Purpose: In this project, the researchers aimed to develop and obtain evidence of the potential impact of a vocabulary intervention focused on academic register to improve the reading and writing achievement of fourth graders. The researchers theorized that, although many factors contribute to the underperformance of low-income students and English language learners, differences in students' knowledge of academic language is a key element in academic achievement.

Project Activities: The researchers proposed to develop an intervention for fourth grade teachers in reading and writing that focuses on developing strategies, techniques, and materials that can support an understanding of and appreciation for word use, thereby promoting vocabulary development among low-income students and English language learners. The hypothesis for the study was approaching vocabulary development through explicit attention to word use in children's literature and integrating this word study into writing workshops would develop word consciousness, leading to enhanced writing and reading ability according to multiple measures.

Structured Abstract

THE FOLLOWING CONTENT DESCRIBES THE PROJECT AT THE TIME OF FUNDING

Setting: The research will take place in schools in northern California

Sample: Researchers will work with fourth grade teachers and students in two school districts in California. One district is set in a large urban community and the other is a small district in a rural community. In the first district, 24 percent of students are limited English speakers, and 30 percent are economically disadvantaged. In the second district, 30 percent of the students are limited English speakers, and 39 percent qualify for free/reduced lunch.

Intervention: The goal of this project is to develop and evaluate an intervention for fourth grade teachers in reading and writing that focuses on developing strategies, techniques, and materials that can support an understanding of and appreciation for word use, thereby promoting vocabulary development among low-income students and English language learners. The hypothesis is that approaching vocabulary development through explicit attention to word use in children's literature, and integrating this word study into writing workshops, will develop word consciousness, leading to enhanced reading and writing abilities according to multiple measures. Researchers will introduce the intervention to teachers and collaboratively develop word study/word consciousness activities with them that are directed at academic language and content-specific vocabulary and that are aligned with the teachers' fiction and nonfiction units of study. Teachers will integrate these activities into their teaching. Throughout the project, researchers will meet with the teachers to discuss their experiences, revise the activities, and provide support to them.

Research Design and Methods: In a quasi-experimental design, the reading and writing achievement of fourth grade students in intervention classrooms will be compared with the reading and writing achievement of fourth grade students in control classrooms in order to establish whether any literacy gains are due to the word study/word consciousness intervention. In phase 1 of the project, the researchers will recruit four fourth-grade teachers from two school districts who are experienced with a unit of study/writing workshop approach to teaching writing. These four teachers will remain as intervention teachers for the duration of the study. They will be matched according to years of experience, familiarity with a unit of study approach to writing workshop, and student demographics with four control teachers who work in the same districts. In phase 2, the initial four teachers will become intervention teachers, and the four additional teachers who are new to the intervention will join, making a total of eight intervention teachers. Across the project, it is estimated that a total of 600 fourth grade students will participate in the intervention.

Control Condition: Students in the control condition will receive the standard instruction in reading and writing normally offered by their schools. Over the course of the  study, there will be 20 matched control teachers (600 students).

Key Measures: Data for quantitative analysis will include the following: student scores on California Achievement Tests or English Language Arts and Writing; beginning and end of year writing samples (fiction and nonfiction) that will be analyzed for textual features, text structure, language use, word frequency use, and content accuracy; beginning and end of year teacher questionnaires; and classroom observations. Data for qualitative analysis will center on case studies developed on 24 randomly selected intervention students (12 per district), for whom the following data will be collected: final drafts of all writing, knowledge rating guides completed before and after units of study, lists of all books read, and interviews with both the case study students and their teachers.

Data Analytic Strategy: First, a hierarchical linear model will be employed to analyze the relationship between individual student gain scores in reading and vocabulary achievement from third to fourth grade and from fourth to fifth grade as within subject measures. The researchers will use teacher treatment condition to distinguish between-group factors. Second, an interrupted time series model with a nonequivalent no-treatment comparison group will be employed to establish trends before and after the intervention.

Products and Publications

ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.

Select Publications:

Books

Lubliner, S., and Scott, J. (2008). Nourishing Vocabulary.Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Samway, K. Davies, and Taylor, D. (2008). Teaching English Language Learners, 6–12: Strategies That Work.New York: Scholastic.

Scott, J., Skobel, B., and Wells, J. (2008). The Word Conscious Classroom: Building the Vocabulary Readers and Writers Need.New York: Scholastic.

Book chapters

Scott, J., Hoover, M., Flinspach, S., and Vevea, J. (2008). A Multiple-Level Vocabulary Assessment Tool: Measuring Word Knowledge Based on Grade-Level Materials. In Y. Kim, V. Risko, D. Compton, D. Dickinson, M. Hundley, R. Jimenez, K. Leander, and D. Rowe (Eds.), (pp. 325–340). Oak Creek, WI: National Reading Conference.

Scott, J., Nagy, B., and Flinspach, S. (2008). More Than Merely Words: Redefining Vocabulary Learning in a Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Society. In A. Farstrup, and J. Samuels (Eds.), What Research Has to Say About Vocabulary Instruction (pp. 182–210). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Proceedings

Scott, J., Flinspach, S., Miller, T., Gage-Serio, O. and Vevea, J. (2009). An Analysis of Reclassified English Learners, English Learners and Native English Fourth Graders on Assessments of Receptive and Productive Vocabulary. In Proceedings of the 58th Annual Yearbook of the National Reading Conference (pp. 312–329). Oak Creek, WI: National Reading Conference.