1-207 - Exploring Recent Techniques in Classroom Vocabulary Interventions

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Low-income children begin kindergarten with smaller vocabularies compared to their more advantaged peers (Farkas & Beron, 2004) and this gap shapes children’s later school trajectories (NELP, 2008). Vocabulary interventions have made little progress in bridging this gap (Wasik et al., 2016). This may be because there is a lack of research on how high-quality word knowledge is acquired (Hadley & Dickinson, 2018). This symposium presents three classroom interventions that aimed to increase vocabulary acquisition of low-income children. The pedagogical methods of these studies have rarely been used in previous classroom interventions, so analyzing their effects on children’s word-learning is crucial.
The first paper examines the effectiveness of teacher-child conversational turns in a book-reading intervention. Children correctly named more vocabulary items when they experienced a greater amount of conversational turn-taking, indicating that the effectiveness of interventions may be boosted by incorporating turn-taking. A combination of book-reading and play is explored in the second vocabulary intervention. The researchers found that play was just as effective as book-reading at teaching words. This shows that play is another tool teachers can use for word learning. The focus of the third study is bridging the efforts of teachers and parents in an intervention. When parent-child workshops, home learning materials, and parent coaching were combined, children learned vocabulary more effectively compared to children in business-as-usual classrooms.
The discussant, who has extensive experience implementing interventions, will highlight how increasing conversational turns, utilizing play, and involving parents may all be avenues to increase the effectiveness of vocabulary interventions.

Sub Unit

• Language, Communication

Chair

• Molly Scott, Temple University

Discussant

• AnneMarie Hindman, Temple University

Individual Presentations

• Do Conversational Turns Predict Children’s Vocabulary Development in a Shared Book Reading Program? - Presenting Author: Susan Neuman, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Katie Danielson, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Preeti Ganesh Samudra, New York University

• Playtime is Learning Time: A Play and Reading Intervention to Teach Vocabulary - Presenting Author: Emily Hopkins, University of Scranton; Non-Presenting Author: Molly Collins, Vanderbilt University; Non-Presenting Author: Rebecca Dore, The Ohio State University; Non-Presenting Author: Jessica R Lawson-Adams, Vanderbilt University; Non-Presenting Author: Jacob Lev Schatz, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Molly Scott, Temple University; Non-Presenting Author: Marcia Shirilla, University of Delaware; Non-Presenting Author: Tamara Spiewak Toub, Temple University; Non-Presenting Author: David K Dickinson, Vanderbilt University; Non-Presenting Author: Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Univ of DE; Non-Presenting Author: Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University

• Educators and Parents Teaching Together to Support At-Risk Head Start Students’ Language and Literacy Skills - Presenting Author: Tricia Zucker, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; Non-Presenting Author: Sonia Cabell, Florida State University; Non-Presenting Author: Yaacov Petscher, Florida State University; Non-Presenting Author: Susan Landry, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; Non-Presenting Author: Heather Mui, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston