A Design Experiment and Reading Research: The Development of a Preschool Intervention to Accelerate Content Vocabulary in At-Risk Children

• In Event: Reading Development and Instruction for Struggling Readers

Abstract

Findings are reported from a three-year design experiment conducted in urban high poverty preschools with children who entered school with low vocabulary knowledge and were at risk for future comprehension difficulties. This methodology has not been implemented in previous shared book reading research and contributes to the theoretical understanding of how to construct more effective shared book reading and vocabulary practices that support content-related vocabulary learning in at-risk children. We report upon the iterative instructional design process that guided curriculum development/refinement with an examination of instructional task feasibility and the effect of the shared book reading intervention on the receptive and expressive vocabulary outcomes of preschool children with below-average vocabulary knowledge.

Authors

• Sharolyn D. Pollard-Durodola, University of Denver

• Jorge E Gonzalez, Texas A&M University

• Deborah C. Simmons, Texas A&M University

• Aaron B. Taylor, Texas A&M University

• Matthew J. Davis, Texas A&M University - College Station

• Leslie Simmons, Texas A&M University