Development of High-Frequency Academic Vocabulary in Primary Grades Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners

• In Event: The Development of Vocabulary and Comprehension in Spanish-Speaking English-Language Learners

Abstract

Objectives
This study explores the results of an intervention that targets high frequency academic vocabulary that second grade ELLs have not acquired through exposure to English. Further it examines the amount of reinforcement necessary for students to learn different types of words (concrete cognates, concrete non-cognates; abstract cognates, abstract non-cognates).

Theoretical Framework
To make teaching more efficient it is important to determine how much instruction is necessary for students to acquire high frequency academic vocabulary and if the amount of instruction differs by type of vocabulary word.

Methods
The sample consisted of 424 second grade English language learners in a large southwestern school district. Teachers, within schools, were randomized into treatment and control groups.

The intervention consisted of 10 units of curriculum delivered over 20 weeks focused on helping ELLs acquire high frequency vocabulary in the context of shared interactive reading of high quality children’s literature. As part of the intervention students were explicitly taught to draw on cognate knowledge and given extensive practice in apply this knowledge. There was professional development prior to the intervention and weekly mentoring. Intervention vocabulary was stratified by cognate status and level of complexity and assigned to three conditions—reinforcement, reinforcement plus, exposure only (students heard the words in the story but they were not instructed)

Data Sources
Students were administered three subtests of the Test of Oral Language Development (TOLD) and an experimental vocabulary assessment to assess word knowledge of words that appeared in the intervention. An observation protocol was used assess fidelity of implementation. Parent, teacher and district questionnaires were also administered to collect information on student and family backgrounds, teacher backgrounds and schooling history.

Within subjects, repeated measure ANOVA was conducted for the researcher developed assessment of vocabulary with time, instructional method (reinforcement, reinforcement plus, exposure), complexity (concrete/abstract), and cognate status repeated within students to determine if students (1) made gains and (2) if gains were greater for certain instructional methods and certain words types. Between subjects ANOVAs were conducted to determine if the treatment group outperformed the control group on the researcher developed and standardized measures of vocabulary.

Results
Results on the researcher developed measure of vocabulary indicate that there is a significant effect for treatment, time, and time X treatment interaction. All classrooms made gains but the treatment classrooms made statistically larger gains than the control classrooms. There were significant pre-to-post test gains on all subsets of the TOLD for both groups of students, with treatment students making numerically but not statistically significant gains. Data is currently being analyzed to determine if there are interactions between method of instruction (reinforcement, reinforcement plus,exposure) and word type and this data will be presented during the session.

Scientific Significance
Results from the study provide important information regarding amount of instruction necessary for students to acquire different types of vocabulary words. To our knowledge it is the only study conducted with ELLs that has investigated the interaction between levels of reinforcement and word type.

Authors

• Diane L. August, American Institutes for Research

• Christopher Daniel Barr, University of Houston

• Lauren Artzi, Center for Applied Linguistics