Phonological awareness interventions in French immersion classrooms

In this research project, I examined phonological awareness interventions (PAIs) in primary French Immersion classrooms. In detail, I discussed current research on the importance of phonological awareness (PA) as a foundation for literacy skills and the transferability of these pre-literacy skills across languages. In a focus group setting, I invited primary French Immersion teachers to share their knowledge and understanding of PA as well as share effective interventions to teach this pre-literacy skill to second language learners. Subsequently, I delivered a questionnaire to teachers asking them to rate the listed interventions for effectiveness and frequency of application. Results indicated that teachers had a varying degree of knowledge of PA, and therefore, PAIs. PAIs identified in this study match the research of current PAI and addressed the "big ideas" of literacy such as phonemic awareness, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary and the alphabetic principle. PAIs that were highest rated in frequency and effectiveness included building words on mini-chalkboards, cutting sentence strips, and identifying rhymes in stories and poems. --Leaf ii.