Poster #84 - The Association between Vocabulary Performance and Emergent Literacy in a sample of African American Preschool Children

• In Event: 2-110 - Poster Session 07
  In Poster Session: PS 07 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

The research is robust in exploring the link between African American children’s vocabulary performance, and dialect use; literacy activities in the home environment and vocabulary performance, and knowledge of grammatical structure and vocabulary performance (Harris & Graham, 2014). In the same vein, the research is rich examining the link between emergent literacy skills, and the use of African American English Vernacular (Connor & Craig, 2006); emergent literacy skills and reading opportunities in the home environment and emergent literacy skills and intervention programs (Rohde, 2015). Few studies have explored the critical association between receptive vocabulary performance and such emergent literacy skills as concepts about print, decoding print and phonological awareness in African American children. Thus the goal of the current study is to fill the gap in the literature and investigate the relationship between vocabulary performance and emergent literacy with a specific focus on phonological awareness, ability to decode print and concepts about print in a sample of low income African American preschool children.
Participants: As part of a larger study, 45 African American children from Head Start (Mage = 49 months; age range = 36 – 63 months; 20 boys and 25 girls) were assessed individually in school.
Measures: Children’s receptive vocabulary was assessed using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-4). Children’s phonological awareness was estimated using the Preschool Comprehensive Test of Phonological and Print Processing (Lonigan, Burgess, Anthony, & Barker, 1998). To test children’s ability to decode print they were asked to identify 10 uppercase letters of the alphabet presented in random order. Finally, children’s concepts about print was determined by Clay’s (1979) Concepts about Print Test. See Table 1.
Results/Discussion: To examine unique associations between vocabulary and print awareness, we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis with children’s PPVT scores as the independent variable. Children’s age and phonological awareness were entered as control variables in the first step of the equation. The overall model was a significant predictor of children’s print concepts, Adj. R2 = .43, F(3, 36) = 10.43, p = .000, explaining 42.7% the variance in children’s concepts about print. In the final model children’s age (t(.06) = 2.79, β = .42, p = .008) and vocabulary (t(.02) = 3.04, β = .46, p = .004) explained unique variance in children’s performance. Next, we examined unique associations between phonological awareness and print decoding using hierarchical regressions. Children’s age, gender, and PPVT scores were entered as control variables into the first step of the regression model. Although the final model was significant, Adj. R2 = .18, F(4, 34) = 3.05, p = .03, none of the variables emerged as significant predictors of the variance in children’s ability to decode print. The finding suggests that children’s understanding of concepts/ words assessed by their receptive vocabulary performance correlates with their knowledge of how print is used for reading. These children may be especially attentive to reading activities conducted in preschools or home environments, or their performance is a result of cumulative experiences in participating in uses of print in their environments.

Authors

• Yvette R Harris, Department of Psychology/Miami University
  Presenting Author

• Seyma Inan, Miami University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Seham Almutari, Miami University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Virginia Hollatz, Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Vrinda Kalia, Miami University
  Non-Presenting Author