Grade 4 French Immerison Chapter books and Series.

I have been looking for easy French language chapter books to encourage the grade 4 students to read more. I find students at this age have either been encouraged to read at home, so do not find it difficult to choose books or the students have limited reading skills, and due to their limited French vocabulary do not find reading that easy.

I have been looking for books to encourage this group of students to read more.  To both increase their reading skills and also to develop their French vocabulary.  I also like to encourage students to read a book from a series, so if they like it they can continue to read the series.  This also helps with vocabulary and understanding as they continue with the same characters.

Some of the easier books include:

• Petit Géant par Giles Tibo.  This series is easy to read and has simple vocabulary.
• Woof par Olivier Challet.  This series is about a dog detective.  The vocabulary is a bit challenging with dog breeds that students will not know. The font is very large, so the books look large for the amount of reading required, which may encourage students to choose them. This is a good author to introduce to students as he has a grade 5 series Les aventures de Max and a grade 7-9 series of detective novels.

• Alain M. Bergeron's series about Dominic is also a good read.  Dominic is a mischievous boy who is very opinionated.  These are printed by Soulières Éditeur, and since this is a Quebecois author the vocabulary is not as challenging as books from France. The 10 titles include La classe de neige, Dominic en prison,  Un gardien averti en vaut... trois, and Il m'énerve, ce William Parker !  Another Alain Bergeron series that students in grade 4 start reading is Capitiane Static (~grade 4-6).  This series
  is about Charles who discovers a magical power of collecting and using static electricity whenever he wants.  Alain Bergeron also has 2 non-fiction series Savais-tu about animals and Connais-tu  biographies (grades 4-8), which have more challenging vocabulary, but are filled with off-beat humor; and for the novels which include graphic panels of Billy Stuart (grades 5-7) an adventurous raccoon and friends. 
• Soulières Éditeur has a number of these small paperbacks in the series  "Ma petite vache a mal aux pattes" which include poems too and are good reads for grade 4. 
• Martine Latulipe's detective series Les aventures de Marie-P and her series exploring legends of Quebec Julie are also good books for grade 4 readers.  Some of the teachers in my school introduce these series in grade 3 so they are well read series in my library.
• Johanne Mercier's series Zip! Héros du Cosmos  about the adventures of an alien in space.

Translated series that are good grade 4 reads include:

• Mechant Minou par Nick Bruel.  The limited text of this graphic novel is a frequent choice in my school.
• Adam Blades Beast Quest fantasy series about quests and battles with mythical monsters.Steve
• Jeff Kinney's Journal d'un dragonfle series.
• Daisy Meadows' "L'Arc-en ciel" series about fairies. 
• Ellen Miles Mission:Adoption series about dogs.
• Barlow and Steve Skidmore's series C’est moi le hero a choose your own ending adventure series.
• Denise Brunkis series Junie B. Jones en 1re année, about an opinionated girl at school.
• Oram Hiawyn witch series Le journal de Mortimer.

If you have suggestions for other author's or series for this age level please leave a comment!

Learner considerations: Who is this project for and why?

The audience for my project, identifying French websites for early primary students, is French immersion students in Maternelle (K) and grades 1 and 2.  These students are just starting to learn French and also to read and write.  The students have a variety of experiences with communication technology; some have played on cell phones, ipads and/or computers prior to attending school. 

These young students: (Morrison 2010)

·         are energetic and cannot sit still for a long time;
·         are learning to control their emotions and social interactions
·         have an active imagination,
·         are often confident and eager to be involved,
·         want to be helpful and cooperative,
·         are solitary and independent workers at the same time,
·         like to talk.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, the teachers would like to have opportunities in their “computer time”, or on classroom computers, to not only promote technology skills, but also French language learning.  I found a couple of research articles that support the use of computers and computer games for young students learning a second language.  McCarrick and Li (2007) reviewed a number of studies and concluded that “computers may not enhance gains in language development, (but) computers do provide an environment in which children use a large amount of language.”  Turgut and Irgin (2009) found that when the language is contextualized in video games, which provides settings and situations, players increase vocabulary use and have opportunities to practice vocabulary repetitively.  The following video (Early Childhood videos 2013) shows how the computer can provide repetition and take concrete concepts and make them more abstract.  In this video we see that computer work is more valuable for a student when the teacher is nearby to help with student’s questions.

Computer activities for this age group should be quite short, due to their attention spans.  The activities should provide context to help the students create meaning of the vocabulary, which brain research, has shown helps students learn and retain information (Characteristics of young learners 2009). Computer learning may appeal to students with different learning styles of types of intelligence (Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences).  Using a computer to learn will provide students with another activity to engage and play with second language, reinforcing learning. 

The identification of computer programs will support teachers since teachers are already busy with planning classroom activities.  Having a selected, curated links on the school website will minimize time spent teaching students how to locate learning games.  These links will also be available to the students at home providing repetition and enhancing language and other concept learning.

References:

Characteristics of Young Learners.  2009.  Pearson Education.  Retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0205535488.pdf

Early Childhood Videos.  Jan 30, 2013.  Introducing Technology to Young Children.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ylsrxof48 (imbedded)

McCarrick, Katy and Xiaoming Li.  2006.  Buried treasure: the impact of computer use on young children’s social, cognitive, language development and motivation.  AACE Journal, 15(1) 73-79.  Retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/25814/0000377.pdf?sequence=1

Morrison, G. S. 2008.  What are Kindergarten Children Like? From: Fundamentals of Early Childhood Education. Pearson Education. p 237-238.  Retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://www.education.com/reference/article/what-kindergarten-children-are-like/

SRI International.  2014.  EduSpeak® Speech Recognition Toolkit.  Image retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://www.sri.com/engage/products-solutions/eduspeak-speech-recognition-toolkit

Turgut, Yildiz and Pelin Irgin.  2009.  Young learners’ language learning via computer games.  Prodedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 1.  760-764.  Retrieved March 12, 2014 from http://www.gsedu.cn/tupianshangchuanmulu/zhongmeiwangluoyuyan/language%20learning%20via%20computer%20games.pdf