Cross Linguistic Transfer of Literacy Skills between English and French among Grade 1 Students Attending French Immersion Programs

Abstract

This study explored the impact of a supplemental reading intervention delivered in English in Grade 1 (Savage, Georgiou, Parrila, & Maiorino, 2018) on the performance of at-risk children educated in French Immersion schools. The intervention contrasted 'Direct Mapping and Set-for-Variability' with a 'Common and Best Practices' taught control condition in a matched quasi-experimental design. To test claims of crosslinguistic transfer, measures of English and French word reading were administered before and after intervention. Hierarchical linear modelling analyses confirmed that children in the intervention condition showed improved performance at post-test on measures of English and French regular, exception, and pseudoword reading compared to the control condition. Intervention-specific cross language effects on French word and pseudoword reading shown here provide partial support for causal models of transfer in bilingual reading development.

Pathways to learning mathematics for students in French-immersion and English-instruction programs.

“…According to the Developmental Interdependence Hypothesis (Cummins, 1979), when students are exposed to both languages, in either a bilingual or immersion context, experience with either language can facilitate the development of proficiency in both languages. Support for this hypothesis comes from research on the development of reading skills for French-immersion students (e.g., Archambault et al, 2019; Côté et al, 2021; Jared et al, 2011; see a review in Genesee & Jared, 2008). Across these studies, language skills in English, such as phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, grammatical ability, and rapid automatized naming, were significant predictors of reading ability in French.…”

“…Across these studies, language skills in English, such as phonological awareness, letter-sound knowledge, grammatical ability, and rapid automatized naming, were significant predictors of reading ability in French. In an intervention study of at-risk French-immersion students in Grade 1, Côté et al (2021) found that an English reading intervention led to improvements on both English and French measures of word reading (i.e., regular, exception, and pseudowords). Similarly, in their intervention study, Archambault et al (2019) found that, for French-immersion students in Grade 3, a French reading fluency intervention led to improvements in both French and English reading fluency.…”