Abstract
This study examined the ability of children in French immersion and English programs to analyze the internal structure of spoken words in relation to their early reading and spelling abilities in English. Thirty-two children in the first grade were given a modified version of the Auditory Analysis Test, and reading and spelling tasks that included both real words and non-words. Results indicated that French immersion children were more proficient than their English program peers at explicitly analyzing spoken words and that the groups did not differ when reading and spelling orthographically regular real words and non-words. The English program children performed better than their French program peers only when reading orthographically irregular English words. These results demonstrate that second language learning enhances metalinguistic awareness and help to explain why children in immersion programs do not experience long-term difficulty in acquiring English written language skills.
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Rubin, H., Turner, A. Linguistic awareness skills in grade one children in a French immersion setting. Read Writ 1, 73–86 (1989). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00178839
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00178839