Supporting Vocabulary Teaching and Learning in Pre-Kindergarten: The Role of Educative Curriculum Materials

• In Event: 14.020 - Integrating Science and Literacy Instruction: The Effects of Knowledge-Building Supports on Student Learning

Abstract

This study examined the efficacy of embedding educative features in a supplemental vocabulary intervention designed to promote word knowledge, conceptual development, and comprehension in science for low-income preschoolers. According to Ball and Cohen (1996), an educative curriculum offers support about (a) the content beyond the levels suggested for students (e.g., concepts related to life science), and (b) pedagogical knowledge (e.g., strategies for teaching, the reasoning behind a particular sequence). Our goal was to help teachers understand that vocabulary contributes not only to the knowledge of specific words, but also to a growing knowledge network of concepts and content that is central to comprehension.
Using a set of design heuristics (Davis & Krajcik 2005), we explicitly set out to design materials to support teachers’ learning. By including these features within our curriculum, we attempted to guide teachers in experiences that would enable them to construct knowledge about vocabulary teaching, and the connections between vocabulary, concepts, and content knowledge. Since curriculum materials are nearly ubiquitous in classrooms, if effective, such educative curriculum could have an important place in enhancing quality instruction in preK where resources devoted to professional development have been minimal to nonexistent. The study was designed to address: 1) Does an educative intervention targeted to vocabulary and comprehension in science improve teachers’ child-directed language? How might it influence the cognitive demand of teacher’s talk? 2) To what extent does the intervention influence children’s vocabulary, concepts and comprehension outcomes?
Method
Ten preschool classrooms in low-income neighborhoods randomly selected into 5 treatment; 5 control groups (N=148) participated in the 12-week study. Treatment teachers engaged in using a vocabulary intervention designed to include educative features about vocabulary and comprehension; the control continued with business as usual. Prior to the intervention, observational measures of teacher talk examining high and low cognitive demand utterances were recorded in treatment and control groups. At the mid-point of the intervention, teacher talk was measured using a similar strategy. Pre- and posttest curriculum-based measures were administered to children examining changes in vocabulary, comprehension, and content knowledge.
Results
Results of our study showed strong support for improvements in the quality of teachers’ talk in the treatment group as compared to the control group. The educative curriculum appeared to enhance both the quality and cognitively-challenging nature of teachers’ interactions with children. Teachers characteristically engaged in more lexically rich and cognitively-challenging talk than they did prior to the intervention; effect sizes for both types of talk indicate that these improvements were practically meaningful and substantial. These results suggest that curriculum intentionally designed to enhance teachers’ talk can provide an important support for improving the quality of instruction. As a result of the intervention, word knowledge, conceptual and categorical development, and comprehension in science significantly improved over the course of the intervention, with effect size ranging from modest to strong.

Authors

• Susan B. Neuman, New York University

• Ashley Pinkham, University of Michigan

• Tanya Kaefer, Lakehead University