Understanding the Language Bases of Poor Reading Comprehension in English and French

This dissertation is comprised of three studies that investigate characteristics of reading comprehension difficulties among children who receive school instruction in a second language (L2) in Canadian French immersion programs. The first study examines the overlap and stability of poor reading comprehension in English and French for a group of 8-year-old children enrolled in early French immersion programs. The primary aim of this study was to determine the extent to which those identified as having poor reading comprehension in English also demonstrate poor reading comprehension in French. Poor comprehenders of English and French, of English-only, and of French-only were compared on English and French vocabulary measures, concurrently and retrospectively. Children who were poor comprehenders in English and French scored significantly lower on English vocabulary at ages 6 and 8 compared to poor comprehenders in French-only. Lower scores on French vocabulary at age 8 distinguished poor comprehenders in French-only from poor comprehenders in English-only. The second study supplements the above findings through a retrospective case study that examines the early development of English and French decoding and vocabulary skills for a poor and average comprehender in French immersion. The findings suggest that relative to average comprehenders (who demonstrate average decoding and vocabulary combined with average reading comprehension) poor comprehenders show early and persistent difficulties with English and French vocabulary despite average decoding ability in both languages. Finally, the third study explores similarities and differences in components of English and French language comprehension among 10- to 11-year-old English-French bilingual children in French immersion and English monolingual children in mainstream programs. Three groups of comprehenders matched on age, nonverbal reasoning, English word reading accuracy and fluency were identified in each program: poor, average, and good. The three groups differed in English vocabulary, morphological awareness, and inference in both bilingual and monolingual groups, with poor comprehenders performing significantly lower than good comprehenders on these tasks. English inference also distinguished between poor and average comprehenders. Similar results were found in French for the bilingual group. French vocabulary and morphological awareness distinguished between poor and good comprehenders, and French semantics and inference distinguished between poor and good comprehenders and poor and average comprehenders. Together, these studies suggest that poor comprehenders experience similar and persistent difficulties with components of language in both L1 and L2.Ph.D