Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to determine whether knowing a second language
would be related to having greater phonological and word awareness skills than their
monolingual peers. Three groups of kindergarten children, of varying levels of second
language experience participated in a variety of tasks examining their phonological and
word awareness skills. One group was fluent in French and English (bilingual), one
group was in a French immersion program (immersion), and the other group spoke
English and had no exposure to a second language (monolingual). Results indicated
similar abilities among the three groups of children in terms of their phonological
awareness abilities, with the exception of segmenting syllables and phonemes. The
bilingual group scored significantly higher than the immersion group when manipulating
syllables and the immersion and monolingual group scored significantly higher than the
bilingual group when manipulating phonemes. In the “moving word” word awareness
task, both groups of children with a second language background performed
significantly better than chance, whereas the monolingual group did not differ from
chance. The findings suggest that by the end of the child’s first year of formal literacy
instruction, second language advantage may only exist in the area of manipulating
syllables and increased awareness of print. Therefore, children possessing a second
language have some increased metalinguistic skills which may be beneficial in learning
to read.
