Trilingualism and reading difficulty in a third (school) language: A case study of an at-risk child in French immersion

Abstract

This longitudinal study documents a trilingual child’s struggle with decoding and word recognition, the remedies sought to help him start reading in his second language (English) while he was in French immersion, and his performance after the intervention on tests of phonological awareness in L1 Romanian, L2 English, and L3 French. The study commenced at age 5;6, when the child, Alex, was in English kindergarten and diagnosed with a reading deficit. The initial diagnostic assessment uncovered his near-complete lack of phonological awareness, a key ingredient of emergent reading. An intervention using a multisensory approach to reading was used twice a week until the child was 7;9, at which point he was completing grade 2 in French immersion. Alex’s phonological processing abilities were assessed in all three languages immediately after remediation in order to determine: (i) whether his phonological processing skills improved in English, the language of the intervention; (ii) whether there were similar effects in the two non-remediation languages (Romanian and French); and, finally, (iii) whether children at-risk for reading difficulties are able to continue their education in an L3, such as French in an immersion context.