Multilingualism and Literacy Lab
Hello and welcome to our lab!
Current Projects:
The International Bilingual Education (IBE) Project
One of our main projects is a longitudinal study titled, “The International Bilingual Education (IBE) Project”, which is an academic-community partnership project. Our project aims to design and evaluate dynamic assessment tools for early identification of at-risk readers in French immersion programs, and providing interventions to at-risk readers through evidence-based computer games. The research project has the following two objectives:
- To evaluate dynamic assessment (DA) tools for early identification of at-risk reading status for French immersion children.
- To provide interventions to at-risk readers through evidence-based computer games.
The participating children in this study are assessed in various domains of language and literacy over a time span of two years, from Grade 1 to Grade 2.
Successes and Challenges of Syrian Refugee Children in Canada: Language, Literacy and Well-being
This project seeks to evaluate and language and literacy skills of Syrian refugee children from 6-12 years old in both Arabic and English. These skills are considered together with social-emotional well-being to provide a more complete understanding of the development of refugee children. This research project will produce implications for facilitating refugee children's bilingual and biliteracy development and enhancing their ability to fully participate in Canadian society.
**We are currently recruiting participants for this project.** If you are a parent of a child who is a Syrian refugee, we are interested in working with your child for this project. Please contact Redab at redab.aljanaideh@mail.utoronto.ca for any questions regarding this study.
The Discourse Skills of Monolingual and Bilingual School-Aged Children
This project is being conducted in collaboration with principal investigator Dr. Patricia Cleave from Dalhousie University and focuses specifically on collecting discourse data that will help us to identify both normative and atypical trends in the development of oral discourse skills. Differentiating between language disability and normal developmental trajectories can be difficult in bilingual children. As such, there is a need to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the development of discourse skills. This study will linguistically analyze conversational, narrative and expository discourse skills in monolingual and bilingual children in French Immersion programs, between the ages of 7-12.
**We are currently recruiting participants for this project.** If you are a parent of a child who is currently enrolled in either an English stream or French Immersion stream school in the Toronto District School Board, we are interested in working with your child for this project. Please contact Diana at diana.burchell@mail.utoronto.ca for any questions regarding this study.
