The particular contribution of metasyntactic ability (i.e., the ability to consciously reflect about the syntactic aspects of language and intentionally to control grammatical rules) to second language reading skills is still not clear. While some studies concluded that metasyntactic ability contributes to reading among non-native speakers (NNS), others did not observe any particular contribution of that specific metalinguistic ability among NNS, despite showing a predictive value for their native speaker control group. Methodological aspects might explain these conflicting results, namely the target population, the measurement of metasyntactic ability, and the reading skill examined. The present study was set out to verify whether the particular contribution of metasyntactic ability to French reading comprehension would be the same among native and non-native upper-elementary children. A cross-sectional study was carried out in which 73 children (37 native and 36 non native speakers of French) were given syntactic, metasyntactic, receptive vocabulary, reading comprehension and phonological memory tasks. As in previous studies, results of the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) first revealed that the NNSs of French participants obtained lower MSA results than the native speaker children. However, results from the multiple regressions showed that MSA accounted for a significant part of variation in L2 reading among the native as well as among the NNS children and that language group was not a significant factor. This indicates that the weight of each variable, including metasyntactic ability, did not vary according to language status.
Abu-RabiaS.SiegelL.S. (2002). Reading, syntactic, orthographic, and working memory skills of bilingual Arab Canadian children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31, 661–678.
2.
BakerL.BrownA. (1984). Metacognitive skills and reading. In PearsonP.BarrR.KamilM.MosenthalP. (Eds.), Handbook of reading research (pp. 353–394). New York: Longman.
3.
BarkerT. A.TorgesenJ. K.WagnerR. K. (1992). The Role of orthographic processing skills on five different reading tasks. Reading Research Quarterly, 27, 335–345.
4.
BesseA.S.Marec-BretonN.DemontE. (2010). Développement métalinguistique et apprentissage de la lecture chez les enfants bilingues. Enfance, 2, 167–199.
5.
BirdsongD. (1989). Metalinguistic performance and interlinguistic competence. Berlin, Germany: Springer.
6.
BlackmoreA.M.PrattC. (1997). Grammatical awareness and reading in Grade 1 children. Merrill-Palmer, 43, 567–590.
7.
Bourque RichardJ. (1998). Les distorsions mnémoniques en fonction de l’âge, le vocabulaire et la suggestibilité. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Université de Moncton, Canada.
8.
BoweyJ. A. (1986a). Syntactic awareness and verbal performance from preschool to fifth grade. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 15, 285–306.
9.
BoweyJ. A. (1986b). Syntactic awareness in relation to reading skill and ongoing comprehension monitoring. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 41, 282–299.
10.
BoweyJ. A. (1994). Grammatical awareness and learning to read: A critique. In AssinkE. M. H. (Ed.), Literacy acquisition and social context (pp. 122–149). London, UK: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
11.
BoweyJ. A. (2005). Grammatical sensitivity: Its origins and potential contribution to early word reading skill. Journal Experimental Child Psychology, 90, 318–343.
12.
BryantP. E.MacLeanM.BradleyL. L. (1990). Rhyme, language, and children’s reading. Applied Psycholinguistics, 11, 237–252.
13.
CainK. (2007). Syntactic awareness and reading ability: Is there any evidence for a special relationship?Applied Psycholinguistics, 28, 679–694.
14.
CainK.OakhillJ. (2007). Introduction. In CainK.OakhillJ. (Eds.), Children’s comprehension problems in oral and written language. A cognitive perspective (pp. 3–46). New York: The Guilford Press.
15.
ChateauD.JaredD. (2000). Exposure to print and word recognition processes. Memory & Cognition, 28, 143–153.
16.
ChiappeP.SiegelL. S. (1999). Phonological awareness and reading acquisition in English- and Punjabi-speaking Canadian children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91, 20–28.
17.
ChiappeP.SiegelL. S.Wade-WoolleyL. (2002). Linguistic diversity and the development of reading skills: A longitudinal study. Scientific Studies of Reading, 6, 369–400.
18.
CohenJ. (1968). Multiple regression as a general data-analytic system. Psychological Bulletin, 70, 426–443.
19.
CohenJ.CohenP.WestS. G.AikenL. S. (1983). Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for the behavioral sciences (vol. 2). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
20.
CromdalJ. (1999). Childhood bilingualism and metalinguistic skills: Analysis and control in young Swedish–English bilinguals. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 1–20.
21.
Da FontouraH.SiegelL. (1995). Reading, syntactic, and working memory skills of bilingual Portuguese–English Canadian children. Reading and Writing: An interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 139–153.
22.
DavidsonD.RaschkeV.R.PervezJ. (2010). Syntactic awareness in young monolingual and bilingual (Urdu–English) children. Cognitive Development, 25, 166–182.
23.
DemontE. (1994). Développement métalinguistique et apprentissage de la lecture. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Université de Bourgogne, France.
24.
DemontE.GombertJ.-E. (1996). Phonological awareness as a predictor of recoding skills and syntactic awareness as a predictor of comprehension skills. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 315–323.
25.
DoctorE. A.ColtheartM. (1980). Children’s use of phonological encoding when reading for meaning. Memory and Cognition, 8, 195–204.
26.
DroopM.VerhoevenL. (1998). Background knowledge, linguistic complexity, and second language reading comprehension. Journal of Literacy Research, 30(2), 253–271.
27.
DroopM.VerhoevenL. (2003). Language proficiency and reading ability in first- and second-language learners. Reading Research Quarterly, 38, 78–103.
28.
DunnL. M.DunnL. M. (1981). Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test – Revised. Circle Pines, NM: American Guidance Services.
29.
DunnL. M.Thériault-WhalenC. M.DunnL. M. (1993). Échelle de Vocabulaire en Images Peabody. Toronto, Canada: PSYCAN.
30.
EhriL. C. (1992). Reconceptualizing the development of sight word reading and its relationship to recoding. In GoughL. C.EhriL. C.TreimanR. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 107–143). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
31.
EllisR. (1991). Grammaticality judgments and second language acquisition. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 13, 161–186.
32.
FoucambertD. (2009). L’amélioration de la compréhension en lecture de jeunes collégiens par un entraînement syntaxique: Modalités, résultats et perspectives. Revue des Sciences de l’Éducation, 35, 41–63.
33.
GathercoleS. E.WillisC. S.BaddeleyA. D.EmslieH. (1994). The children’s test of nonword repetition: A test of phonological working memory. Memory, 2, 103–127.
34.
GauxC.DemontE. (1997). Conscience phonologique, morpho-syntaxique et lecture: Étude chez les jeunes enfants et les pré-adolescents. In Barre-De MiniacC.LeteB. (Eds.), L’illettrisme : De la prévention chez l’enfant a la prise en chargé chez l’adulte. Approches pluridisciplinaires (pp. 203–223). Bruxelles, Belgium: De Boeck Université.
35.
GauxC.GombertJ.-E. (1999a). Implicit and explicit syntactic knowledge and reading in pre-adolescents. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 17, 169–188.
36.
GauxC.GombertJ.-E. (1999b). La conscience syntaxique chez les préadolescents: question de méthodes. L’Année Psychologique, 99, 45–74.
37.
GevaE. (2000). Issues in the assessment of reading disabilities in L2 children. Dyslexia, 6, 13–28.
38.
GevaE.SiegelL. S. (2000). Orthographic and cognitive factors in the concurrent development of basic reading skills in two languages. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 12, 1–30.
39.
GevaE.Yaghoub-ZadehZ. (2006). Reading efficiency in native English-speaking and English as a second language children: The role of oral proficiency and underlying cognitive-linguistic processes. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10, 31–57.
40.
GevaEYaghoub-ZadehZSchusterB. (2000). Understanding individual differences in word recognition skills of ESL children. Annals of Dyslexia, 50, 123–154.
41.
GodardL.LabelleM. (1995). Utilisation de l’EVIP avec une population québécoise. Fréquences, 7, 18–20.
42.
GombertJ.-E. (1992). Metalinguistic Development. Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press.
43.
GombertJ.-E.GauxC.DemontE. (1994). Capacité métalinguistique et lecture. Quels liens?Repères, 9, 61–73.
44.
GombertJ.-E.MartinotC.NocusI. (1996). Conscience linguistique et traitement de l’information écrite. Travaux neuchâtelois de linguistique, 25, 135–153.
45.
GottardoA.MuellerJ. (2009). Are first- and second-language factors related in predicting second-language reading comprehension? A study of Spanish-speaking children acquiring English as a second language from first to second grade. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 330–344.
46.
GottardoA.StanovichK. E.SiegelL. S. (1996). The relationships between phonological sensitivity, syntactic processing, and verbal working memory in the reading performance of third-grade children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology64, 563–582.
47.
GottardoA.YanB.SiegelL. S.Wade-WoolleyL. (2001). Factors related to English reading performance in children with Chinese as first language: More evidence of cross-language transfer of phonological processing. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 530–542.
48.
HubertyC. J.MorrisJ. D. (1989). Multivariate analysis versus multiple univariate analyses. Psychological Bulletin, 105(2), 302–308.
49.
Johnson-LairdP. N. (1983). Mental models: Toward a cognitive science of language, inference and consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
50.
JongejanW.VerhoevenL.SiegelL. (2007). Predictors of reading and spelling abilities in first- and second-language learners. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 835–851.
51.
KintschW. (1988). The use of knowledge in discourse processing: A construction-integration model. Psychological Review, 95, 163–182.
52.
KintschW.WelschD.SchmalhoferF.ZimnyS. (1990). Sentence memory: A theoretical analysis. Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 133–159.
53.
KyleF. E. (2006). Concurrent correlates and predictors of reading and spelling achievement in deaf and hearing school children. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 11(3), 273–288.
54.
LefrançoisP.ArmandF. (2003). The role of phonological and syntactic awareness in second language reading. The case of Spanish-speaking learners of French. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 16, 219–246.
55.
LesauxN. K.CrossonA.KiefferM. J.PierceM. (2010). Uneven profiles: Language minority learners’ word reading, vocabulary, and reading comprehension skills. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 31, 475–483.
56.
LesauxN. K.LipkaO.SiegelL. S. (2006). Investigating cognitive and linguistic abilities that influence the reading comprehension skills of children from diverse linguistic backgrounds. Reading and Writing, 19, 99–131.
57.
LesauxN. K.RuppA. A.SiegelL. S. (2007). Growth in reading skills of children from diverse linguistic backgrounds: Findings from a 5-year longitudinal study. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99, 821–834.
58.
LesauxN. K.SiegelL. S. (2003). The development of reading in children who speak English as a second language. Developmental Psychology, 39, 1005–1119.
59.
LimbosM. M.GevaE. (2001). Accuracy of teacher assessments of second language students at risk for reading disability. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 34, 136–151.
60.
LipkaO.SiegelL. S. (2007). The development of reading skills in children with English as a second language. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11, 105–131.
61.
LipkaO.SiegelL. S. (2011). The development of reading comprehension skills in children learning English as a second language. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal. DOI: 10.1007/s11145-011-9309-8.
62.
LipkaO.SiegelL. S.VukovicR. (2005). The literacy skills of English language learners in Canada. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 20, 39–49.
63.
LowP. B.SiegelL. S. (2005). A comparison of the cognitive processes underlying reading comprehension in native English and ESL speakers. Written Language & Literacy, 8, 207–231.
64.
MokhtariK.ThompsonB. H. (2006). How problems of reading fluency and comprehension are related to difficulties in syntactic awareness skills among fifth graders. Reading Research and Instruction, 46, 73–94.
65.
MontrulS. (2010). Current issues in heritage language acquisition. Annual Review of Applied Lingustics, 30, 3–23.
66.
NassajiH.GevaE. (1999). The contribution of phonological and orthographic processing skills to adult ESL reading: Evidence from native speakers of Farsi. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, 241–267.
67.
NationK.SnowlingM. J. (2000). Factors influencing syntactic awareness skills in normal readers and poor comprehenders. Applied Psycholinguistics, 21, 229–241.
68.
NocusI.GombertJ.-E. (1997). Conscience morpho-syntaxique et apprentissage de la lecture. Revue de psychologie de l’éducation, 3, 71–101.
69.
OakhillJ. V.CainK.BryantP. E. (2003). The dissociation of word reading and text comprehension: Evidence from component skills. Language and Cognitive Processes, 18, 443–468.
70.
PlazaM. (2001). The interaction between phonological processing, syntactic awareness and reading: A longitudinal study from Kindergarten to Grade 1. First Language, 21, 3–24.
71.
PlazaM.CohenH. (2003). The interaction between phonological processing, syntactic awareness, and naming speed in the reading and spelling performance of first-grade children. Brain and Cognition, 53, 287–292.
72.
PonceletM.Van der LindenM. (2003). Assessing the phonological store of working memory: Elaboration of a nonword repetition test for a French-speaking population. Revue de neuropsychologie, 13, 377–407.
73.
RegoL. L. B.BryantP. E. (1993). The connection between phonological, syntactic and semantic skills and children’s reading and spelling. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 8, 235–246.
74.
RomanA. A.KirbyJ. R.ParrilaR. K.Wade-WoolleyL.DeaconS. H. (2008). Toward a comprehensive view of the skills involved in word reading in grades 4, 6, and 8. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 102, 96–113.
75.
RothmanJ. (2009) Understanding the nature and outcomes of early bilingualism: Romance languages as heritage languages. International Journal of Bilingualism, 13, 155–163.
76.
ShankweilerD.CrainS.BradyS.MacarusoP. (1992). Identifying the causes of reading disability. In GoughP.EhriL.TreimanR. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 275–305). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
77.
SiegelL. S. (1993). The development of reading. In ReeseH. W. (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior (vol. 24) (pp. 63–97). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
78.
SiegelL. S.RyanE. B. (1988). Development of grammatical-sensitivity, phonological, and short-term memory skills in normally achieving and learning disabled children. Developmental Psychology, 24, 28–37.
79.
SimardD.FortierV. (2007). Metasyntactic ability development among submersion and French native elementary school children: Investigation of task demand. In HanZ. (Ed.), Understanding second language processes (pp. 160–175). Cleveland, UK: Multilingual Matters.
80.
SimardD.FortierV.FoucambertD. (2012). Measuring the metasyntactic ability of Portuguese speaking children living in a French speaking environment. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. doi/10.1017/S1366728911000071.
81.
StanovichK. E. (1993). The language code: Issues in word recognition. In YussenS. R. & S. M. C. (Eds.), Reading across the life span (pp. 111–135). New York: Springer-Verlag.
82.
TorgesenJ. K. (2002). The prevention of reading difficulties. Journal of School Psychology, 40, 7–26.
83.
TunmerW. E. (1989). The role of language-related factors in reading disability. In ShankweilerD.LibermanI. Y. (Eds.), Phonology and reading disability (pp. 91–131). Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
84.
TunmerW. E.BoweyJ. A. (1984). Metalinguistic awareness and reading acquisition. In TunmerW. E.PrattC.HerrimanM. L. (Eds.), Metalinguistic awareness in children: Theory, research, and implications (pp. 144–168). New York: Springer-Verlag
85.
TunmerW. E.HerrimanM. L.NesdaleA. R. (1988). Metalinguistic abilities and beginning reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 23, 134–158.
86.
TunmerW. E.HooverW. A. (1992). Cognitive and linguistic factors in learning to read. In GoughP. E.EhriL. C.TreimanR. (Eds.), Reading acquisition (pp. 175–214). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
87.
TunmerW. E.NesdaleA. R.WrightA. D. (1987). Syntactic awareness and reading acquisition. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 5, 25–34.
88.
Van BerkumJ. J. A.BrownC. M.ZwitserloodP.KooijmanV.HagoortP. (2005). Anticipating upcoming words in discourse: Evidence from ERPs and reading times. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 31, 443–467.
89.
Van DijkT. A.KintschW. (1983). Strategies of discourse comprehension. New York: Academic Press.
90.
VerhoevenL. (2000). Components in early second language reading and spelling. Scientific Studies of Reading, 4, 313–330.
91.
VerhoevenL. (1990). Acquisition of reading in Dutch as a second language. Reading Research Quarterly, 25(2), 90–114.
92.
VogelS. (1975). Syntactic abilities in normal and dyslexic children. Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.
93.
WillowsD. M.RyanE. B. (1981). Differential utilization of syntactic and semantic information by skilled and less skilled readers in the intermediate grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 607–615.
94.
WillowsD. M.RyanE. B. (1986). The development of grammatical sensitivity and its relationship to early reading achievement. Reading Research Quarterly, 21, 253–266.
