Teacher Talk That Increases Students' Vocabulary Growth: Does Promoting Word Consciousness Close the Vocabulary Gap?

• In Event: 70.067 - Poster Session 15
  In Poster Session: 70.067-2 - Literacy: Cognitive and Affective Factors

Abstract

A proposed avenue for increasing students’ vocabulary knowledge is instruction that promotes students’ enthusiasm, and attention to words, referred to as word consciousness. This study investigates whether teachers’ language use in kindergarten classrooms includes a focus on word consciousness and whether it predicts students’ growth in vocabulary beyond other language characteristics (i.e., semantic diversity and syntactic complexity) that have been found to influence students’ word knowledge. Using transcribed observation data collected from 40 teachers with 335 students, we analyze teachers’ utterances that include a focus on word consciousness, associations among teachers’ language characteristics, and the explanatory power of teachers’ language use for vocabulary growth. Results can provide guidance for teacher preparation.

Authors

• Sabina Rak Neugebauer, Loyola University Chicago

• Perla Blanca Gamez, Loyola University Chicago

• Michael D. Coyne, University of Connecticut

• Ingrid Colon, Loyola University Chicago