Oral Vocabulary Knowledge Research Articles

Examining the Relationships of Component Reading Skills to Reading Comprehension in Struggling Adult Readers

The current study employed a meta-analytic approach to investigate the relative importance of component reading skills to reading comprehension in struggling adult readers. A total of 10 component skills were consistently identified across 16 independent studies and 2,707 participants. Random effects models generated 76 predictor–reading comprehension effect sizes among the 10 constructs. The results indicated that six of the component skills exhibited strong relationships with reading comprehension (average rs ≥ .50): morphological awareness, language comprehension, fluency, oral vocabulary knowledge, real word decoding, and working memory. Three of the component skills yielded moderate relationships with reading comprehension (average rs ≥ .30 and < .50): pseudoword decoding, orthographic knowledge, and phonological awareness. Rapid automatized naming (RAN) was the only component skill that was weakly related to reading comprehension (r = .15). Morphological awareness was a significantly stronger correlate of reading comprehension than phonological awareness and RAN. This study provides the first attempt at a systematic synthesis of the recent research investigating the reading skills of adults with low literacy skills, a historically understudied population. Directions for future research, the relation of our results to the children’s literature, and the implications for researchers and adult basic education programs are discussed.

Educational attainment in poor comprehenders.

To date, only one study has investigated educational attainment in poor (reading) comprehenders, providing evidence of poor performance on national UK school tests at age 11 years relative to peers (Cain and Oakhill, 2006). In the present study, we adopted a longitudinal approach, tracking attainment on such tests from 11 years to the end of compulsory schooling in the UK (age 16 years). We aimed to investigate the proposal that educational weaknesses (defined as poor performance on national assessments) might become more pronounced over time, as the curriculum places increasing demands on reading comprehension. Participants comprised 15 poor comprehenders and 15 controls; groups were matched for chronological age, nonverbal reasoning ability and decoding skill. Children were identified at age 9 years using standardized measures of nonverbal reasoning, decoding and reading comprehension. These measures, along with a measure of oral vocabulary knowledge, were repeated at age 11 years. Data on educational attainment were collected from all participants (n = 30) at age 11 and from a subgroup (n = 21) at 16 years. Compared to controls, educational attainment in poor comprehenders was lower at ages 11 and 16 years, an effect that was significant at 11 years. When poor comprehenders were compared to national performance levels, they showed significantly lower performance at both time points. Low educational attainment was not evident for all poor comprehenders. Nonetheless, our findings point to a link between reading comprehension difficulties in mid to late childhood and poor educational outcomes at ages 11 and 16 years. At these ages, pupils in the UK are making key transitions: they move from primary to secondary schools at 11, and out of compulsory schooling at 16.

Linguistic, Reading, and Transcription Influences on Kindergarten Writing in Children with English as a Second Language

The contribution of linguistic, reading, and transcription processes to writing in kindergarten English as a second language (ESL) children and their native-English speaking peers (EL1) were examined. ESL and EL1 performed similarly on one of the two measures of phonological awareness (PA) and on measures of early reading, spelling, and writing. EL1 outperformed ESL on a pseudoword repetition task and on the English vocabulary and syntactic knowledge tasks. ESL outperformed EL1 on a writing fluency measure. Correlation and hierarchical regression results varied as a function of the writing tasks (procedural or generative) and language status. Across language groups, writing tasks that captured children's developing graphophonemic knowledge were associated with a breadth of cognitive, linguistic, and early literacy skills. PA, reading, and transcription skills, but not oral vocabulary and syntactic knowledge contributed the most variance to writing irrespective of language status. The results suggest that parallel component skills and processes underlie ESL and EL1 children's early writing when formal literacy instruction begins in kindergarten even though ESL children are developing English oral and literacy proficiency simultaneously.

Linking spoken language to learning to read

Speech, language and communication skills cut across most areas of child development and are accepted as critical to social and cognitive development and to learning and attainment. In addition to the general importance of language skills, there are very specific links between language and literacy which are becoming better understood and are well documented. Spoken language underpins reading, so language skills such as phonological awareness, oral vocabulary and syntactic knowledge need to be in place to support literacy development. The impact of poor language on literacy can be far reaching; for example a gap of a few months in reading age at five between those children with strong and poor language skills grew by age 14 to a gap of five years’ difference. Without the right help, between 50 per cent and 90 per cent of children with persistent SLCN go on to have reading difficulties. The recent focus on phonics and the phonics check is aimed at supporting children’s literacy skills and, though phonics is important, literacy research supports the development of phonics within a wider context. This means a strong focus on reading for pleasure and spoken language. One of the key language skills needed to develop phonics is phonological awareness. This is the foundation of many phonics skills and without strong phonological awareness skills children can really struggle to develop phonics and wider literacy. Research has found that phonological awareness between the ages of threeand-a-half-and-five-years-old is the best predictor of literacy achievement. This article will focus on specific skills of phonological awareness, which have a direct link to children’s ability to understand and access phonics. These skills can be supported in all children and developed in children with SLCN to support their access to phonics. It is important to understand where children are developmentally, in order to ensure the best starting point and for some of these children, advice from a specialist may be useful.

The Reliability of the OWLS Written Expression Scale With ESL Kindergarten Students

A reliability analysis was conducted on the Written Expression Scale from the Oral and Written Language Scales, (OWLS, Carrow-Woolfolk, 1996 ), with 68 ESL and 56 non-ESL kindergarten students. Interrater and internal consistency estimates for the Written Expression Scale were examined separately for each language group. Despite lower oral English vocabulary and syntactic knowledge, ESL students performed similarly on the writing measure and reliability estimates were comparable across language groups. The results support the use of the OWLS-Written Expression Scale as an early norm-referenced measure to reliably gauge ESL students’ early English writing skills.

The Impact of Home Language and Literacy Support on English-Chinese Biliteracy Acquisition among Chinese Heritage Language Learners

Studies on monolingual children have shown that home language and literacy support is crucial in children's early literacy acquisition. However, such support has not been examined as thoroughly among bilingual children, including heritage speakers. This study investigated the effect of home language and literacy support on important precursors of literacy skills including oral vocabulary knowledge, phonological awareness, and decoding skill in English and Chinese, among a group of 37 Chinese heritage language (CHL) learners. Our results suggest that the use of Chinese at home supported children's language and literacy skills in Chinese, especially their oral vocabulary knowledge; support of learning Chinese at home did not hinder children's acquisition of literacy skills in English. Implications for parents and teachers of CHL learners in relation to their biliteracy learning are discussed.

One complicated extended family: the influence of alphabetic knowledge and vocabulary on phonemic awareness

This research evaluated possible sources of individual differences in early explicit, smaller segment phonological awareness. In particular, the unique contributions of oral vocabulary and alphabetic knowledge to phonemic awareness acquisition were examined across the first year of school. A total of 57 participants were tested in kindergarten (mean age 5 years, 8 months) and again 1 year later midway through Grade 1. Results revealed that oral vocabulary and alphabetic knowledge were correlated with concurrent larger segment phonological awareness and phonemic blending in kindergarten whereas oral vocabulary was the only measure that predicted unique variance in phonemic awareness into Grade 1. Further, this pattern of results was most pronounced for analytic (segmenting), as opposed to synthetic (blending), phonemic awareness. These results highlight the importance of different component processes to explicit, smaller segment awareness depending upon the developmental period under study and also accentuate the need to separate analytic from synthetic phonemic awareness in literacy research.

Modeling the Relationships Between Cognitive and Reading Measures in Third and Fourth Grade Children

The relationships between cognitive and reading measures in third and fourth grade children were analyzed using path modeling. Third graders were tested in word identification, pseudo word reading, orthographic speed, rapid naming, and oral vocabulary knowledge. In third and fourth grades, the students were tested in oral reading fluency and in reading comprehension with a statewide reading test. Path modeling using word identification, oral reading fluency, and reading comprehension as dependent variables indicated a very good fit (normed fit index of .99 for both third and fourth grades). The pattern of predictors differed depending on the reading outcome variable. The independent predictors of oral reading fluency were oral vocabulary knowledge, pseudo word reading, rapid naming, and a novel test of orthographic speed. The test of orthographic speed also made a unique contribution to word identification. Oral vocabulary knowledge was a unique predictor of reading comprehension for both models.

The detailed age trajectory of oral vocabulary knowledge: differences by class and race

Data from the Children of the NLSY79 (CNLSY) are pooled together across survey waves, 1986–2000, to provide an unusually large sample size, as well as two or more observations at different time points for many children, recorded at single months of age between 36 and 156 months. We fit a variety of multilevel growth models to these data. We find that by 36 months of age, large net social class and Black–White vocabulary knowledge gaps have already emerged. By 60 months of age, when kindergarten typically begins, the Black–White vocabulary gap approximates the level it maintains through to 13 years of age. Net social class differences are also large at 36 months. For whites, these cease widening thereafter. For Blacks, they widen until 60 months of age, and then cease widening. We view these vocabulary differences as achieved outcomes, and find that they are only very partially explained by measures of the mother's vocabulary knowledge and home cognitive support. We conclude that stratification studies as well as program interventions should focus increased effort on caregiver behaviors that stimulate oral language development from birth through age three, when class and race gaps in vocabulary knowledge emerge and take on values close to their final forms.