A Comparison of Phonological Awareness Skills in Early French Immersion and English Children

This 2-year study examined the effects of early second language exposure on phonological awareness skills. Syllable, onset-rime and phoneme awareness skills of 72 anglophone children attending English or French immersion programs in primary and grade 1 were investigated. Three-way mixed ANOVAS revealed the following effects and interactions. In terms of grade effect, grade 1 students performed significantly better than primary students on phoneme and onset-rime tasks. A stimulus language effect was observed for the three levels of phonological awareness. All children performed better on English tasks than on French ones. Interaction effects of stimulus language by program were revealed for phoneme as well as syllable tasks. Posthoc analyses revealed that French students performed better on English phoneme and syllable tasks than on French, while English students performed better than French immersion students on French syllable tasks. Correlational analyses revealed significant relationships between reading and phoneme and onset-rime phonological awareness tasks regardless of program of instruction (English, French immersion) or language of reading test (English, French). Syllable awareness was only significantly correlated with the French non-word reading task for the French immersion students.