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The role of phonological and syntactic awareness in second-language reading: The case of Spanish-speaking learners of French

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Abstract

Spanish-speaking learners of French, aged 9 to 11 years old, were tested after approximately 7months of French instruction to explore the contribution of phonological and syntactic awareness in L2 in 4 components of L2 reading, taking oral competence in L2 andreading in L1 into account. Phonological tasksin L2 better explain decoding. Word recognitionthrough the visual route is best explained bythe corresponding ability in L1. Sentencecomprehension is best explained by oralcompetence in L2, although it is stronglycorrelated with syntactic awareness. Finally,text comprehension is explained by thecorresponding ability in L1, althoughcorrelations with syntactic awareness and oralcompetence are strong. Theoretical implicationsare derived from these findings, and questionsrelative to the subjects' age and level ofbilingualism as well as methodological issuesare discussed.

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  1. Département de didactique, Faculté des Sciences de l'Éducation, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succ. centre-ville, Montréal, (Québec), Canada, H3C 3J7

    Pascale Lefrançois & Françoise Armand

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  1. Pascale Lefrançois
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  2. Françoise Armand
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Lefrançois, P., Armand, F. The role of phonological and syntactic awareness in second-language reading: The case of Spanish-speaking learners of French. Reading and Writing 16, 219–246 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022874425314

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