Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T14:01:29.392Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Phonological awareness in young second language learners*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Maggie Bruck  and
Fred Genesee
Maggie Bruck*
Affiliation:
McGill University
Fred Genesee
Affiliation:
McGill University
*
Department of Psychology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield, Montreal, Quebec H3A1B1, Canada.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

English-speaking children (N = 91) who were attending French schools (bilingual group) were given a battery of phonological awareness tests in kindergarten and in grade 1. At the time of kindergarten testing the mean age of the children was 5:9. Their performance was compared to age-matched English-speaking children (N = 72) attending English schools (monolingual group). The bilingual children showed heightened levels of phonological awareness skills in kindergarten in the area of onset-rime awareness. By grade 1, the pattern of group differences was more complex. The monolingual and bilingual children performed similarly on onset-rime segmentation tasks. The monolingual children had higher phoneme awareness scores than their French-schooled peers; this result is interpreted to reflect the role of literacy instruction on phoneme awareness development. In comparison, the bilingual children had higher syllable segmentation scores than their monolingual peers. This result is interpreted to reflect the role of second language input on phonological awareness.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 1995 , pp. 307 - 324
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

[*]

We are grateful to the many principals, teachers, students and parents who were so highly co-operative in this research project. This research was supported by Grants 0GP000A1181 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to M. Bruck, 410-91-1936 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to F. Genesee, and 94-ER-2015 from Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l'Aide à la Recherche to M. Bruck & F. Genesee.

References

REFERENCES

Adams, M. J. (1990). Beginning to read: thinking and learning about print. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ben-Zeev, S. (1977 a). Mechanisms by which childhood bilingualism affects understanding of language and cognitive structures. In Hornby, P. A. (ed.), Bilingualism: psychological, social and educational implications. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ben-Zeev, S. (1977 b). The influence of bilingualism on cognitive strategy and cognitive development. Child Development 48, 1009–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1986). Children's concept of word. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 15, 13–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowey, J. A. (1987). The development of metalinguistic ability. Sydney: Deacon Press.Google Scholar
Bowey, J. A. & Francis, J. (1991). Phonological analysis as a function of age and exposure to reading. Applied Psycholinguistics 12, 91–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruck, M. (1992). Persistence of dyslexics' phonological awareness deficits. Developmental Psychology 28, 874–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caravolas, M. & Bruck, M. (1993). The effect of oral and written language input on children's phonological awareness: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 55, 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cossu, G., Shankweiler, D., Liberman, I. Y., Tola, G. & Katz, L. (1988). Awareness of phonological segments and reading ability in Italian children. Applied Psycholinguistics 9, 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, J. (1978 a). Bilingualism and the development of metalinguistic awareness. Journal of Cross-cultural Psychology 9, 131–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cummins, J. (1978 b). Metalinguistic development of children in bilingual education programs: data from Irish and Canadian Ukranian–English programs. In Paradis, M. (ed.), Aspects of bilingualism. Columbia, S. C.: Hornbeam Press.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1981). The role of primary language development in promoting educational success for language minority students. In Schooling and language minority students: a theoretical framework. Los Angeles: Evaluation, Dissemination, and Assessment Center.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. & Mulcahy, R. (1978). Orientation to language in Ukranian–English bilingual children. Child Development 49, 479–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D. & Segui, J. (1986). The syllable's differing role in the segmentation of French and English. Journal of Memory and Language 25, 385–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diaz, R. M. (1985). Bilingual cognitive development: addressing three gaps in current research. Child Development 56, 1376–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunn, L. M. & Dunn, L. M. (1981). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Ehri, L. (1984). How orthography alters spoken language competencies in children learning to read and spell. In Downing, J. & Valtin, R. (eds), Language awareness and learning to read. New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Hakuta, K. (1987). Degree of bilingualism and cognitive ability in mainland Puerto Rican children. Child Development 58, 1372–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hooper, J. B. (1972). The syllable in phonological theory. Language 48, 525–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ianco-Worrall, A. (1972). Bilingualism and cognitive development. Child Development 43, 1390–1400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leopold, W. F. (1949). Speech development of a bilingual child. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Liberman, I. Y., Shankweiler, D., Fischer, F. W. & Carter, B. (1974). Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 18, 201–02.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morais, J., Alegria, J. & Content, A. (1987). Segmental analysis and literacy. European Bulletin of Cognitive Psychology 5, 415–556.Google Scholar
Nicoladis, E. (1992). Word and phonological awareness in preliterate children: the effect of a second language. M. A. thesis, Psychology Department, McGill University, Montreal.Google Scholar
Oren, D. L. (1981). Cognitive advantages of bilingual children related to labeling ability. Journal of Educational Research 74, 163–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perfetti, C. A., Beck, L., Bell, L. & Hughes, C. (1987). Phonemic knowledge and learning to read are reciprocal: a longitudinal study of first grade children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 33, 283–319.Google Scholar
Raven, J. C. & Summers, B. (1986). Manual for Raven's Progressive Matrices and Vocabulary Scales (research supplement no. 3). London: Lewis.Google Scholar
Rosenblum, T. & Pinker, S. (1983). Word magic revisited: monolingual and bilingual children's understanding of the word–object relationship. Child Development 54, 773–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rosner, J. (1972). The development and validation of an individualized perceptual skills curriculum. Learning Resource and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh.Google Scholar
Rubin, H. & Turner, A. (1989). Linguistic awareness skills in grade one children in a French immersion setting. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1, 73–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sattler, J. M. (1988). Assessment of children. (3rd Edn.) San Diego: Jerome M. Sattler.Google Scholar
Stanovich, K. E., Cunningham, A. E. & Cramer, B. (1984). Assessing phonological awareness in kindergarten children: issues of task comparability. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 38, 175–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treiman, R. (1989). The internal structure of the syllable. In Carlson, G. & Tannenhaus, M. (eds), Linguistic structure in language processing. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.Google Scholar
Treiman, R. & Zukowski, A. (1991). Children's awareness of syllables, onsets, rimes and phonemes. In Brady, S. & Shankweiler, D. (eds), Phonological processes in literacy. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Tunmer, W. E. & Nesdale, A. R. (1982). The effects of digraphs and pseudowords on phonemic segmentation in young children. Applied Psycholinguistics 3, 299–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walley, A. C. (1993). The role of vocabulary growth in children's spoken word recognition and segmentation ability. Developmental Review 13, 286–350.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yopp, H. K. (1988). The validity and reliability of phonemic awareness tests. Reading Research Quarterly 23, 159–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar