Abstract
This longitudinal quasi-experimental study examines the effects of Word Generation, a middle-school vocabulary intervention, on the learning, maintenance, and consolidation of academic vocabulary for students from English-speaking homes, proficient English speakers from language-minority homes, and limited English-proficiency students. Using individual growth modeling, we found that students receiving Word Generation improved more on target word knowledge during the instructional period than students in comparison schools did, on average. We found an interaction between instruction and home-language status such that English-proficient students from language-minority homes improved more than English-proficient students from English-speaking homes. Limited English-proficiency students, however, did not realize gains equivalent to those of more proficient students from language-minority homes during the instructional period. We administered follow-up assessments in the fall after the instructional period ended and in the spring of the following year to determine how well students maintained and consolidated target academic words. Students in the intervention group maintained their relative improvements at both follow-up assessments.
Highlights
In 2008, approximately 10.9 million children aged 5–17 years in the United States spoke a language other than English in the home (Aud, Hussar, Planty, Snyder, Bianco, Fox, Frohlich, Kemp & Drake, 2010)
In the first study that resulted from this work (Snow et al, 2009), we found that students in Boston middle schools implementing Word Generation had greater onetime vocabulary gains than students in comparison schools, such that students in the Word Generation program learned approximately the number of words that differentiated eighth from sixth graders on the pretest – in other words, program participation resulted in gains equivalent to two years of incidental word learning
Quality English and Science Teaching (QuEST) (August, Branum-Martin, Cardenas-Hagan & Francis, 2009) promotes language development in the science classroom, while a program developed by Vaughn et al (2009) provides direct instruction of academic vocabulary in social studies
Summary
In 2008, approximately 10.9 million children aged 5–17 years in the United States spoke a language other than English in the home (Aud, Hussar, Planty, Snyder, Bianco, Fox, Frohlich, Kemp & Drake, 2010) Compared with their native English-speaking peers, language-minority students have lower reading performance in English, on average (August & Shanahan, 2006). Children’s knowledge of high-frequency words is unlikely to decay, and may even expand, if they are in settings where they continue to encounter these words frequently Guided by this knowledge, a few studies have examined the impact of vocabulary interventions that promote many exposures to words for English language learners in the middle grades. Some programs, such as the Vocabulary Improvement Program (VIP) (Carlo et al, 2004), QuEST (August et al, 2009), and Language Workshop (Townsend & Collins, 2009) were explicitly designed for use with language-minority students
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