French: The main challenge for elementary school students

Montreal, August 19, 2026 – While mastering French is essential to academic success, parents across Quebec say it’s also the subject their child struggles with the most at school.¹ To help get the new academic year off on a good footing, Alloprof is enriching its French-language offerings with the launch of Allofrançais Courses, a series of interactive activities to promote progress in writing in French, along with a host of revamped tools to support students in their learning.

Designed according to the Quebec Education Program, the Allofrançais Courses cover all conceptual families in the 2nd and 3rd cycles of elementary school and guide students, step by step, to reinforce their knowledge and help them gain confidence in French, all in a motivating environment. 

"The purpose of these courses is to help students master and apply effective strategies to their writing, which is a significant challenge in elementary school, " says Rosianne Arseneau, French Teaching Expert at Alloprof and Associate Professor at UQAM.  “Based on explicit teaching practices, they help students to understand the essential concepts of writing and apply them through different exercises.”
 

This new tool is the latest addition to a range of resources developed and enhanced under the Allofrançais banner, which notably includes two education games – Magimot, for everyday spelling, and the conjugation-focused Verbivore, as well as the Voca, Pronouns and Homophones exercises.

True to its goal of developing resources that meet the needs of young people in concrete ways, all our tools are designed by Alloprof’s team of teachers and based on research, co-creation with the school community and tests carried out directly in the classroom.

The Allofrançais Courses are a good example of this approach: Prior to their launch, they were tested with 668 students and 29 teachers to acquire feedback from the field. More than eight out of 10 teachers involved believe that regular use of the courses could help improve students' understanding of grammatical spelling.²

Alloprof values a balanced approach that combines useful, supervised and beneficial digital technology for learning with screen-free activities.

To this end, the organization is enhancing its Learning Together component, developed by the remedial teachers and speech-language pathologists at the Institut des troubles d’apprentissage, with more than 130 new turnkey activities focused on reading and writing strategies and math. The activities are designed to be easy for parents and their child to do together, using everyday materials. 

Families that wish to limit screen time have more than 75 printable tools they can use, including a dozen dedicated to French. All are offered free of charge in the Alloprof Parents section thanks to the support of the Desjardins Foundation.

Alloprof's resources for elementary and secondary students, their parents and their teachers are all available free of charge at www.alloprof.qc.ca. 

The Allofrançais initiative is made possible thanks to generous financial support from the Government of Quebec, which contributed $54 million to Alloprof in September 2024 for the periods of 2024-2025 to 2026-2027. 

Alloprof is a non-profit organization that aims to give every student the power to succeed through free and comprehensive tutoring. To support its mission, Alloprof develops and offers online services and resources with the help of its team of passionate teachers and professionals. Each year, Alloprof helps 600,000 students in Quebec 60 million times, 500,000 parents and more than 100,000 teachers. www.alloprof.qc.ca

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Maximilien Perron
maximilien.perron@franchir.ca
514-260-6972

1. According to a survey conducted by Ipsos between March 15 and 28, 2026, at the request of Alloprof, parents consider French to be the most difficult subject for their children, both among 6 to 12 year olds (43%) and 13 to 17 year olds (38%).
2. Alloprof Research Report 2025-2026