Early predictors of biliteracy development in children in French immersion: A 4-year longitudinal study.

Abstract

English language predictors of English and French reading development were investigated in a group of 140 children who were enrolled in French immersion programs. Children were first tested in kindergarten, and their reading achievement was tested yearly in both English and French from Grades 1 to 3, with word-level and passage-level measures that assessed accuracy as well as fluency. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine which English variables predicted Grade 3 outcomes and growth rates in English and French, and to determine the set of predictors that accounted for the most variance in outcomes and growth rates in English and French reading. The variables that predicted English reading development were consistent with studies of monolingual English children, even though participants were concurrently learning to read in French. Our findings provide evidence that at least some of the skills that play a role in learning to read are general cognitive and linguistic skills that transfer across languages. Phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, rapid automatized naming, and grammatical ability in English were able to predict reading ability in French. In contrast, English receptive vocabulary was a language-specific predictor. These findings demonstrate that first-language measures can be useful in the early identification of children at risk for difficulty in learning to read in a second language.

Instructional Supports for Students with Special Education Needs in French as a Second Language Education: A Review of Canadian Empirical Literature

“…Nonsense word reading had little statistical significance in predicting future L2 reading fluency, accuracy, or comprehension. This particular finding, which Bourgoin noted concurs with that of Jared et al (2011), relates to several features of the study that sets it apart. Unlike previous studies of relationships between L1 and L2 literacy indicators, Bourgoin's investigation presents a vision of reading ability that goes beyond the decoding of nonsense words and graded wordlists, by examining the learners' ability to create meaning from text.…”

The Predictive Effects of L1 and L2 Early Literacy Indicators on Reading in French Immersion

“…Recent studies examining the possibility of using L1 early literacy predictors to predict future L2 reading achievement have found evidence that English measures of phonological awareness correlated positively with L2 word reading (Comeau et al, 1999;Durgunoglu, Nagy, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993;Erdos et al, 2011;Tingley et al, 2004). There is also evidence that phonological measures and other L2 early literacy indicators such as the knowledge of letters can be used to predict future L2 word reading and comprehension ability Haigh et al, 2011;Jared, Cormier, Levy, & Wade-Woolley, 2011). Moreover, studies have found that L1 phonological awareness and phonological access (rapid automatized naming of letters) can be used to distinguish between strong and at-risk L2 readers (MacCoubrey et al, 2004;Erdos et al, 2013) and thus could be used to identify L2 students who might be at risk for reading difficulties.…”

The Influence of Spanish Vocabulary and Phonemic Awareness on Beginning English Reading Development: A Three-Year (K–2nd) Longitudinal Study

“…Clearly, other measures of Spanish abilities, such as working memory, rapid auditory naming, spelling, and text-reading fluency, would yield additional data for consideration (Jared et al, 2011).…”

“…The NNAT has been used in previous research with young second-language learners (Jared, Cormier, Levy, & Wade-Woolley, 2011). The NNAT is composed of common shapes and designs and required the child to select one of five choices to complete a given shape or pattern.…”

“…The development of word reading fluency is important because it has been found to reflect overall reading skills development in monolingual children as well as English language learners (Jared et al, 2011). It is a complex, multidimensional skill involving perceptual, cognitive, and linguistics components.…”