Supporting Reading Development in Bilingual Children: Dr. Corinne Haigh to Speak to Local Community

On Wednesday, December 7th, Dr. Corinne Haigh of the School of Education will be present at Lennoxville Elementary School to share her research expertise on the development of literacy skills in bilingual environments with local parents, education professionals, education students and other interested individuals. This event is part of Bishop’s University’s new Café Scientifique series of public talks.

This event is friendly, informal and free, and the information will be presented in a broadly accessible way (the talk will be in English, but questions in French will be welcome). Dr. Haigh’s talk will touch upon the following points:

• How reading works, with a particular focus on bilingual readers;
• How to identify students/children who may be at risk for reading difficulty and some general ways to support them;
• How to promote literacy development in general;
• Some factors to consider when deciding what educational model (e.g. monolingual, immersion, bilingual) works best for a given child or student.

Dr. Corinne Haigh holds a Ph.D. in Educational and Cognitive Psychology from the University of Waterloo, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at McGill University’s Centre for Research on Language, Mind and Brain, where she led a study on literacy development in elementary school students in French immersion programs, with a particular emphasis on children at risk for difficulty with decoding, reading comprehension, or a combination of these skills. This talk stems from her Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded extension of this project, which followed this same group of students from kindergarten to the end of Grade 6.

When: Wednesday, December 7th, 7 p.m.

Where: Lennoxville Elementary School