Various thinking and language games will be given to participating children in Hebrew and English once a year over three years (Time 1- Spring of 2011, Time 2- Spring, 2012, Time 3- Spring, 2013). Testing will be done over brief, four, 30-minute, sessions. Each child will do child appropriate thinking, language, and reading games in Hebrew and English. Instructions of the tasks will be given in either Hebrew or English, whichever is the participant’s stronger language or preference. Participants will work individually with a University of Toronto student who has experience and training in working with children. The duration of each session will be approximately 30 minutes. Parents of participating children will be asked to fill out a questionnaire about their beliefs about having their child attend a bilingual English-Hebrew program. We will also pick randomly six parents who will be asked to take part in an in-depth interview about languages and their “lay theories” about bilingual development and education. Finally, JK, SK, and grade 1 teachers in participating classrooms will be interviewed concerning their approaches to

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emergent literacy instruction and development in L1/L2 within the framework of bilingual pre-school and grade 1settings. The teachers’, parents’ and students’ participation is entirely voluntary. They have the right to refuse to answer any questions or withdraw from the study at any time without any consequence, and at their request we will destroy all data that you have provided. We will maintain confidentiality with respect to the children’s identity. Each child will be identified by a pseudonym or an ID number. The information obtained from the language games and puzzles will be used exclusively for this research purposes. All the information collected will be stored in locked filing cabinets in our offices at the University of Toronto. Only the researchers and graduate students will have access to the research data. Under no circumstance, will personal information be released. There are no foreseen risks to participate in this study. Moreover, all the tasks engage the children cognitively and academically in an age appropriate manner.

This study may result in publications of various types, conference presentations, journal articles, professional publications, newsletters, or books. The names of the school, teachers and students will not be attached to any form of the data that you provide, nor will it appear in any publication created as a result of this study. Results will be shared with the school, teachers and parents at a convenient time.

Thank you for your time and attention. If you have any questions about the project, please contact one of us at the telephone numbers below or by email ([email protected], [email protected])

Yours sincerely,

Esther Geva, professor Inbal Gral Azulay (416/978-0916) (416/978-1005)

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Appendix R: Information & Invitation Letter to School Teachers Dear Teacher,

I, Inbal Gral Azulay, am working with professor Esther Geva at the University of Toronto, and are inviting you to participate in our study – Bilingual Development in Early Childhood: The Interface of Context, Attitudes and Emergent Language and Literacy Skills. This study was granted clearance by the General Research Board for compliance with the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans. We would like to invite you, the teacher and the Hebrew speaking students in your class that receive also Hebrew instructions in heritage language schools, to participate in this research project. The objective of this study is to explore the developmental language trajectory of Hebrew speaking Canadian children as compared to English monolingual children in Canada. In addition, this study will examine the way that minority language parents describe and ground their language strategies (“lay theories”) concerning their children’s bilingual development and education in Canadian context. Eventually, this study seeks to find out your approach (the teachers’ approaches) to emergent literacy instruction and development in first language (L1) and second language (L2) within the framework of bilingual pre-school and grade 1 settings. Various thinking and language games will be given to participating children in Hebrew and English once a year over three years (Time 1- Spring of 2011, Time 2- Spring, 2012, Time 3- Spring, 2013). Testing will be done over brief, four, 30-minute, sessions. Each child will do child appropriate thinking, language, and reading games in Hebrew and English. Instructions of the tasks will be given in either Hebrew or English, whichever is the participant’s stronger language or preference. Participants will work individually with a University of Toronto student who has experience and training in working with children. The duration of each session will be approximately 30 minutes. Parents of participating children will be asked to fill out a questionnaire about their beliefs about having their child attend a bilingual English-Hebrew program. We will also pick randomly six parents who will be asked to take part in an in-depth interview about languages and their “lay theories” about bilingual development and education. Finally, JK, SK, and grade 1 teachers in participating classrooms will be interviewed concerning their approaches to 256

emergent literacy instruction and development in L1/L2 within the framework of bilingual pre-school and grade 1settings.

Your participation, the parents’ and the students’ participation is entirely voluntary. All of You have the right to refuse to answer any questions or withdraw from the study at any time without any consequence, and at your request we will destroy all data that you have provided. We will maintain confidentiality with respect to the children’s identity. Each child will be identified by a pseudonym or an ID number. The information obtained from the language games and puzzles will be used exclusively for this research purposes. All the information collected will be stored in locked filing cabinets in our offices at the University of Toronto. Only the researchers and graduate students will have access to the research data. Under no circumstance, will personal information be released. There are no foreseen risks to participate in this study. Moreover, all the tasks engage the children cognitively and academically in an age appropriate manner.

This study may result in publications of various types, conference presentations, journal articles, professional publications, newsletters, or books. The names of the school, your name (teachers’ name) and students’ name will not be attached to any form of the data that you provide, nor will it appear in any publication created as a result of this study. Results will be shared with the school, teachers and parents at a convenient time.

Thank you for your time and attention. If you have any questions about the project, please contact one of us at the telephone numbers below or by email ([email protected], [email protected])

Yours sincerely, Esther Geva, professor Inbal Gral Azulay (416/978-0916) (416/978-1005)

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Appendix S: Teacher Consent Form

Hebrew – English Bilingual Development Project

Please complete this form and return it to school. I have read the information letter that describes the Hebrew – English Bilingual Development project. I understand that all information from the research will be kept confidential and secure, and this information will be destroyed after 10 years. I also understand that I may withdraw myself from the study at any time without any negative consequences. I understand that under no circumstance, will personal information about any child or myself be released to anyone. There are no foreseen risks to participate in this study. Please select one option:

□ I agree to participate in the Hebrew-English Bilingual Development project;

□ I do not agree to participate in the Hebrew-English Bilingual Development project;

Teacher’s Name: ______Teacher’s Signature: ______Date: ______Name of school/program: ______

Thank you!

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Appendix T: Information & Invitation Letter to parents or guardians

BILINGUAL DEVELOPMENT IN EARLY CHILDHOOD: THE INTERFACE OF CONTEXT, ATTITUDES AND EMERGENT LANGUAGE AND LITERACY SKILLS.

30 March 2011

Dear Parent or Guardian:

I, Inbal Gral Azulay, a doctoral student and the research team, are working with professor Esther

Geva at the University of Toronto. We are writing to invite you and your child to participate in a research project entitled: Bilingual Development in Early Childhood: The Interface of Context,

Attitudes and Emergent Language and Literacy Skills. This project was granted clearance by the

General Research Board of the University of Toronto for compliance with the Tri-Council

Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct of Research Involving Humans.

The overall objective of this study is to explore the developmental language trajectory of

Canadian children who are also learning Hebrew at a young age as compared to English monolingual children in Canada. We would like to request your permission for your child to participate in this research. In addition, if you agree we will ask you to fill out a questionnaire about your opinions regarding bilingualism and monolingualism in early childhood. Some parents may be also invited to take part in an interview about perceptions and expectations with regard to bilingual and monolingual education.

We plan to carry out the research in three “waves” between April 2011 and April 2013. (spring of 2011, spring of 2012, and spring of 2013). In each wave we plan to Interview children individually and ask them to do language and literacy tasks in English and Hebrew. In addition,

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a few age-appropriate cognitive tasks a non-verbal ability tasks will be administered (see a separate information page and consent form for this task). At each wave of data collection children will be tested in four, brief (up to 30-minute) sessions. Appropriate breaks will be given and children will be given a sticker at the end of each session. Participants will work individually with University of Toronto students with experience and training in working with children. In addition, we will Interview teachers about their approaches to early language and literacy instruction and opinions and believes about development in first language and second language within bilingual and monolingual pre-school settings

Finally, we plan to Interview some parents (in Hebrew or English) to find out what parents think about bilingual and monolingual education in pre-schools and grade 1 students.

If you are willing to have your child participate in this research we ask that you sign the attached consent form and the consent form for the non-verbal ability task, and return it to the school in the envelope provided. All information will be kept totally confidential and no names of children, parents, or teachers will be used in any of the reports.

At the end of the research (in spring 2013), the researchers will come to the school and provide general information to parents about the results of the research. At that time we will provide you with a summary of the findings of the project in both Hebrew and English and answer any questions you might have about how best to encourage language learning and bilingualism among children. We will also address issues of bilingualism and learning disabilities.

At the first meeting with children the experimenter will read an assent form and ask them if they assent to take part in the study and answer any questions children may have. As stated in the consent and assent forms, the participation in the study is completely voluntary. Your child will have the right to withdraw at any time. We will maintain confidentiality with respect to your child’s identity. Each child will be identified by a pseudonym or an ID number. The information

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obtained from the tasks will be used exclusively for this research purposes and i information about individual children will not be included in any school based evaluations. All the information collected will be stored in locked filing cabinets in our offices at the University of

Toronto. Only the researchers and University of Toronto students working in our lab will have access to the data. Under no circumstance will personal information be released to anyone.

There are no foreseen risks to participating in this study.

Thank you for your time and attention. If you have any questions about the project please contact us via email [email protected]; [email protected]

If you have additional questions about the rights of research participants please contact the

Office of Research Ethics at the University of Toronto ([email protected], 416-946-

3273)

If you are willing to participate in this study, please read and sign the attached consent forms.

Sincerely

Esther Geva, professor Inbal Gral Azulay

(416/ 978-0916) (416/978-1005)

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Appendix U: Parent Consent Form

Bilingual Development in Early Childhood

Please complete this form and return it to school with your son or daughter. I have read the information letter that describes the Hebrew – English Bilingual Development project. I understand that all information from the research will be kept confidential and secure, and this information will be destroyed after 10 years. I also understand that I may withdraw myself and my child from the study at any time without any negative consequences. I understand that under no circumstance, will personal information about my child or myself be released to anyone. There are no foreseen risks to participate in this study. Please select one option:

□ I agree to permit my child to participate in the Hebrew-English Bilingual Development project;

□ I do not agree to permit my child to participate in the Hebrew-English Bilingual Development project;

Child’s Name: ______Grade______Parent/Guardian’s Name ______Parent/Guardian’s Signature: ______Date: ______Name of school/program: ______

Thank you!

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