A reading fluency intervention for second-language readers in French immersion programs : study of cross-linguistic effects

Evidence from studies of the development of reading skills in bilingual populations suggests that reading instruction in one language could have beneficial effects on the development of reading skills in another language. To examine the effects of French reading instruction on French and English oral reading fluency, a reading fluency intervention was delivered to three Grade 3 students enrolled in a French immersion program and experiencing reading difficulties following a concurrent multiple baseline across participants design. It was hypothesized that the intervention would have beneficial effects on reading fluency skills in both languages. The intervention led to improvements in French reading fluency on instructional passages during the intervention for all participants. Improvements did not generalize to the probes used for French progress monitoring, as students demonstrated similar progress before and after the intervention was put in place. Students also demonstrated gains in reading comprehension during both phases. All three students however showed an increase in English reading fluency during the intervention phase, suggesting the intervention had a beneficial effect on English oral reading fluency. The lack of generalization of effect to the French progress monitoring probes could be due to the students’ progress in French prior to the intervention and to their more limited vocabulary in French. Results from this study provide support for the transferability of reading skills across languages and suggest that the procedures used are a promising intervention for improving reading fluency in French immersion students. It was recommended that future research further investigate the effectiveness of the intervention using a larger sample.Education, Faculty ofEducational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department ofGraduat