Hi Brianna,

literate L2 learners are accustomed to map letters to sounds (although they will need to map them to "different" sounds, and with less consistent rules in the case of Spanish learners of English). I suppose they may also more easily understand metalinguistic concepts than non literate-learners.

Since Spanish and English share the same orthography and both map letter or letter combinations to phonemes, phonological awareness in L1 Spanish generally can play a facilitative role in acquiring L2 English, especially in acquisition of reading. Orthographic depth (Katz & Frost, 1992)  is another factor that has to be considered (Spanish is a shallow orthography language, while English is regarded as deep orthography language).  My recent reading centers on Chinese and English (there is a very distinct orthography difference betwee these two langauges), and they exhibit a very different picture from those that share the same orthography, like in the case of Spanish and English. The literature abounds in, I think, Spanish and English bilinguals, so a Google Scholar search might reveal a lot of related materials. 

Literacy means to be able to recall linguistic knowledge from L1 phenomenon. This sort of layered structural knowledge reinforces the implicit acquisition for a L2.  

You know that elements of language universals are always there. So the knowledge of L1 will surely add to the learning of L2.

It is important to keep in mind that there are not only transfer benefits, but also the transfer of assumptions from L1 literacy can sometimes complicate the process of acquiring L2 literacy.

I recommend you read the Report of the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth. You will find some answers to your question there.

Here is the link:  http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/lesaux_nonie.pdf

Dear Brianna,

You will find a chapter (Chapter 9) on your question in my book: Susanne Göpferich (2015): Text Competence and Academic Multiliteracy: From Text Linguistics to Literacy Development. Tübingen: Narr.

L 1 literacy can be utlised to save time and to speed up the process of acquisition of L2  especially in teaching semantics

I think  if L1 and L2 have similar structures, L1 literacy may  facilitate L2 learning. But, if L1 and L2 are different, interlanguage may occur.

Benefits of L1 learning strategies on L2 learning should not be ignored, however.

Following.