Implementing Intensive Vocabulary Instruction for Students At Risk for Reading Disability

Abstract

Concerns regarding literacy levels in the United States are long standing. Debates have existed for decades regarding the most effective ways to teach reading, especially the polarizing dilemma of how much to focus on decoding versus code-emphasis and whole language instruction. Fortunately, as a result of concentrated research efforts and analyses of the extant literature on teaching reading, perhaps spurred by these debates, we know more now than we ever have about how to teach basic reading skills. However, there is still much work to be done in order to determine which instructional practices are the most effective ways in which to teach children to read. The need for more research focusing on best instructional practices is exacerbated by the well-documented gap between research. Literacy rates among this nation's students have consistently missed the mark over the years. The 2009 Nation's Report Card shows that 33 percent of students are reading below the basic level of achievement as measured by the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). Likewise, only 33 percent of our nation's fourth graders are achieving at the proficient (25 percent) or advanced (8 percent) levels on the NAEP. Our purpose in this article is to begin to bridge the research-to-practice gap by translating recent research in beginning reading to help teachers to more easily implement effective practices in their classrooms. In particular, our focus is on effective use of vocabulary instruction. Several researchers have begun to examine the important role of vocabulary in beginning reading and to determine the best ways to teach vocabulary to children at risk for reading failure. We begin with an explanation of the role of vocabulary in beginning reading and describe recent intervention research in this area. We conclude with a detailed description of the interventions we used in our research so that teachers may create their own vocabulary lessons that best meet the needs of their students.

Exploring the Use of Podcasts and Vodcasts: Multimedia Tools for Word Learning

“…As a result, a person understands and uses words within his or her lexicon with varying degrees of precision (Baker, Simmons, & Kame’enui, 1998). Given the evolutionary nature of word learning, a judicious discussion of a strategy’s effectiveness for teaching vocabulary must evaluate its contribution to breadth and depth of word learning (Coyne, McCoach, Loftus, Zipoli, & Kapp, 2009; Pullen, Tuckwiller, Ashworth, Lovelace, & Cash, 2011) .…”

“…Differences between receptive and expressive learning may be attributed to the learning demands inherent within expressive language. The expressive tasks, as used in the study, assessed a deeper level of word knowledge than did the receptive task (Coyne et al, 2009; Pullen et al, 2011). It is reasonable to assume that the brief, explicit format of the instruction was sufficient for establishing initial word meanings but was insufficient for promoting deeper levels of knowledge.…”

Professional Development to Support Teachers’ Implementation of Intensive Reading Intervention: A Systematic Review

“…Sixth, we conducted an ancestral search of all primary studies identified in the initial full-text screen, as well as of relevant syntheses that emerged from the initial search (Austin et al, 2017;Elbaum et al, 2000;Pullen et al, 2011;Scammacca et al, 2007;Torres, 2016;Wanzek et al, 2016). From the primary studies, we identified and screened 45 titles and abstracts.…”

A Multimedia Approach to Improve Reading Instruction of Future Teachers

“…Following storybook reading, students are provided with extended opportunities to gain a deeper understanding of the target words. IVI implementation during storybook reading has been described in detail by researchers Pullen, Tuckwiller, Ashworth, Lovelace, & Cash, 2011): (a) before reading, teacher prompts students to pronounce target words, (b) students are told to listen for each "magic word" and raise their hand when they hear one in the story, (c) words are acknowledged in the story and sentences that contained each word are reread, (d) students are given a simple, student-friendly definition, (e) the teacher rereads the sentence with the definition instead of the target word, and last, (f) students are prompted to again pronounce the word. Following this 10-20 minute storybook reading session, students are engaged in after-reading opportunities to interact with words in other rich and varied ways (Beck et al, 2002).…”