Researchers in northern Ontario to study how books can help kids learn French words

Researchers at Laurentian University are reading French books to preschoolers in Sudbury this month to determine the best ways to teach them new words.

Roxanne Bélanger, a speech language pathologist at Laurentian, said the goal is to teach young children “tier 2” words. Those are bigger words — such as “outrageous” — that a child might not use on a daily basis.

"Research has shown that not only is reading a good way to teach those words, but that we also have to teach them explicitly,” Bélanger said.

“So we need to explain, give definitions for these words. Because children who have a better understanding of these words have better success at school."

Chantal Mayer-Crittenden is also a speech language pathologist at Laurentian, and part of the research group.

She said similar studies have been done in the United States, but children south of the border are often older when they start preschool.

For Laurentian’s study, the target age is between two and a half and four years old.

The other key difference, said Mayer-Crittenden, is that the Laurentian study is focused on French-speaking children in a community where English is the dominant language.

Bélanger said children generally don’t have any issues learning two languages, as long as they have enough exposure to those languages.

But she said more research is needed to determine the best ways to help French-speaking children with language delays in communities like Sudbury.

Mayer-Crittenden said the end-goal with the research is to help parents and early childhood educators.

"We don't want to keep all of this information to ourselves,” she said.

“We want to give it back and hopefully help other children who are learning French in a minority context learn some of these tier 2 words through book reading."