Language Diversity, School Learning, and Closing Achievement Gaps A Workshop Summary (2010) / Chapter Skim
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2 Vocabulary and Beyond: Developing Language for School Achievement
2 Vocabulary and Beyond: Developing Language for School Achievement
Pages 7-26
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From page 7... ...
Second, children with smaller vocabularies have lower school achievement. Third, children with lower SES have smaller vocabularies.
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From page 8... ...
This claim has sometimes been subject to controversy but it is derived from several findings.1 First, studies show that vocabulary size and growth are associated with the amount and complexity of language children hear in their every day lives. Children from lower SES homes who, on average, have smaller vocabularies hear less language and less complex language at home than children from more economically advantaged backgrounds (Hart and Risley, 1995; Hoff, 2003, 2006, 2009)
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From page 9... ...
Most research on the development of vocabulary and oral language focuses on whether the vocabulary young children initially bring to school puts them on a trajectory of vocabulary learning and academic achieve ment. Research shows that intervening at early ages is important for early school achievement, but it is likely not to be sufficient, Hoff said.
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From page 10... ...
From the point of view of scholars, to what extent do differences in grammatical and lexical development contribute to the achievement gap observed between economically disadvantaged and advantaged students? What is known about the effectiveness of interventions to help teachers support language development in the classroom?
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Learning academic registers is inseparable from learning school subjects, in her view, as children must master new language forms and functions for academic tasks and purposes. As explained further in Schleppegrell (2009)
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Before describing the intervention research, Lesaux described find ings from three studies to illustrate the challenge of closing the persistent achievement gaps of Spanish secondlanguage learners, who have to both learn to decode text and develop vocabulary and reading comprehension skills. First, in a longitudinal study, Lesaux followed a cohort of 100 U.S. born children of immigrant Spanish speakers in grades 4 through 8 who had enrolled in U.S.
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. Figure 2-1 R01737 were significantly below national norms at both the 4th and 8th grade.
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. Figure 2-2 R01737 Finally, a crosssectional study of 581 6th graders struggling with fully vector editable reading comprehension showed that average percentile scores for word reading accuracy (decoding)
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FIGURE 2-3 Productive English and Spanish vocabulary for Spanishspeaking children compared with national monolingual norms. SOURCE: Lesaux (2009)
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Lesaux has been studying the effectiveness of such a universal approach to developing language and reading comprehension in middle school classrooms. Academic Language Instruction for All Students (ALIAS)
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. involved 14 middle schools (51 teachers and 2,500 languageminority and native English speakers)
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, for instance, found little evidence for the effectiveness of vocabulary interventions in studies with commonly used standardized measures of reading comprehension, though a few effects were found with investiga tordeveloped measures. Increasing the amount of classroom talk beyond what typically occurs could support language growth, but it is not enough for teachers simply to talk more.
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From page 19... ...
. In her view, the findings of both panelists support providing students with rich and legitimate opportunities to hear good academic language models with students participating as valued contributors to discussion.
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First, teachers talk for most of the class time, leaving students little time to interact with one another around the academic material. Since this pedagogical approach has been ingrained in teachers' practice, teachers would benefit from education and support for planning activities that are structured to help students learn language as part of learning academic content.
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From page 21... ...
Words tend to be chosen, Schleppegrell explained, on the basis of curriculum topics, such as the Declaration of Independence, and so any efforts to teach vocabulary would need to start from the curriculum that is to be taught. Although "controlled vocabulary" is not part of the educational system, said Labov, it would be possible to create texts that introduce vocabulary in more sys tematic ways that relate to the curriculum and that also support broader language growth for academic learning.
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Lynne VernonFeagans said her work with narrative research with lower SES African American samples confirms such findings (e.g., VernonFeagans, 1996)
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From page 23... ...
Role of Families A question was raised about how families should be engaged to support language for school learning. Hoff argued that, for families that do not provide rich language input, family intervention to increase lan guage input can be helpful but it would not be enough to produce the magnitude of change in children's language development to make a dif ference in school achievement.
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From page 24... ...
Given the wealth of evidence about the importance of early language input, several participants suggested that pediatricians and wellbaby clinics are another potential community resource, though pediatricians probably need a better understanding of language development and better materials for helping parents to support language development, including bilingual development. Peer Influences More needs to be understood about peer influences on language devel opment, especially for children from lower SES backgrounds.
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From page 25... ...
They were not integrated into the community and spoke only Arabic at home, but opportunities for increased peer interaction in the classroom led to improvements in English oral language. Teachers' Expectations Schleppegrell emphasized that teachers' expectations are known to influence student performance.
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