Orthographic facilitation of English vocabulary learning in monolingual and bilingual children

Research suggests that bilinguals often have weaker vocabulary in their second language compared to that of monolinguals (e.g., Hoff, 2013). It is thus important to identify factors that may facilitate vocabulary learning for bilinguals. One suggested factor is the presence of orthography while learning new oral vocabulary. The current study aims to examine the orthographic facilitation effect on vocabulary learning and evaluate whether this effect is larger for children who are simultaneous or emergent bilinguals, compared to monolinguals. A group of 33 bilingual and 38 English monolingual Year 2–4 students participated in an online novel word learning study. Novel words were paired with pictures of vintage tools and taught by presenting the pictures and repeating their names, either with the spelling of the words or picture only. Learning was measured using a picture-naming task, and a 4AFC word-picture matching task. The results showed a significant effect of orthographic facilitation in both measures. For the picture naming task, there was a significant interaction between orthographic condition and language group, with the monolingual group benefiting more from the presence of orthography. However, no such interaction was found in the 4AFC matching. We conclude that both English monolingual and bilingual children learn more novel words when the spellings of words are present, and that this benefit does not appear to be larger for bilingual children.