Cross-linguistic transfer of literacy skills between English and French among grade 1 and 2 elementary school students attending French immersion programs

Bilingualism is a common reality for a majority of the world’s population (Aronin, & Singleton, 2008). Biliteracy, that is, learning to read in more than one language, is also very common among school-aged children around the world. The situation in Canada is particular in that there are two official languages; English and French. Therefore, in Quebec, and other provinces, many children attend immersion programs where they receive instruction in English and in French. Even though those programs have been implanted in Canada since 1965 (Genesee & Jared, 2008), the scientific literature concerning dual-language education is still in development. The precise impacts of learning to read two languages at the same time and the extent to which learning can be transferred between languages are still unknown. Many correlational studies have shown that reading abilities in L1 are related to those in L2 and thus suggest that cross-linguistic transfer is possible. However, causal evidence of cross-linguistic transfer is still needed to demonstrate whether cross-linguistic transfer is possible and which specific literacy skills are subject to it. More experimental reading intervention research in bilingual education is thus needed to investigate the causal relationships between L1 & L2 development (Genesee & Jared, 2008). Following that line of reasoning, the present study aimed to answer two questions; 1) What are the impacts of a preventative intervention in English on the decoding and spelling skills in French among Grade 1 and Grade 2 at-risk students? 2) Does transfer occur at the level of specific knowledge (i.e. transfer of specific grapheme-phoneme correspondences (GPC)) or at the more general level of process involved in reading (i.e. letter-sound rules generalization)? In this study, participating schools were assigned to one of three experimental conditions (Grade 1: The Direct Mapping and Set-for-Variability (DMSfV), Common or Best Practices (CBP), Classroom-based Support with Curricular and Socio-Emotional Foci (CSF); Grade 2: Preventative Intervention based on the “Simplicity Principle” (PIbSP), Preventative Intervention Oriented Towards Vocabulary (PIOTV), Classroom-based Support with Curricular and Socio-Emotional Foci (CSF)). Grade 1 (n = 99) and Grade 2 (n = 52) at-risk students (i.e. readers who scored below the 30th percentile in a word reading measure in English) in each condition participated to small-group instruction sessions in English, typically for 12 hours over 10 weeks. Students’ word reading skills (irregular words, regular words and non-words) were measured in English and in French, before and after the intervention. Results of the hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analyses provided evidence of cross-linguistic transfer from midtest to post-test between English and French in Grade 1 for multiple reading outcomes. Analysis of the types of errors made also suggested that cross-linguistic transfer occurred generally more at the process level (decoding mechanisms) rather than with specific GPC knowledge. In Grade 2, however, no significant evidence of cross-linguistic transfer was found. This study suggests that cross-linguistic transfer is possible, at least among young at-risk readers in Grade 1. Thus, the adoption of teaching practices and educational policies supporting cross-linguistic transfer seem essential in dual language contexts. Nonetheless, more intervention research is needed to understand what aspects of language and learning transfer, and in which context. Keywords: reading, intervention, cross-linguistic transfer, phonics, at-risk students

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