To read more about this study, see French article here in Radio-Canada.
You can also listen to Chantal and Roxanne on CBC's Morning North (click here):
This project is led by Dr. Roxanne Bélanger and Dr. Chantal Mayer-Crittenden, speech-language pathologists and professors at Laurentian University. It aims to understand which reading methods help children learn new words best.
The participating children are 30 months to 4 years old and attend an early childcare center at the Carrefour francophone of Sudbury. Before the reading activities, we will assess each child’s vocabulary using a standardized test and some questions specifically designed for this project. After the activities, we will repeat these questions to see what each child has learned.
During the project, we will test different ways of reading stories, the number of times words are repeated, and the types of words chosen. The reading activities will be delivered in two levels to provide extra support and repetitions. The focus will be on slightly more challenging words to help children effectively expand their vocabulary.
Recruitment is now complete. Thank you to all the families who agreed to have their child participate in the study. We have a total of 46 children. The language and cognitive assessments are taking place from November 3 to 14. The book reading sessions began the week of November 17 and will end on December 12 for Part 1 of the study. Part 2 of the study will begin in January.
This study was made possible through funding from the Consortium national de formation en santé (CNFS), Université Laurentienne branch, and through a valued partnership with Scholastic Canada. Scholastic generously provided access to a wide selection of their digital books and offered reduced pricing, enabling the research team to purchase two books for each participating child.
Here is a video that explains the study.
Research Team
A pilot study was conducted in 2024–2025 to ensure that the selected material was appropriate for the study. Here is a scientific poster that was presented at the ACFAS Science and Knowledge Day.
