Orthographic Decision-Making in Spanish–English Bilingual Education: A Cognitive Framework for Biliteracy

Spanish–English bilingual learners in U.S. dual language and bilingual education programs develop Spanish orthographic competence while receiving literacy instruction across two writing systems that differ in phonological transparency, orthographic depth, and grammatical marking. This study examined experts’ perceptions of the clarity, instructional coherence, pedagogical relevance, applicability, and refinement priorities of a pedagogical framework for Spanish orthographic development in contexts where Spanish is used as a language of instruction and literacy. The framework conceptualizes Spanish orthographic decision-making as the coordinated activation of phonological mapping, orthographic–grammatical reasoning, and visual–lexical retrieval within biliteracy development. Using a qualitative evaluative design, the study analyzed open-ended questionnaire and interview data from 44 experts in bilingual education and Spanish literacy-related fields. Findings show broad convergence regarding the framework’s clarity, instructional coherence, and relevance for bilingual contexts. Participants emphasized pre-dictation preparation, explicit metalinguistic analysis, visual-memory activation and retrieval routines, and cross-linguistic comparison between Spanish and English. They also identified refinement priorities, including classroom-ready examples, clearer articulation of error and autocorrection, and stronger integration with reading, writing, and oracy practices. This study positions Spanish orthographic instruction as a cognitively guided biliteracy practice and identifies design principles for strengthening orthographic, metalinguistic, and cross-linguistic instruction in bilingual programs.