Eric Dion, an assistant professor of special education and educational psychology at the University of Quebec at Montreal has developed a modfied version of first grade PALS in French under the name of Apprendre a lire a deux. This version has been tested in 40 schools located in Montreal’s most underprivileged neighbourhoods. Twenty comparable classes served as control. Preliminary analyses suggest that students read better when their teachers use Apprendre a lire a deux than when they do not.

Teachers, administrators and researchers interested in Apprendre a lire a deux should contact Eric Dion, Ph.D., Professor of Special Education and Educational Psychology, Département d’éducation et formation spécialisées, Université du Québec à Montréal, or by email at dion.e@uqam.ca.

Eric Dion and coworkers are developing a Second-Grade Apprendre a lire a deux. Two versions are currently being tested: a “vocabulary” version (students are taught the meaning of the stories difficult words) and a “main idea” version (students are taught how to identify the main idea in each of the story’s paragraphs).