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Articles

Vol. 10 No. 3 (2007)

English-French bilingual children’s phonological awareness and vocabulary skills

  • PiYu Chiang
  • Susan Rvachew
Submitted
October 15, 2012

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between English-speaking children’s vocabulary skills in English and in French and their phonological awareness skills in both languages. Forty-four kindergarten-aged children attending French immersion programs were administered a receptive vocabulary test, an expressive vocabulary test and a phonological awareness test in English and French. Results showed that French phonological awareness was largely explained by English phonological awareness, consistent with previous findings that phonological awareness skills transfer across languages. However, there was a small unique contribution from French expressive vocabulary size to French phonological awareness. The importance of vocabulary skills to the development of phonological awareness is discussed.