The Importance of Early Vocabulary for Literacy Achievement in High-Poverty Schools

Abstract

Although research documents a key contribution of print skills to early literacy, vocabulary and other language skills also provide an important foundation. Focusing on a sample of several hundred low-income children in 16 urban schools that were implementing literacy interventions, 1st-grade predictors of literacy development were traced over time. Beginning-of-1st-grade letter-word identification and word attack skills were the strongest predictors of reading comprehension at the end of 1st grade. However, vocabulary was the best predictor of reading comprehension at the end of 2nd and 3rd grades. The predictive power of early print-related and phonemicawareness skills diminished over time, yet vocabulary scores remained an important predictor. Results support an early emphasis on developing meaning skills to prepare low-income children for success in literacy.Children whose family incomes are at or below the poverty level are especially likely to struggle with reading, a pattern that emerges early and strengthens in the elementary school years. On recent national assessments, only 43% of low-income fourth graders in large urban districts read at a Requests for reprints should be sent to:

Receptive vocabulary and early literacy skills in emergent bilingual Northern Sotho-English children

“…Hemphill and Tivnan (2008) used the PPVT to assess English receptive vocabulary in low SES emergent bilingual Spanish-English children over a set period of time. The children obtained a mean SS of 87 on the PPVT at the beginning of the first grade; a score that was nearly one standard deviation below the norm (placing the learners at the 19th percentile) and which was considered to be an indication of weak vocabulary skills.…”

“…Hemphill and Tivnan (2008) and Scarborough (2001) 1. the majority of the learners studied have not acquired vocabulary skills in their L2 (English) to such an extent that L2 vocabulary could be measured expressively 2. most aspects of PA were so poorly developed in this sample that it was difficult to assess PA skills 3. the majority of the learners have not started to decode text.…”

“…Hemphill and Tivnan (2008) assessed several language and early literacy skills (including receptive vocabulary, letter knowledge, sight word reading, phonemic awareness and word attack) in a group of low SES children and found that beginning-of-grade-one vocabulary knowledge best predicted reading comprehension at the end of the second and third grade. In line with similar longitudinal studies (see Sénéchal & Le Fevre 2002;and Spira, Bracken & Fischel 2005), Hemphill and Tivnan (2008) found that early literacy skills such as letter knowledge and work attack (i.e. essentially the ability to decode print) were the strongest predictors of reading comprehension at the end of the first grade, but that receptive vocabulary better predicted reading comprehension at the end of Grade 2 and continued to reliably predict reading success at the end of Grade 3.…”

“…they often do not attend educationally focused kindergarten groups (and when they do, their caregivers typically have lower levels of education, and caregiver-child ratios are not ideal) 2. they have less access to a variety of printed materials in their homes and communities 3. parents of low SES children are less likely to engage in conversational and book-reading routines that enhance oral language development and emergent literacy skills (Hemphill & Tivnan 2008).…”

Neurodevelopment and Early Childhood Education for Low-Income Students: An Analytical Literature Review

“…Hemphill and Tivnan (2008) suggest that a child's early vocabulary is strongly correlated with his later reading comprehension skills. This idea is supported by a study by Missal et al (2007) who found that "any attempt to increase a student's early literacy skills with respect to language, rhyming, and alliteration should result in positive shifts in that student's later reading skills (p. 446).…”