The Role of Paired Associate Learning in Word Reading Among Emerging English-French Bilingual Children

• In Event: Language and Literacy Development: Immersion Education in the United States and Canada

Abstract

Purpose: A significant challenge of French immersion programs in Canada is the lack of effective methods to aid in the timely identification of at-risk readers (Wise, D’Angelo, & Chen, 2010). One promising avenue to improve the accuracy of risk status within early screening batteries is the inclusion of dynamic assessment measures in which the examiner teaches a task or provides explicit prompts to the examinee (Bridges & Catts, 2011). Students who are not able to perform with scaffolds are likely to be at-risk. Visual-verbal paired-associate learning (PAL) requires the child to associate a visual symbol with a verbal label (Litt & Nation, 2014). This measure may be used as a form of dynamic assessment. This study investigates whether PAL predicts word reading within and across languages (i.e., English and French) beyond the effects of other known variables.

Theoretical framework: A link has been reported between PAL and reading ability over and above the effects of phonological processing (e.g., Hulme, Goetz, Gooch, Adams, & Snowling, 2007; Litt, de Jong, van Bergen, & Nation, 2013; Windfuhr & Snowling, 2001). However, there is still inconsistency with respect to whether PAL and phonological processing tap two separate mechanisms (Kalashnikova & Burnham, 2016). In addition, the extent to which visual-verbal PAL is important for reading acquisition in French immersion children has not been explored explicitly.

Method: The participants were 94 children in Grade 1 (n = 60) or 2 (n = 34) (Mage = 80.6 months, SD = 7.11) enrolled in early French immersion programs in Canada. The children received standardized language, literacy, and PAL measures in English and French at the beginning and end of the school year.

Materials: Visual-verbal PAL. The child was asked to learn six pairings between ambiguous objects and spoken pseudowords (adapted from Li, Shu, McBride-Chang, Liu, & Xue, 2009). During the task, the experimenter held a set of six cards with shapes, showed the child one card at a time, and asked the child to repeat the six pseudowords. After all six pairs were introduced, the experimenter held one card at a time and asked the child to name it. Feedback was given in each trial. This procedure was repeated six times for a total of 36 responses.

Results: Hierarchical regression analyses showed that the visual-verbal PAL task predicted English and French word reading after controlling for age, nonverbal reasoning, short-term memory, phonological awareness, rapid naming, and vocabulary knowledge.

Significance: The findings suggest that visual-verbal PAL is a critical precursor for learning to read. As a result, dynamic lexical assessment may be a useful tool for immersion educators in order to gauge children’s learning potential and adapt instructional goals accordingly. In other words, PAL could be considered a dynamic measure for early identification of at-risk status in bilingual children. Moreover, the findings address an important theoretical issue by suggesting that PAL is independent of phonological processing.

Authors

• Klaudia Krenca, University of Toronto

• Xi Chen, University of Toronto - OISE

• Alexandra Gottardo, Wilfrid Laurier University

• Hong Li

• Jeffrey Steele