A longitudinal study of phonological processing skills in children learning to read in a second language
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Diane Lacroix; Pierre Cormier; Liane Comeau; Éric Grandmaison
- Source
- Journal of Educational Psychology. 91:29-43
- Subject
- media_common.quotation_subject
Foreign language
Metalinguistics
Phonology
Education
Developmental psychology
Pseudoword
Phonological awareness
Reading (process)
Developmental and Educational Psychology
Learning to read
French immersion
Psychology
media_common
- Language
- ISSN
- 1939-2176
0022-0663
English-speaking children (N = 122) in French immersion classes participated in a 1-year longitudinal study of the relation between phonological awareness and reading achievement in both languages. Participants were administered measures of word decoding and of phonological awareness in French and in English as well as measures of cognitive ability, speeded naming, and pseudoword repetition in English only. The relation of phonological awareness in French to reading achievement in each of the languages were equivalent to that in English. These relations remained significant after partialing out the influences of speeded naming and pseudoword repetition. Phonological awareness in both languages was specifically associated with 1-year increments in decoding skill in French. These findings support the transfer of phonological awareness skills across alphabetic languages.