Investigating word blending skills in Maltese children

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the word blending skills of six to seven year old Maltese children whose home language is either Maltese/English (monolinguals) or Maltese-English (bilinguals). Typically developing children and children with reading difficulties from different school systems (State, Church, Private) were selected. Parents were asked to complete a language and literacy questionnaire prior to test administration. The participants’ word blending skills were assessed in English using the ‘Blending Words’ subtest of the 2nd edition of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. They were also tested in Maltese using a word blending test developed for the purpose of this research. The main findings show overall better performance in Maltese word blending tasks. Girls performed better than boys and State school performance was the highest for Maltese, while Private school performance was superior in English. Results also showed that bilinguals outperformed monolinguals in both language versions of the test. Typically developing children achieved higher scores in word blending than children with reading difficulties and children who were reported to have difficulties with learning the alphabet gave a significantly lower performance. Lastly, questionnaire findings show that frequent reading, reading enjoyment and good alphabet knowledge all result in better word blending abilities. Recommendations include encouraging children to read more frequently in both languages in order to enhance phonological awareness abilities.