Linguistic intuitions and learning to spell words by monolinguals and initial stage bilinguals at school

Abstract

The article discusses the role of linguistic intuition in mastering the rules of spelling words with unstressed stem vowels by junior schoolchildren and describes the results of an experimental study conducted with four groups of children working with “The School of Russia” coursebook: monolingual third graders, bilingual third graders, monolingual fourth graders, and bilingual fourth graders. The children wrote down spell-checked words, dictated by the teacher, and performed a series of tasks demonstrating their ability to apply all the spelling components: they highlighted the roots of the words being checked, stressed them, and selected test words. Our analysis of the results suggests that students in Grades 3 and 4, both monolinguals and bilinguals, rely more on their linguistic intuition than on the algorithm proposed by the rule. At the same time, monolingual children’s experience of independent writing and other textbased activities allow them to practically avoid mistakes in the spelling being checked, while bilingual children with less language experience make more mistakes. Thus, we come to the conclusion about the need to develop schoolchildren’s (especially bilingual children’s) linguistic intuition by means of linguistic and didactic environment.