This 2-year study examined the effects of early second language exposure on phonological awareness skills. Syllable, onset-rime and phoneme awareness skills of 72 anglophone children attending English or French immersion programs in primary and grade 1 were investigated. Three-way mixed ANOVAS revealed the following effects and interactions. In…

Compares performance of 45 first graders in partial French immersion, partial Hebrew immersion, and traditional English programs on measures of linguistic analysis ability and early reading skills in English. Finds that subjects in the Hebrew program read nonwords better than the other groups and read orthographically regular words better than…

An examination of existing data was conducted to determine the effects of different kindergarten options on subsequent academic achievement in French immersion programs. It was concluded that there was no evidence for any superiority in outcomes for full-day bilingual as compared to half-day French kindergarten. No clear trends emerged in the…

The patterns of second grade French immersion students' spontaneous reading in English during the first and second year of their immersion program are reported and compared with their French reading performance. (MSE)

Study results indicated that there were no lasting differences in the English expressive syntactic skills of 57 junior kindergarten through third-grade English-speaking children enrolled in a French immersion program, relative to the English monolingual subjects who made up the normative data. (Author/CM)

Extends the research on academic outcomes of second-language immersion schooling by comparing children's early experiences in and understanding of regular and French-immersion kindergartners through script analysis. Sixty-four female and 56 male kindergarten children were asked to tell about kindergarten from the time they got to school until the…

Through interviews and direct observation, examined how 120 Toronto (Ontario) children understand and experience kindergarten in ten English first-language (L1) and ten French immersion second-language (L2) classes. Results indicate the similarities between the groups were greater than the differences, contradicting suggestions that L2 immersion…

The York Region Board of Education in Ontario, Canada, screens students for giftedness in grade 3. This report analyzes data produced in the 1986-87 screening procedure, involving approximately 3,400 students. The report begins with a review of procedural changes that were designed to make the screening more effective and efficient than earlier…

A study was carried out to assess the French language proficiency of students enrolled in two different programs at the kindergarten level in Montreal: an early immersion program and a "class d'accueil" program. Three groups of students were tested: (1) an early immersion class; (2) a "classe d'accueil," or class for immigrant…

The reading skill development of anglophone kindergarten children in French immersion programs in Canada is the subject of the two papers included in this document. The first paper describes a study that examined the English reading ability of both kindergarten and first grade children in immersion programs and compared the results with those of…

Two models of content-based second language instruction are compared. The two models, French language immersion and mainstreaming, are illustrated in two case studies that focus on how minority language children fare in kindergarten programs. The first case study is of a native Cantonese-speaking child enrolled in an early French immersion program…

In French immersion programs in Canadian public schools, kindergarten is taught all in French, and the proportion of French instruction gradually decreases thereafter until in seventh grade instruction is only 50 percent French. This study examined the psychological adjustment of a group of first-grade children who had been enrolled in an early…

A study compared language skill development and cultural attitudes of second-grade children taught in an additive-bilingual program setting with those of second-grade children from a monolingual classroom setting. Subjects were 41 second-grade children participating in a Spanish immersion program and 19 children from a regular second-grade…

A study analyzed and compared the classroom interactional strategies of two teachers of Catalan immersion classes and one teacher of Spanish as a native language in Spain at the kindergarten level. The theoretical framework guiding the study is based on analysis of the native-speaker/non-native-speaker distinction. Two comparisons were made: (1)…

The enhanced metalinguistic abilities demonstrated by additive-bilingual children, including superior control of cognitive processing, may promote the development of symbolic reasoning. Children educated in additive-bilingual (immersion) settings may maintain normal native-language development, while acquiring a second language. This study…