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Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers' Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development: A Cluster-Randomized Trial

July 2011
Reading Research Quarterly 46(3):249 - 272

DOI:10.2307/41228653

Authors:

Susan Neuman

New York University

Ellen Newman

IE University

Julie Dwyer

Boston University

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that helping preschoolers learn words through categorization may enhance their ability to retain words and their conceptual properties, acting as a bootstrap for self-learning. We examined this hypothesis by investigating the effects of the World of Words instructional program, a supplemental intervention for children in preschool designed to teach word knowledge and conceptual development through taxonomic categorization and embedded multimedia. Participants in the study included 3- and 4-year-old children from 28 Head Start classrooms in 12 schools, randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Children were assessed on word knowledge, expressive language, conceptual knowledge, and categories and properties of concepts in a yearlong intervention. Results indicated that children receiving the WOW treatment consistently outperformed their control counterparts; further, treatment children were able to use categories to identify the meaning of novel words. Gains in word and categorical knowledge were sustained six months later for those children who remained in Head Start. These results suggest that a program targeted to learning words within taxonomic categories may act as a bootstrap for self-learning and inference generation.

. Comparisons of Pre-and Posttest Scores on Word Knowledge

…

. Comparisons of Pre-and Posttest Scores on Test of Conceptual Knowledge

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A B S T R A C T

The purpose of this study was to examine the hypothesis that helping preschoolers learn words through categoriza-

tion may enhance their ability to retain words and their conceptual properties, acting as a bootstrap for self-learning.

We examined this hypothesis by investigating the effects of the World of Words instructional program, a supplemental

intervention for children in preschool designed to teach word knowledge and conceptual development through taxo-

nomic categorization and embedded multimedia. Participants in the study included 3- and 4-year-old children from 28

Head Start classrooms in 12 schools, randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. Children were assessed on

word knowledge, expressive language, conceptual knowledge, and categories and properties of concepts in a yearlong

intervention. Results indicated that children receiving the WOW treatment consistently outperformed their control coun-

terparts; further, treatment children were able to use categories to identify the meaning of novel words. Gains in word

and categorical knowledge were sustained six months later for those children who remained in Head Start. These results

suggest that a program targeted to learning words within taxonomic categories may act as a bootstrap for self-learning

and inference generation.

Students’ knowledge of words and their mean-

ings play an essential role in reading prof iciency

(Cain, Oakhill, Barnes, & Bryant, 2001; Farkas

& Beron, 2004). A large and rich vocabulary is one of

the strongest predictors of reading comprehension

(Beck & McKeown, 2007). Studies have demonstrated

that the size of an individual’s word knowledge is re-

lated not only to comprehension in elementary grades

(Scarborough, 2002; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002) but

also to f luency and comprehension in high school

(Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997).

Although there is some controversy about the f ind-

ings and their implications, children from economi-

cally disadvantaged circumstances tend to have less

extensive vocabularies before they enter school than

their middle-class counterparts (Hart & Risley, 1995;

Hoff, 2003; for a critique of this research, see, e.g., de

Villiers & Johnson, 2007; Miller, Cho, & Bracey, 2005;

Stockman, 2010). From this perspective, vocabulary

differentials are an important factor contributing to the

achievement gap between poor and middle-income stu-

dents (Farkas & Beron, 2004; Hart & Risley, 2003). By

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary

Intervention on Preschoolers’

Word Knowledge and

Conceptual Development:

A Cluster-Randomized Trial

Susan B. Neuman

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

Ellen H. Newman

IE University, Segovia, Spain

Julie Dwyer

Boston University, Massachusetts, USA

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

250

second grade, middle-class students are likely to have

acquired around 6,000 root word meanings, whereas

students in the lowest quartile on the living word vo-

cabulary list (E. Dale & O’Rourke, 1981) have acquired

around 4,000 root words, a gap estimated to equal about

two grade levels (Biemiller, 2006).

Compelling as these figures are, they may under-

estimate the problems associated with vocabulary

differentials and school learning (Neuman, 2009). As

students get older, they will increasingly need academic

vocabularies (Spycher, 2009). These words and their

precise meanings are often central to content area un-

derstanding and differ from general meanings of even

the same terms (Beck, McKeown, & Kucan, 2002). For

example, the words operation and sign have very spe-

cif ic meanings in mathematics. Such academic terms

and their specialized meanings may pose the greatest

challenge to students who lack a rich network of words

and concepts (Stahl & Nagy, 2006).

The question then becomes, How do we effectively

intervene with very young students who need more in-

tensive vocabulary instruction? Moreover, how may we

potentially accelerate its development? In this study, we

attempt to address these questions by evaluating the ef-

fectiveness of a vocabulary program designed to pro-

mote word learning and conceptual development for

preschoolers who lived in urban communities.

Vocabulary Development

and Instruction for Preschoolers

For young children, oral language is the primary source

from which they learn new words (Harris, Golinkoff, &

Hirsh-Pasek, 2011). Studies have shown that mealtime

conversations (Beals, DeTemple, & Dickinson, 1994),

daily activities and chores (Tizard & Hughes, 1984), and

play (Neuman & Roskos, 1992) provide interactive con-

texts for word learning. Yet, students are likely to need

a wider and more sophisticated vocabulary than what

they generally hear in everyday conversations. It is for

this reason that book reading, more than any other con-

text, has been the source of study for vocabulary train-

ing in the early years. Even simple stories for toddlers

like Over in the Meadow by Ezra Jack Keats (1999) in-

clude complex vocabulary and literary phrases such as

“basked in the sun” (n.p.) with a much higher incidence

than daily communication (Cunningham & Stanovich,

1997).

Never theless, a plethora of studies on the effec-

tiveness of stor ybook reading have shown equivocal

results. Scarborough and Dobrich (1994) and Bus, van

Ijzendoorn, and Pellegrini (1995), for example, were

among the f irst to provide a narrative summary and a

meta-analysis of the impact of book reading on early

literacy skills. Their results provided contrasting views

of the power of the effects for shared book reading, with

Sca rborough and Dobrich calling into question the

positive effects often claimed for reading, and Bus and

colleagues demonstrating more substantial effects.

Three meta-analyses have subsequently explored

the effects of interventions that primarily or entirely

focus on shared book reading. Mol, Bus, and de Jong

(2009), for example, avoided previous confounds in

meta-analytic studies of oral and print-based vocabu-

lary (Elleman, Lindo, Morphy, & Compton, 2009) by

separating out the effects on oral language outcomes

and print-related skills. Focusing specifically on the im-

pact of interactive storybook reading, they reported a

modest effect size for expressive vocabulary (0.28) and

a slightly more modest effect size for print knowledge

(0.25). However, the largest effect sizes appeared to be

present only in experiments that were highly controlled

and were executed by the examiners. Teachers ap-

peared to have difficulty fostering the same growth in

young students’ language skills as researchers did when

implementing interventions.

In another recent meta-analysis examining the ef-

fects of parent–child storybook readings on oral lan-

guage development, Mol, Bus, de Jong, and Smeets

(2008) found moderate effects for ch ildren in the

2–3-year-old age group (0.59) but not for children in

the 4–5-year-old age group (0.14). Further, they report-

ed that two groups did not appear to benefit from the

intervention: children at risk for language and literacy

impairments and kindergarten students. Using a more

rigorous set of screening criteria (e.g., studies published

only in peer-reviewed journals, randomized controlled

trials, quasi-experimental studies), the National Early

Literacy Panel (2008) reported moderate effects of sto-

rybook reading interventions, with an effect size esti-

mate ranging from 0.35 for composite measures of oral

lang uage (e.g., grammar, ability to define vocabulary,

listening comprehension) to 0.60 for simple vocabulary.

In short, these meta-analyses appear to support a

growing concern voiced by a number of scholars (Beck

& McKeown, 2007; Biemiller & Boote, 2006). Although

shared book reading represents a fertile ground for vo-

cabulary development, it may not be intensive enough

by itself to improve expressive and receptive language

development for children at risk. Even in the best of cir-

cumstances, Biemiller and Boote found that interven-

tions only yield 20–40% improvement in target word

learning, and few read-aloud interventions have shown

effects on general knowledge as measured on standard-

ized assessments.

Marulis and Neuman (2010), in the most recent

meta-analysis, attempted to address these concerns by

examining the full corpus of experimental interven-

tions targeted to enhancing students’ oral language

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 251

development. The researchers examined 67 published

and unpublished studies for a total of 216 effect sizes.

Their results indicated an overall effect size of 0.88—a

gain of nearly one standard deviation on vocabulary

measures. However, effect sizes were significantly lower

for economically disadvantaged students.

Marulis and Neuman (2010) were able to conduct

moderator analyses to try to explain the heterogeneity of

variances in effect sizes among studies. These analyses

revealed several design features that appeared to be as-

sociated with larger effect sizes. For example, providing

students with explicit instruction of words in storybooks

as well as other materials, discussing words in meaning-

ful contexts, and reviewing words on several occasions

was found to be more effective than implicit, embedded

instruction alone. Further, training teachers to enact the

treatment with fidelity was associated with larger effect

sizes. Finally, using assessment measures that were tar-

geted to the specific intervention program showed great-

er vocabulary gains in studies than did standardized

measures. Consequently, these features were among

those incorporated into the intervention design.

Conceptual Development Support

for Vocabulary Development

Although students may demonstrate word knowledge

through fast mapping (Carey, 1988)—making a con-

nection between an object label and referent within a

few instances—recent studies have shown that these

mappings can be notoriously fragile over time and

with future learning (Gershkoff-Stowe & Hahn, 2007;

Wilkinson, Ross, & Diamond, 2003). Students may

develop partial knowledge of words from initial expo-

sures, but this knowledge will be far from complete.

Rather, depth of processing, which requires meaning-

ful elaboration, appears to support memory for words,

stories, and events (Levin, 1988). For example, stud-

ies have shown that students who process information

more deeply retain information better than those who

engage in shallow processing (Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986).

There is an emerging body of evidence indicat-

ing that the way in which words are semantically

clustered may suppor t word lear ning (Booth, 2009;

Chi & Koeske, 1983; Glaser, 1984). Recent resea rch

has shown that when students undergo a vocabu-

lary spurt (McMurray, 2007), a point in development

in which the pace of word learning increases rapidly,

they also begin to display the ability to categorize. The

co-occurrence of these abilities has led researchers to

speculate that there is a synergistic relationship be-

tween them. Borovsky and Elman (2006), for example,

in three computational simulations, manipulated the

amount of language input, sentential complexity, and

the frequency distribution of words within categories.

In each of these simulations, the researchers found that

improvements in category structure were tightly cor-

related with subsequent improvements in word learn-

ing ability. The results were consistent with previous

research by Gopnik and Meltzoff (1987), who have ar-

gued for the bidirectional interaction of categorization

as a tool for learning language.

In a recent study, Nelson, O’Neil, and Asher (2008)

found that 3- and 4-year-old children learned the la-

bels (i.e., words) for novel artifacts more readily when

paired with additional conceptual supporting informa-

tion about each ar tifact’s function than when paired

with supporting information about the artifact’s shape

or incidental information about the object (e.g., “my sis-

ter gave it to me”). Booth (2009) replicated this finding,

reporting that 3-year-olds demonstrated greater reten-

tion of words when given their conceptual property de-

scriptions as compared with those with nonconceptual

properties. Each of these studies suggests that supple-

menting new word labels with supporting conceptual

information may improve vocabular y learning for

preschool-age students.

As a facet of conceptual infor mation, category

membership has been shown to have a unique potential

to bootstrap word learning by linking word labels to ex-

isting knowledge through inductive processes (Gelman

& O’Reilly, 1988; Medin, Lynch, & Solomon, 2000).

That is, once a category has been established, a student

may use information about the category to generalize to

new instances and make inferences (Rehder & Hastie,

2004). For example, when told that the novel word katy-

did refers to an insect, an individual can infer properties

about a katydid based on his or her knowledge of other

insects. Children as young as 2 years of age have been

shown to use category membership to make novel ex-

tensions and inferences (Gelman et al., 1998). Invoking

category membership as part of word learning, there-

fore, may provide a rich background of conceptual and

semantic scaffolding for new words. Further, if mean-

ing ful elaboration allows for better memory, there is

a potential for word learning to be facilitated through

concept development. This design feature is examined

in this study.

Vocabulary and Conceptual

Development Instructional

Design Features

Despite the centrality of word knowledge for developing

comprehension and reading proficiency, evidence indi-

cates that there is a lack of attention to its instruction

in schools (Beck & McKeown, 2007). Numerous stud-

ies have reported the paucity of vocabulary instruction

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

252

in school curricula (Beck & McKeown, 2007; Biemiller,

20 06; Juel, Bianca rosa, Coker, & Deffes, 2003).

Summarizing much of th is research, Biemiller and

Boote (2006) found that limited time is spent on increas-

ing vocabulary over the course of students’ schooling.

For example, Scott, Jamieson-Noel, and Asselin (2003),

in their study of 23 upper elementary classrooms, found

that teachers did much mentioning and assigning but

little actual teaching of new vocabulary.

Unfortunately, available evidence suggests a simi-

lar pattern in preschool literacy instruction as well.

Wright and Neuman (2010), in a study of 55 kinder-

garten classrooms, reported virtually no incidences of

explicit vocabulary instruction. Further, a recent con-

tent analysis of published early literacy programs found

little evidence of a deliberate effort to teach vocabulary

to preschoolers (Neuman & Dwyer, 2009). The authors

reported a mismatch between explicitly stated goals in

the scope and sequence, a general pattern of acknowl-

edging the impor tance of vocabula ry but sporadic

attention to addressing the skill intentionally, little at-

tention to developing background knowledge, and lim-

ited to no opportunities to practice, review, and monitor

students’ progress.

In short, current instructional materials appear to

offer little guidance to teachers who want to do a bet-

ter job of teaching vocabulary to young students. This

means that until instructional materials are developed

that emphasize vocabulary and conceptual develop-

ment early on, less advantaged students may continue

to lag behind their middle-income peers even if they

master reading the written words.

Given these shortcomings in the research, our goal

was to develop an intervention designed to promote vo-

cabulary and conceptual development for preschoolers.

Three guiding principles of vocabulary instruction an-

chored the approach that we developed and evaluated

in this study. First, given the limitations of instructional

time in preschools, there is an increasing consensus

that word selection in vocabulary instruction must be

more intentional. Beck and McKeown (2007), for ex-

ample, have argued that words for vocabulary instruc-

tion should be selected from the portion of word stock

that comprises high-utility sophisticated words (Tier 2)

that are characteristic of written language. These words

are domain general and likely to relate to more refined

labels for concepts that may enhance students’ verbal

functioning. Studies of text talk, a strategy used by Beck

and her colleagues (2002) to engage students in rich

language instr uction, have shown impressive results,

with kindergarten and first-grade students demonstrat-

ing vocabulary gains about twice as large as those in

read-aloud studies (Beck et al., 2002). Teaching young

students high-utility sophisticated words (Tier 2) even

earlier, in the preschool years, therefore, may have great

potential to generate vocabulary growth.

Second, words need to be semantically clustered to

support conceptual development. Students have been

shown to use a variety of different types of category re-

lationships to organize information. Thematic catego-

rization involves the grouping of objects together using

relational criteria; ball and bat, for example, both belong

to the schema for baseball and are thematically related.

Taxonomic categories involve the grouping of objects

based on shared properties; for example, bird is a taxo-

nomic category consisting of sparrows, robins, and so

forth. The shared properties that define taxonomic cate-

gories include not just perceptual similarity (e.g., looking

the same) but also a shared essence, based on principles

of class inclusion between lower and higher level catego-

ries (Gelman, 2003). Clustering words within taxonomic

categories, therefore, might facilitate inference genera-

tion and making inferences and extend word learning.

Third, recent studies have shown that the use of

embedded multimedia, strategies in which animations

and other video are woven into teachers’ lessons, may

enhance vocabulary development (Chambers, Cheung,

Madden, Slavin, & Gifford, 2006). The use of embed-

ded multimedia is based on two related theoretical

premises. One premise is that multimedia can support

word learning and concept development through a syn-

ergistic relationship (Neuman, 1995). Combining verbal

and visual content (i.e., words, pictures) gives learners

multiple pathways to retention and comprehension.

Kozma (1991) demonstrated that students learned sig-

nificantly more from multimedia instructional pre-

sentations than when materials were presented in one

medium alone (see Kozma, 1991, for a review). Further

support comes from Mayer and his colleagues (Mayer,

2001; Mayer & Moreno, 2002), who have demonstrated

in a series of studies that the addition of moving images,

diagrams, and pictures allows for better retention than

information held in only one memory system.

The second premise comes from Paivio’s (1986) dual

coding theory, which posits that visual and verbal infor-

mation are processed differently, creating separate rep-

resentations for information processed in each channel.

Chambers and her colleagues (2006, 2008), for example,

have shown that the use of embedded multimedia can

enhance learning, reporting a moderate effect size when

compared with instruction without media. Silverman

and Hines (2009) also found a positive effect for English

learners in prekindergarten through second grade as a

result of multimedia-enhanced vocabulary instruction.

Taken together, these design principles form the

basis of the World of Words (WOW), a supplemen-

tal vocabulary program for preschoolers. The inter-

vention focuses on teaching carefully selected words

through richly structured taxonomic categories that are

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 253

designed to help organize students’ understanding of

these words and enhance their ability to store ideas effi-

ciently in memory. Lessons are highly interactive, using

embedded multimedia—video, audio, and picture en-

hancements—to support instructional, relational, and

conceptual words to extend students’ uses of new vo-

cabulary to describe things, solve problems, and draw

generalizations and inferences. Together, these features

represent the active ingredients of an intervention de-

signed to accelerate word learning and improve con-

ceptual development with the intention of promoting

students’ long-term achievement.

Present Study

The primary goal of the present study was to examine

the effects of WOW, based on the instructional prin-

ciples delineated previously, for use in preschools with

high numbers of economically disadvantaged learners

to bolster their vocabulary and conceptual develop-

ment. The study was designed as a cluster-randomized

experiment to meet the criteria for establishing causal

predictions, that is, to use random assignment to exam-

ine the effects of a vocabulary intervention compared

with a control condition among classrooms represent-

ing a similar demographic constituency. The study ad-

dressed four specif ic research questions:

1. What is the impact of the vocabulary intervention

on word knowledge for preschoolers who come

from an economically disadvantaged urban area?

2. Does the intervention enhance students’ ability to

develop conceptual and categorical development

associated with these words?

3. Do potential gains in conceptual development

improve students’ ability to make inferences

and generalizations about novel words and their

meanings, providing some initial evidence of cog-

nitive bootstrapping?

4. Are potential gains in word and conceptual de-

velopment sustained beyond the immediate treat-

ment period?

Method

Study Design and Research Participants

The study was designed as a prospective cluster-

randomized trial between Head Start classrooms. Head

Start is a federally funded preschool program targeted

to low-income students and designed to promote school

readiness through the provision of educational, health,

nutritional, social, and other services to enrolled stu-

dents and families. Having selected the countywide

area based on the match between the purpose of the

intervention and the instructional goals and outcomes

of the Head Start program, the Head Start executive di-

rector, directors in schools, and site coordinators agreed

to participate in the study. Schools were located in a se-

verely economically depressed urban area in the Rust

Belt region of the United States, reporting over 15% un-

employment. The Head Start program offered morning

and evening classes and full-day programs for students

ages 3 and 4 for four days a week, eight months a year.

All classrooms served mixed-age groups. Class size was

limited to 18 students.

Together with the Head Start management team,

12 schools from five delegate agencies were identif ied

throughout the county to participate; two of the schools

were selected from each of four agencies and four of the

schools from the fifth agency. Six schools were random-

ly assigned to treatment and six to the control group.

Within schools, classrooms were stratified according to

half-day and full-day programs. For each group in five

of the schools, one full-day and one half-day classroom

were randomly selected, and in the sixth school, two

full-day and two half-day classes. In total, 28 classrooms

were included in the full-year experiment: 14 classrooms

(7 full-day, 7 half-day) in the treatment group and 14

classrooms (7 full-day, 7 half-day) in the control group.

Study participants included 604 3- and 4-year-old

students and their head teachers and aides. Table 1 re-

ports the demographic characteristics of our sample.

There was comparability across the sample with the

Treatment group

(N=294)

Control group

(N=310)

Average age 47 months 47 months

Woodcock-Johnson pretest

(scaled scores)

98.4 97.5

Female 55% 51%

Minority 74% 75%

White 26% 25%

Black* 53% 46%

Hispanic 1% 2%

Asian 10% 8%

Middle Eastern 3% 7%

Multiracial 7% 12%

English as primary language 96% 96%

Parents’ education

• High school or less

• Associate’s degree

• Bachelor’s degree

92%

90%

Free or reduced lunch 100% 100%

Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of Treatment

and Control Students

*p < .05.

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

254

exception of ethnic status; the treatment group included

significantly more African American students than the

control group. Most students spoke English as their pri-

mary language (96%). Reflecting the eligibility criteria

for the Head Start program, all of the students received

free or reduced lunch. The majority of their parents had

a high school diploma or had dropped out of school.

Twenty-eight teachers participated in the study: 14

teachers (7 full-time, 7 part-time) in the treatment group

and 14 teachers (7 full-time, 7 part-time) in the control

group. Participating teachers varied in respect to eth-

nicity, education, and teaching experience. More than a

third of the teachers in the treatment group were African

American or of African descent (five), two were Middle

Eastern, and the remaining 50% were Caucasian; in

the control group, 50% of the teachers were African

American, and 50% were Caucasian. The control group

teachers had significantly more teaching experience (11

years or more; p=.05) than the treatment group (5–10

years). Teachers in the control group also had more for-

mal education; they were likely to have an associate’s de-

gree (p= .05), compared with the treatment group, who

were likely to have a child development associate’s de-

gree (three courses in child development). The average

age of the teachers did not vary significantly between

groups; their ages ranged from 41 to 47.

All of the Head Start programs used the HighScope

curriculum as their core program (Hohmann & Weikart,

1995). Classrooms assigned to the treatment group re-

ceived the supplemental WOW intervention (described

later) for 12–15 minutes daily in addition to their core

program; classrooms assigned to the control group re-

ceived supplemental activities for a similar time period

each day. These control classrooms used materials

from the Growing Readers Early Literacy Curriculum

(DeBruin-Parecki & Hohmann, 2006), a supplemental

program with storybooks and activities in vocabulary,

print knowledge, and phonological awareness skills.

From activity cards, teachers selected specific strategies

or game-like activities to use along with storybook read-

ing. For example, an activity card might include vocabu-

lary words to be identified prior to reading the story and

open-ended questions following the reading; the cards

can be used flexibly to meet the needs of the students.

Consequently, although the focus varied, the treatment

and control groups received roughly equivalent amounts

of instruction in early literacy–related activity. All pro-

grams adhered to the early learning outcome standards

approved by the national office of Head Start.

The WOW Intervention Program

The WOW curric ulum (Neuman, Dwyer, Koh, &

Wright, 2007) is a supplemental intervention to sup-

port vocabulary instruction and conceptual develop-

ment for pre-K students. Structurally, the curriculum

is organized by topics that represent animate taxono-

mies (e.g., insects) with properties identified for each

taxonomic topic (e.g., insects have three segments and

six legs). Topics represent content standards in health,

science, and mathematics in states that received the

highest quality ratings from the Thomas B. Fordham

Foundation (Finn, Julian, & Petrilli, 2006). In each state,

for example, early learning standards require an empha-

sis on life sciences through plants and living things, and

words that describe the physical characteristics which

differentiate plants from animal life.

Within the curriculum, words are selected that rep-

resent labels within the category structure (e.g., shoul-

der, eyebrows). Recognizing that words are conveyors of

knowledge, these words, and their meanings, are likely

to be encountered repeatedly later on and represent an

essential foundation for content learning. We used two

databases of children’s early language development to

calibrate the level of difficulty of words in the curriculum:

the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental

Inventories (MCDI; P. Dale & Fenson, 1996) and a col-

lection of recordings of child–adult/parent interactions

from the CHILDES data set. The MCDI database is a set

of parent report inventories of child language and com-

munication designed to yield information on the course

of language development within a population. The

MCDI has strong concurrent and predictive associations

with other measures of vocabulary, language, and cogni-

tive development (P. Dale & Fenson, 1996).

We also used a set of corpora from the CHILDES

database (MacWhinney, 2000), which consists of tran-

scriptions of adult–child spoken interactions in differ-

ent home and laboratory settings around the world. We

selected a combination of English-language corpora

focusing on young children under 5 years of age from

a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds ranging from

high-risk families to professional families. From this

source, we created three norming databases—one for

typically developing children, one for bilingual chil-

dren, and one for high-poverty children—to examine

word frequency within and across databases.

In the f irst set of topics in WOW, we selected ap-

proximately equal proportions of familiar and unfamil-

iar words, based on the previously discussed corpora,

with 56% of the primary words considered unfamiliar to

preschoolers. In the second set, we nearly doubled the

number of words but kept the difficulty level fixed. In

the third set, we both added the number of words and

increased the difficulty level. In addition, words that

challenge children to think about the category structure

were also included (e.g. hair, tears), along with words to

support children’s conversations about the taxonomies

and their properties. Table 2 provides the target words

and their difficulty level, as well as the supporting and

challenging words in the units of instruction.

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 255

Table 2. Sample From the World of Words Curriculum Matrix

Unit 1: Healthy Habits—Sample topics

Total number of words: 50

Percentage acquired by age 3 (MCDI): 44; percentage not acquired by age 3: 56

Ratio of frequency of target words to total lexicon: 1:13

Topic

Phonological

awareness skill Main concepts Vocabulary3

1. Emotions • Rhyming • Your emotions are your feelings.

• Emotions are things you feel inside.

• Other people can know about your emotions if

you tell them how you are feeling.

• Your family, friends, and teachers can help you

feel happy.

• Sometimes, other people can know about your

emotions when they look at your face or your

body position. People look different when they

feel different ways.

happy, happiness, cheerful, sad, sadness,

lonely, loneliness, frustrated, frustration,

loving, love, angry, anger, mad, afraid,

scared, tall, short, curly hair, straight hair,

hungry, tired, feelings, feel, smile, laugh,

fun, cry, bad, better, nobody around, alone,

company, bother, interrupted, hug, hit, push,

safe, comfortable

2. Healthy

foods

• Rhyming • Healthy foods are foods that are good for your

body.

• Healthy foods give your body energy. Energy

keeps your body active.

• Some healthy foods help make your bones and

muscles strong.

• Healthy foods come in many different colors.

• There are different types of healthy foods. You

should have each type of food every day.

• Healthy foods taste delicious!

vegetable, carrot, broccoli, celery, lettuce,

tomato, fruit, apple, banana, strawberry,

dairy, milk, yogurt, cheese, protein, meat,

chicken, fish, eggs, grains, bread, rice, pasta,

cookie, candy, ice cream, French fries,

pizza, cereal, energy, good for you, edible,

diet, colors, green, orange, delicious, sweet,

nutritious, red, yellow, bones, muscles, snack,

sugar, oily, greasy, junk food, balanced

Unit 2: Living Things—Sample topics

Total number of words: 80

Percentage acquired by age 3 (MCDI): 46; percentage not acquired by age 3: 54

Ratio of frequency of target words to total lexicon: 1:20

Topic

Phonological

awareness skill Main concepts Vocabulary

1. Pets • Rhyming • Pets are animals, and all animals are living

creatures.

• Pets are animals that live with people. They are

tame.

• We take care of pets by giving them food and

water, loving them, and taking care of them

when they are hurt or sick.

• Pets eat special food, and good pet food makes

them healthy.

• There are some ways in which pets are the same,

and some ways in which they are different.

dog, puppy, rabbit, cat, kitten, bird, hamster,

goldfish, lizard, elephant, giraffe, tiger, bear,

horse, snake, pig, feed, food, water, play, love,

take care of, tame, petting, exercise

2. Wild

animals

• Rhyming • Wild animals are animals that live outside and

away from people.

• Wild animals take care of themselves.

• Many wild animals are ferocious.

• Wild animals have their own habitats.

polar bear, coyote, giraffe, leopard,

rhinoceros, elephant, zebra, gorilla, deer,

tiger, seal, monkey, alligator, lion, cat,

cow, hamster, rooster, bird, horse, snake,

zoo animals, takes care of itself, finds food,

outside, ice, Arctic, fish/fishing, hunt/hunting,

desert, ferocious, tame, grasslands, big, plants,

survive, carnivore, herbivore, jungle, woods,

habitat, river

(continued)

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

256

Table 2. Sample From the World of Words Curriculum Matrix (continued)

Note. MCDI = MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories. Bolded words are target vocabulary words; the underlined ones are supporting

words.

Unit 3: Math—Sample topics

Total number of words: 50

Percentage acquired by age 3 (MCDI): 40; percentage not acquired by age 3: 60

Ratio of frequency of target words to total lexicon: 1:15

Topic

Phonological

awareness skill Main concepts Vocabulary

1. Geometric

shapes

• Word families • A shape describes how something looks. A

geometric shape is a special kind of shape.

Geometric shapes have special names.

• Each geometric shape has a different number

of sides.

• Some geometric shapes have corners and some

do not.

• Things in our world come in many different

geometric shapes.

• Geometric shapes come in a variety of colors

and sizes, but they are still the same shape

because of the number of sides and corners.

triangle, rectangle, circle, square, pentagon,

hexagon, octagon, semicircle, cone, sphere,

ice cream cone, house, squiggle, cloud, three,

sides, corners, points, lines, connected, sail,

four, door, ruler, narrow, wide, curved, round,

wheel, equal, pizza box, stop sign, solid, party

hat, ball

2. Numbers • Alphabet

• Alliteration

• We use numbers to count things.

• When we count, we say one number for each

thing that we are counting.

• You can use numbers to count big things, and

you can use numbers to count small things.

• Numbers always go in the same order (e.g., 1 is

always next to 2, and 2 is always next to 3).

• We can add numbers, and we can take away

numbers.

• You can use numbers to count and see if

something is more, less, or the same amount as

something else.

• Zero is a special number that we use when

there is nothing there.

Number words: one, two, three, four, five,

six, seven, eight, nine, ten; group, patterns,

multiply, subtract, addition, measure,

calculate, guess, calendar, clock, count,

forward, backward, before, after, add, more,

take away, less, more than, less than, nothing,

none

Str ucturally, the curriculum is organized across

three units: healthy habits, living things, and math-

ematical concepts. There are four topics in each unit,

and each topic is taught over an eight-day period. For

example, consider the topic of insects. Each day begins

with a tuning in—a rhyme, song, or wordplay video clip

shown from a DVD1 to bring students together to the

circle and engage them in playing with language for ap-

proximately one to two minutes. Although only a mod-

est amount of time was devoted to this type of language

play, we recognized that phonological awareness and

vocabulary development have a reciprocal relationship

(Dickinson, McCabe, & Essex, 2006), ref lecting an in-

teraction between multiple aspects of early language

processing (Scarborough, 2002).

As more and more words enter students’ lexicon,

their underlying representations are thought to become

more phonologically detailed to differentiate newly

learned words from existing words (Metsala & Walley,

1998). Therefore, we used the tuning in to help stu-

dents come together as a group and engage in language

activity. The tuning in is followed by a content video in-

troducing students to the definition of the category. The

first video is designed to act as a prototype of the catego-

ry, a particularly salient example of the topic (e.g., a katy-

did). Research in concept development has shown that a

prototype may act as a mental model for developing key

properties of a category (Gelman & Kalish, 2006).

After the video, the teacher engages the students,

focusing on wh– questions. She might ask, “Where

does a katydid live? What is an insect?” Words are then

reinforced using an information book (in this case, on

insects) specially designed to review the words just

learned (e.g., antennae, segments, camouf lage, familiar,

wings, outside) and provide redundant information in a

different medium. Here, the teacher would read about

the topic in a different, meaningful context. Based on

research in multimedia, working memory can be in-

creased by using a dual modality rather than a single

one (Mayer, 2001). That is, it is more effective to tar-

get both the visual and auditory processors of working

memory.

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 257

On subsequent days, the teacher provides increas-

ing supports to develop these words and uses addition-

al videos that focus on new words within and outside

the category, helping build students’ knowledge of the

properties (e.g., insects have six legs and three body

segments) that are related to the category. New words

and properties are introduced, and previous ones are re-

viewed. In addition, videos and teacher questions deep-

en students’ knowledge of the concept by providing

information about the topic (e.g., insects live in a habitat

that has the food, shelter, and the weather they like).

Following the video, the teacher reads a section

from a specially designed information book in which

the target words are presented in a new context. Picture

cards are then used as a strategy for reviewing informa-

tion and to engage students in sorting tasks. Students

are presented with “time for a challenge” items that re-

quire them to problem-solve about the category (e.g., is

a bat an insect?). These challenge items are designed to

encourage students to apply the concepts that they have

acquired to think critically about what may or may not

constitute category membership (Wellman & Gelman,

1998).

Last, the students review their learning through

journal writing activities that involve developmental

writing. In this review, the students engage in express-

ing their ideas through pictures and print, providing an

oppor tunity to extend what they have learned about

the topic (cf. Dyson, 1993). In this respect, the WOW

intervention took advantage of multiple instructional

components that have been shown to highly support

vocabulary development (Neuman & Roskos, 2007):

singing, interacting and playing with words, shared

book reading of informational text, and writing. Each of

these components enabled teachers to support explicit

and implicit interactions with words and concepts in a

multimedia format.

The eight-day instructional sequence is designed to

help teachers scaffold students’ learning of words and

concepts. In the beginning, for example, the teacher’s

lesson plan focuses on explicit instruction, helping stu-

dents get set—providing background information—

and give meaning to deepen their understanding of

the topic. For example, the teacher would introduce the

category of insects by explaining that they have anten-

nae, wings, and segments, and that one type of insect

is known as a katydid. As the instructional sequence

progresses, the teacher begins to build bridges to what

students have already learned and what they will learn

by establishing intertextual linkages across media. She

might ask the students to compare what they saw on

the video about katydids with what they just read in the

information book. Here, the teacher begins to release

more control to the students during the teacher–student

language interactions. Questions engage students in

more open-ended responses.

Finally, the teacher is encouraged to step back and

give students more opportunities for open-ended dis-

cussion. At this point, the teacher might help students

focus on what they had learned throughout the topic,

and their interests in pursuing more information. At the

end of the instructional sequence, students are given a

take-home book, a printable version of the information

book used in the lesson. Throughout the sequence, fa-

miliar words are used for helping students talk about

a topic and incorporating the approximately 10 –12

content-specific words for each topic into more known

contexts. All topics follow a similar instructional design

format. A description of the curriculum sequence is

provided in Figure 1.

Procedures

The study began in September 2007 and continued

throughout the year, ending in May 2008, with a follow-

up, delayed posttest in November 2008. Before classes

began in the fall of 2007, Head Start treatment and

control teachers received two full days of professional

development training. Teachers who were assigned to

the WOW condition participated in training on the

curriculum. At the same time, control group teachers

attended workshops on Head Start early learning out-

comes as well as the supplemental curriculum that the

teachers used. Both groups attended a four-hour re-

fresher workshop in early winter and received ongoing

supervision by site directors once per month during the

academic year. For both trainings, district supervisors

emphasized the alignment of the curriculum and the

Head Start standards. Posttests were completed in May

2008. In November of the following school year, the

treatment and control students who remained in Head

Start were once again assessed on word knowledge and

conceptual development.

Student Assessments

As detailed in Table 3, we administered a battery of

standardized and author-created assessments through-

out the study. Our purpose was to understand how

the curriculum might inf luence word knowledge and

conceptual development. By conducting frequent as-

sessments, we could examine how students were re-

sponding and whether the author-created measures

that we developed might adequately tap students’ un-

derstanding. They received pretests for each unit of

instruction, followed by eight weeks of instruction and

ending with the appropriate posttests.

Prior to the start of the study, a standardized mea-

sure was given as a pretest; in the middle of the year, a

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

258

different form of the measure was administered, and a

posttest was given at the conclusion of the study.

Students were assessed by trained assessors in a

single session prior to and after each unit. Each session

lasted 15–30 minutes. Graduate students in educational

psychology were trained and cer tified prior to con-

ducting the assessments. No formal breaks were built

into the testing protocol; however, if the tested student

showed signs of tiring or inattention, we stopped or

picked up at a later time. The order of task presentation

was held constant. Students were individually assessed

in a quiet area within the school. Throughout the data

collection period, the site coordinator monitored the

testing to ensure that the assessments were adminis-

tered in accordance with standardized procedures. In

total, there were six testing time points throughout the

year.

For each unit, a pretest was administered before the

start of the curriculum, and a posttest was administered

immediately after its completion. Students in the Head

Start control group followed the same testing schedule.

Therefore, all students were assessed every eight weeks

on author-created assessments.

The author-created measures were piloted prior

to assessment with students from the University of

Michigan laboratory preschool and a local Head Start

program. The measures’ final versions used selected

items that demonstrated evidence of reliability (i.e., in-

ternal consistency) and validity (i.e., content validity) in

our pilot studies. Next, we report reliability statistics,

using Cronbach’s a, for each of the author-created mea-

sures for this sample population.

Woodcock-Johnson Picture Vocabulary

Subtest (Form A and B)

We used this subtest to assess students’ expressive vo-

cabulary. This measure was selected because its norm-

ing sample seemed to represent students of varying

income and native language status better than other

measures, such as the Peabody Picture Vocabulary

Test–3 receptive measure or the Expressive One-Word

Vocabulary Test. The subtest consists of 42 pictures of

words that increase in difficulty. For each item, students

are prompted to label the picture; administration is dis-

continued after a student fails to label six items in a row.

Scaled scores were reported based on the Woodcock-

Johnson norming sample. In the current sample, the

reliability of the measure was a=0.80.

Curriculum-Related Word Knowledge

We constructed a 40-item WOW receptive vocabulary

task to measure the number of curriculum-specif ic

words that students learned throughout each unit of

instruction on four topics. Words were randomly se-

lected from the corpora of target words taught through-

out each unit. Students were shown three pictures and

asked to point to the target word. Of the three pictures,

Day 1

(Lesson 1A)

Component 1:

Phonological

awareness

Component 2:

Content video

Component 3:

Book reading

Component 4:

In-catego ry

picture cards

Component 5:

Out-of-c ategory

picture cards

Component 6:

Challenge

words

Component 7:

Journal

(Writing

activity)

Component 8:

Review

Day 2

(Lesson 1B)

Day 3

(Lesson 2A)

Day 4

(Lesson 2B)

Day 5

(Lesson 3A)

Day 6

(Lesson 3B)

Day 7

(Lesson 4A)

Day 8

(Lesson 4B)

X X X

Figure 1. Curriculum Sequence of the World of Words Instructional Program

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 259

one was the target (e.g., eyebrows), one was a themati-

cally related out-of-category distractor (e.g., glasses), and

one was a taxonomically related in-category distractor

(e.g., toes). The ordering of picture type was counter-

balanced across items, and the order of presentation of

items was randomized across students. The total num-

ber correct was recorded for each student. Reliability of

the measure was a=0.86, 0.90, and 0.92 for Units 1, 2,

and 3, respectively.

Conceptual Knowledge

We designed a 32-item task to measure growth in stu-

dents’ conceptual understanding of target vocabulary

for each unit. Four conceptual properties from each

topic were selected. Assessment questions were de-

vised to include the target word in a sentence that was

related to the concept (e.g., do our legs help our bod-

ies move around?) or not related to the concept (e.g.,

does a jacket help our bodies move around?). Each

conceptual property was tested using both in-category

and out-of-category target words to measure students’

understanding of when the concept property could

be applied to the target vocabulary word and when

the concept property could not be applied to the tar-

get word. The students heard an equal number of yes

and no questions across the assessment, and the order

of these questions was fully randomized. Students re-

sponded either “yes” or “no” to each question, and a

total number of correct responses out of 32 were re-

corded. Reliability was a=0.81, 0.79, and 0.81 for Units

1, 2, and 3, respectively.

Categories and Properties Knowledge

Informal observations indicated that many students

struggled with the verbal demands in the conceptual

development assessments. Therefore, we added an ad-

ditional conceptual development measure starting in

Unit 2. To examine students’ conceptual knowledge in

greater depth, we constructed a receptive task to iden-

tify categories and properties of target words. In this

task, students were shown three pictures: a target pic-

ture (e.g., a katydid), a picture thematically related to the

target (e.g., a twig), and an out-of-category but plausible

distractor (e.g., a worm). Students were then asked to

identify which item belonged to a particular category

(e.g., “Which is an insect?”) or identify the item that

possessed a particular category attribute (e.g., “Which

has three body segments?”).

A total of four category-level questions, one for each

topic, and a total of eight concept property questions,

two for each topic, were assessed. Concept property

questions were selected as most representative of the

category. For example, students were assessed on the

property “all insects have six legs,” as it is tr ue of all

insects and therefore a critical and defining property of

the insects category. Responses were tallied for accura-

cy on category and property questions and for the unit

overall separately (total score possible=12). Reliability

was a=0.90. Following the same assessment protocol,

a similar measure using category and property knowl-

edge was also constructed for Unit 3 (a=0.92), with a

possible total score of 12.

Table 3. Battery of Assessments and Timeline for the

World of Words (WOW) Instructional Program

aOnly given to students who continued in Head Start.

Assessments and timeline

Treatment

group

Control

group

Beginning in the fall (eight-week instructional session)

Woodcock-Johnson Picture

Vocabulary Pretest

+ +

WOW word knowledge

• Unit 1 pretest

• Unit 1 posttest

Concepts

• Unit 1 pretest

• Unit 1 posttest

Beginning midyear (eight-week instructional session)

Woodcock-Johnson Picture

Vocabulary Test–Interim

+ +

WOW word knowledge

• Unit 2 pretest

• Unit 2 posttest

Concepts

• Unit 2 pretest

• Unit 2 posttest

Categories and properties

• Unit 2 pretest

• Unit 2 posttest

Beginning in the spring (eight-week instructional session)

WOW word knowledge

• Unit 3 pretest

• Unit 3 posttest

Concepts

• Unit 3 pretest

• Unit 3 posttest

Categories and properties

• Unit 3 pretest

• Unit 3 posttest

End of school year

Woodcock-Johnson Picture

Vocabulary Test

+ +

Inductive reasoning + +

November of the next school year (delayed posttest)a

WOW word knowledge + +

Concepts + +

Categories and properties + +

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

260

Inferences and Generalizations

Last, in Unit 3, we added one additional posttest mea-

sure to examine students’ ability to make categorical

generalizations and inductive inferences using familiar

concepts applied to novel words. To examine students’

ability to extend newly learned category properties to

novel words, we designed an extension task. Six novel

objects were introduced, two per topic in Unit 3 (i.e.,

decagon, trapezoid, one thousand, shifting spanner,

backhoe, vise). Half of the objects were tested with a

concept appropriate to the object’s category. For exam-

ple, “Can you use a shifting spanner to make things?”

The other objects were tested using a concept property

that was inappropriate for the category. For example,

students were asked, “Can you use a decagon to count?”

There were three steps to this task. First, students

were asked to identify a novel object from a set of three

pictures. This step was to determine whether the object

was, in fact, unfamiliar. Second, students were then told

the name of the target object and its category member-

ship. For example, a student would be shown a picture

of a vise and told, “This is a vise. It’s a tool.” Third, on

the next slide, the student was asked a property question

about the category and object. For example, the student

was shown the picture of the vise and asked, “Can you

use this to make things?” There were an equal number

of yes and no responses. Correct responses were tallied,

and a total score was derived. A total score of 12 was

possible. Reliability of the assessment was a=0.80.

Delayed Posttests

Six months later, we returned to Head Start to exam-

ine the delayed effects of the intervention on students’

word knowledge and categorical and conceptual devel-

opment. Approximately one third of the students had

continued in the program.2 Using similar design proce-

dures as our previous measures, we randomly selected

words and concepts from the entire corpus in the cur-

riculum to construct three assessments: curriculum-

based word knowledge, conceptual development, and

categories and properties knowledge. The total number

of items conformed with each of the previous assess-

ments, and reliability estimates were calculated (0.92,

0.80, and 0.84 for word knowledge, conceptual develop-

ment, and categories and properties, respectively).

Fidelity of Implementation

Throughout the study, we examined the fidelity of

implementation using the lesson plan as our g uide.

Researcher assistants on a weekly basis observed and

examined the presence or absence of five features of the

lesson: opening activity (tuning in), content (video and

questions), information book reading, discussion and

time for a challenge, and developmental writing and

review. The final two lessons in the unit included an

additional review feature covering words and concepts

learned at the beginning of the unit. Teachers received

1 point for each component enacted, and conversely, 0

points if the component was not enacted. Points were

tallied then averaged across observations for each teach-

er, and a percentage was derived to indicate the degree

of fidelity for each teacher. Using this procedure, total

fidelity ranged from 79% to 100%; average fidelity was

79% for 17% of the teachers, 85% for 33% of the teachers,

92% for 33% of the teachers, and 100% for 17% of the

teachers. The average f idelity to the curriculum across

teachers was 90%.

Month ly meetings were held with site leaders to

provide updates, coordinate schedules, and discuss any

challenges that might arise. In total, the intervention in-

cluded 24 weeks of supplemental instruction.

Results

We present our results in four parts to address our re-

search questions. First, we examine the impact of the

intervention on curriculum-related word knowledge.

Next, we measure growth in concepts and knowledge of

categories and properties within these concepts. Means

and standard deviations are reported in raw scores and

percentages for each assessment prior to conducting in-

ferential statistics using raw scores. We then report on

students’ ability to make inferences and generalizations,

using categorical properties to consider unfamiliar

words. Finally, we examine Head Start students’ knowl-

edge of words, categories, and concepts six months later

in a delayed posttest to examine the sustainability of the

intervention. Effect sizes were calculated using Cohen’s

d, defined as the difference between the means (treat-

ment versus control) divided by the pooled standard

deviation (Hedges & Olkin, 1985). Correlation matrices

of the measures in each unit were analyzed to examine

the relationships among the author-created measures

and the standardized assessment (see the Appendix).

Because of the multilevel nature of the data, we used

hierarchical linear models with the treatment condition

at the classroom level for the first three analyses. These

analyses are more conservative than individual analy-

ses, as they recognize that students are not independent

from one another but are clustered within classrooms.

To account for this, hierarchical linear models (HLMs)

allowed us to partition the variance between students

and between classrooms. For each outcome, we first

determined whether there was statistically significant

variability in the outcome between teachers and cal-

culated the intraclass correlation, the amount of vari-

ance in the outcome that existed between students and

between classrooms. Next, we estimated student-level

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 261

effects by including covariates to predict variability be-

tween students. In each initial analysis, we used pretest

scores as well as age (grand mean centered) and ethnici-

ty (uncentered) as additional covariates. Neither ethnic-

ity nor age was a significant predictor. These covariates,

therefore, were eliminated from the subsequent analy-

sis. Socioeconomic status was not entered because of

lack of variability in this factor among students in the

sample.

Finally, we created a fully conditional model with

the pretest score as the covariate to estimate classroom-

and student-level effects simultaneously. At the class-

room level, treatment condition was our variable of

interest and was included as the predictor of between-

classroom variance (treatment=1; control=0). Fidelity

to treatment was added as an additional predictor; how-

ever, it was insignificant. All continuous measures were

z-scored to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation

of 1 so that all coefficients were comparable in size and

could be interpreted as effect sizes.

Given that previous studies have reported Matthew

effects in vocabulary interventions (Coyne et al., 2010;

Marulis & Neuman, 2010), we also sought to examine

the effects of students’ incoming vocabulary knowl-

edge. We wanted to determine whether the intervention

might influence the Matthew effect. To do this analysis,

we entered the Woodcock-Johnson Picture Vocabulary

Pretest score (group mean centered) in the level 1 equa-

tion for each author-developed outcome, for which we

had both pre- and posttests. Doing so allowed us to de-

termine the relationship between incoming expressive

language and learning outcomes for the sample. We

then modeled this slope by including the treatment con-

dition at level 2, creating a cross-level interaction. This

analysis allowed us to determine if the relationship be-

tween incoming vocabulary and our outcomes differed

across the two groups.

Since students were dispersed in different Head

Start classrooms for our f inal analysis six months lat-

er, we used the ANCOVA. In this analysis, students’

expressive language score on the Woodcock-Johnson

Picture Vocabulary Posttest served as the covariate,

with group (treatment or control) as the independent

variable and individual posttest scores as dependent

variables.

Impact on Word Knowledge

Observed pre- and posttest means and standard devia-

tions on curriculum-related word knowledge are report-

ed in Tables 4 and 5 for the treatment and control groups.

Prior to the start of the study, we examined differences

Table 4. Comparisons of Pre- and Posttest Scores on Word Knowledge

Note. SD = standard deviation.

*p < .05. ***p < .001.

Unit (range)

Treatment group Control group

Raw score (SD) Percentage (SD) Raw Score (SD) Percentage (SD)

Unit 1

Pretest (5–39) 25.2 (7.2) 63 (18) 24.4 (6.8) 61 (17)

Posttest (4– 40)*** 30.8 (7.6) 77 (19) 27.6 (6.8) 69 (17)

Unit 2

Pretest (0–39) 31.2 (6.8) 78 (17) 31.2 (6.4) 78 (16)

Posttest (4– 40)*** 35.2 (6.0) 88 (15) 31.6 (6.8) 79 (17)

Unit 3

Pretest (1–39)* 29.2 (7.2) 73 (18) 27.2 (8.0) 68 (20)

Posttest (1–40)*** 32.4 (7.2) 81 (18) 28.0 (8.0) 70 (20)

Table 5. Comparisons of Pretest, Midyear, and Posttest Scores on the Woodcock-Johnson Picture Vocabulary Subtest

Assessment measure Range

Treatment group Control group

Standard score Standard deviation Standard score Standard deviation

Pretest 37–156 98.4 14.29 97.5 12.73

Midyear 35–148 98.8 14.69 96.4 16.05

Posttest 33–153 100.2 13.81 98.4 12.46

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

262

between g roups using a t-test. Although there were

modest differences at pretest between treatment and

control groups on word knowledge in Unit 1, these

differences were insignif icant: t(600)=1.49, p=.14.

Similarly, prior to instruction in Unit 2, there were no

significant differences between groups: t(1, 600)=0.01,

p=.93; however, there were pretest differences in Unit

3 favoring the treatment group: t(600)=2.53, p=.05.

Controlling for pretest, the HLM analyses revealed

that for Unit 1, there were signif icant differences be-

tween the Head Start treatment and control groups

(Cohen’s d=0.44; see summary Table 9 later in the ar-

ticle). There were also significant differences for Units

2 and 3. In these two units, however, we began to note

an important pattern. In each case, effect sizes for the

treatment group in Units 2 and 3 were more substantial

than in Unit 1 (Cohen’s d=0.56 and 0.86 for Units 2 and

3, respectively).

Despite these gains in word knowledge, however,

scores on the Woodcock-Johnson Picture Vocabulary

Subtest remained stable throughout the experiment

(see Table 5). At pretest, scores for treatment and con-

trol groups were statistically equivalent: t(600)=0.69,

p=.49. In midyear, there was still no substantial dif-

ference: t(600)=1.55, p=.12. Although students in the

treatment group gained slightly more than those in the

control at posttest, the HLM analysis (see summary

Table 9 later in the article) indicated no significant dif-

ference between groups.

Impact on Conceptual

and Categorical Development

Table 6 reports the pretest and posttest means and stan-

dard deviations from the analysis of students’ develop-

ing concepts. Prior to treatment in Unit 1, there were

once again small differences between the treatment and

control groups, although not significant: t(600)=1.14,

p=.24. However, before instruction in Unit 2, the dif-

ference in means between the groups was signif icant:

t(600)=1.95, p=.05. In Unit 3, there were no initial dif-

ferences between the Head Start treatment and control

groups: t(600)=0.85, p=.40.

Controlling for pretest, HLM results revealed

that for Unit 1, the Head Star t treatment group sig-

nificantly outperformed the control group (Cohen’s

d=0.63; see summary Table 9 later in the article). This

pattern continued throughout Units 2 and 3, with the

treatment group significantly exceeding the control

group (Cohen’s d = 0.53 and 0.41 for Units 2 and 3,

respectively).

Table 7 presents the results of comparisons be-

tween groups on students’ knowledge of categories

and properties within concepts. This assessment was

introduced in Units 2 and 3 and required students to

make inferences about these categories and properties

in new language contexts. Although there were mod-

est differences between the Head Start treatment and

control groups prior to instruction in Unit 2, these were

insignificant: t(600)=1.17, p=.24.

HLM analyses indicated that the treatment group

significantly outperformed the control group on prop-

erties and categories in Unit 2 (Cohen’s d=0.86; see

summary Table 9 later in the article). Similar to Unit

2, there were no significant differences between groups

prior to instruction in Unit 3: t(600)=0.85, p=.40. After

instruction in Unit 3, the treatment group again signifi-

cantly outperformed the control group on proper ties

and categories. The effect size was still educationally

meaningful for treatment students but lower than for

the previous unit (Cohen’s d=0.34).

Table 6. Comparisons of Pre- and Posttest Scores on Test of Conceptual Knowledge

Note. SD = standard deviation.

*p < .05. ***p < .001.

Unit (range)

Treatment group Control group

Raw score (SD) Percentage (SD) Raw score (SD) Percentage (SD)

Unit 1

Pretest (0–18) 16.00 (3.52) 50 (11) 15.68 (4.48) 49 (14)

Posttest (0–22)*** 18.88 (4.16) 59 (13) 16.64 (3.32) 52 (10)

Unit 2

Pretest (0–24)* 17.28 (3.52) 54 (11) 16.32 (4.16) 51 (13)

Posttest (0–25)*** 19.84 (5.44) 62 (17) 17.28 (4.16) 54 (13)

Unit 3

Pretest (0–24) 17.60 (4.48) 55 (14) 16.96 (4.48) 53 (14)

Posttest (0–26)*** 19.52 (5.44) 61 (17) 17.28 (5.44) 54 (17)

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 263

Given the research on the Matthew effect, that is,

the phenomenon in which those who are highest in

initial vocabulary skills are most likely to benefit from

vocabulary interventions (Stanovich, 1986; Walberg &

Tsai, 1983), we sought to further understand whether

there might be differential effects for students depend-

ing on their incoming vocabulary knowledge as mea-

sured by the standardized assessment measure. Tables

8 and 9 report the results from these analyses.

Results at level 1 indicated a Matthew effect (see

Table 8). On six of the eight word, conceptua l, and

categorical development outcomes, initial expressive

language signif icantly predicted student outcomes.

However, the effects, although statistically signif icant,

were small, ranging from 0.12 to 0.18. For every one-unit

increase in initial expressive language, students’ learn-

ing of words and concepts increased by an average of

0.13 standard deviation units. On two of the eight word,

conceptual, and categorical knowledge measures, there

were no significant effects.

The intervention, however, did not exacerbate the

Matthew effect (see Table 9). On six of the eight author-

developed outcomes, there were no significant differ-

ences in the relationship between incoming expressive

language and outcomes for treatment and control

groups. For two outcomes—knowledge of categories

and properties in Unit 2 and conceptual knowledge in

Unit 3—incoming expressive language was less predic-

tive for treatment students, indicating a reduction in the

Matthew effect as compared with the control group.

Ability to Make Inferences

and Generalizations

Our next analysis examined the potential impact of

treatment on students’ ability to make inductive in-

ferences about the meaning of novel words. Although

the tools category was taught in Unit 3, none of these

words included in this assessment were introduced in

the curriculum. Further, the initial step in the protocol

determined that these words were unknown to the stu-

dents. Consequently, the task required them to apply

their knowledge of categories and concepts to reason to

unfamiliar and novel objects. HLM analysis indicated

a significant difference between groups (see Table 9).

Results revealed that treatment students scored sig-

nif icantly higher than their control peers in using cat-

egories to identify the meaning of new words: 58% for

the treatment group compared with 50% for the control

group (Cohen’s d =0.46). In other words, categories

appeared to bootstrap the ability to induce the mean-

ing of novel words in a familiar concept. These results

Unit (range)

Treatment group Control group

Raw score (SD) Percentage (SD) Raw score (SD) Percentage (SD)

Unit 2

Overall

Pretest (0–24) 13.92 (5.28) 58 (22) 12.96 (5.04) 54 (21)

Posttest (0–24)*** 18.24 (5.28) 76 (22) 13.92 (5.76) 58 (20)

Properties

Pretest (0–12) 6.72 (2.88) 56 (24) 6.12 (2.88) 51 (24)

Posttest (0–12)*** 8.88 (2.88) 74 (24) 6.72 (2.88) 56 (24)

Category

Pretest (0–12) 7.80 (3.96) 65 (33) 7.44 (3.84) 62 (32)

Posttest (0–12)* 8.52 (3.72) 71 (31) 7.56 (3.84) 63 (32)

Table 7. Comparisons of Pre- and Posttest Scores on Categories and Properties Within Concepts

*p < .05. ***p < .001.

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

264

Table 8. Estimating the Effects of Incoming Expressive Language on Word, Conceptual, and Category and Property

Knowledge

Note. SD = standard deviation. WJ = Woodcock-Johnson.

aVariance components for random effects for the WJ Pretest outcome slope is reported in cases where there was statistically significant variability between

teachers in the slope when the slope was unconditional. If there was significant variability between teachers, we allowed the slope to vary randomly. In all

other cases, the variance components are not reported, because the slope did not significantly vary between teachers and was, thus, fixed and constrained.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Variable

Word knowledge Conceptual knowledge

Category and property

knowledge

βStandard error βStandard error βStandard error

Unit 1

Random effect (intercept) 0.00 0.06 −0.03 0.08

Fixed effect

Pretest 0.63*** 0.05 0.38*** 0.09

Initial WJ vocabulary 0.12* 0.05 0.12* 0.05

Variance components for random effectsa

Intercept

Between-teacher SD 0.26*** 0.35***

Between-teacher variance 0.07*** 0.12***

Chi-square 75.06*** 83.13***

Initial WJ outcome slope

Between-teacher SD 0.03 0.10

Between-teacher variance 0.00 0.01

Chi-square 16.82 33.73

Unit 2

Random effect −0.16* 0.08 0.05 0.08 −0.08 0.09

Fixed effect

Pretest 0.63*** 0.06 0.40*** 0.07 0.43*** 0.05

Initial WJ vocabulary 0.17*** 0.05 0.14* 0.05 0.18** 0.05

Variance components for random effectsa

Intercept

Between-teacher SD 0.31*** 0.32*** 0.41***

Between-teacher variance 0.10*** 0.10*** 0.17***

Chi-square 124.87*** 67.73*** 104.04***

Initial WJ outcome slope

Between-teacher SD 0.08* 0.07 0.09

Between-teacher variance 0.01* 0.01 0.01

Chi-square 38.54* 29.45 17.35

Unit 3

Random effect −0.24** 0.07 −0.03 0.07 −0.16* 0.07

Fixed effect

Pretest 0.70*** 0.06 0.26*** 0.04 0.39*** 0.05

Initial WJ vocabulary 0.01 0.04 0.14** 0.05 0.09 0.07

Variance components for random effectsa

Intercept

Between-teacher SD 0.24*** 0.25*** 0.21*

Between-teacher variance 0.06*** 0.06*** 0.04*

Chi-square 61.55 49.01*** 36.16*

Initial WJ outcome slope

Between-teacher SD 0.07 0.07 0.11

Between-teacher variance 0.01 0.01 0.01

Chi-square 26.06 12.69 27.01

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 265

Table 9. Estimating the Effects of the World of Words Instructional Program on Word, Conceptual, and Category

and Property Knowledge; Woodcock-Johnson (WJ) Picture Vocabulary; and Inferences and Generalizations

Note. SD = standard deviation. SE = standard error.

aVariance components for random effects for the WJ Pretest outcome slope is reported in cases where there was statistically significant variability between

teachers in the slope when the slope was unconditional. If there was significant variability between teachers, we allowed the slope to vary randomly. In all

other cases, the variance components are not reported, because the slope did not significantly vary between teachers and was, thus, fixed and constrained.

*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Variable

Word knowledge

Conceptual

knowledge

Category and property

knowledge

WJ picture

vocabulary

Inferences and

generalizations

βSE βSE βSE βSE βSE

Unit 1

Intercept

Base −0.15 0.08 −0.32** 0.11

Treatment 0.29* 0.11 0.57*** 0.12

WJ Pretest outcome slope

Base 0.12* 0.05 0.04 0.10

Treatment 0.01 0.07 0.17 0.10

Variance components for random effectsa

Intercept

Between-teacher

0.22*** 0.21**

Between-teacher

variance

0.05** 0.04*

Chi-square 55.42 40.37

Unit 2

Intercept

Base −0.43*** 0.07 −0.22* 0.11 −0.46*** 0.10

Treatment 0.50*** 0.09 0.53*** 0.11 0.72*** 0.12

WJ Pretest outcome slope

Base 0.20** 0.07 0.10 0.09 0.30*** 0.05

Treatment −0.08 0.08 0.08 0.10 −0.19* 0.08

Variance components for random effectsa

Intercept

Between-teacher

0.18*** 0.19* 0.19*

Between-teacher

variance

0.03*** 0.03* 0.04*

Chi-square 52.78 34.26 37.59

WJ Pretest outcome slope

Between-teacher

0.09*

Between-teacher

variance

0.01*

Chi-square 37.80

Unit 3

Intercept

Base −0.48*** 0.06 −0.26** 0.08 −0.38*** 0.05 −0.09 0.11 −0.21 0.04

Treatment 0.43*** 0.09 0.42*** 0.11 0.41*** 0.10 0.07 0.17 0.40*** 0.10

WJ Pretest outcome slope

Base 0.10* 0.05 0.29*** 0.05 0.17 0.10 0.54*** 0.05 0.10* 0.04

Treatment −0.13 0.07 −0.22*** 0.07 −0.18 0.12 0.26** 0.08 −0.16 0.08

Variance components for random effects

Intercept

Between-teacher

0.10 0.15 0.05 0.40*** 0.19** 0.08

Between-teacher

variance

0.01 0.02 0.00 0.16*** 0.03 0.05

Chi-square 27.64 29.85 20.85 232.72 14.25

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

266

provided evidence that students were able to use their

newly learned category information to make category

generalizations and inductive inferences about novel

words.

Table 9 reports the summary of all of our HLM

analyses. The intraclass correlations exceeded 10% in

all cases. After controlling for pretest differences at the

student level, treatment classrooms signif icantly out-

performed their counterparts in Head Start in scores on

all of our author-created outcome measures. However,

there was no significant difference between groups in

scores on the Woodcock-Johnson Picture Vocabulary

Subtest. Together, these results provide evidence for the

effects of the intervention on students’ word knowledge,

category and concept development, and the ability to

make inferences and generalizations beyond what was

specifically taught. Developing word knowledge within

taxonomies appeared to enable treatment students to

create an interconnected knowledge of concepts. These

skills are considered essential for later reasoning and

comprehension development (Stahl & Nagy, 2006).

Sustainability Beyond the Immediate

Treatment Period

To determine whether the treatment might have advan-

taged students beyond the intervention period, we ex-

amined their word knowledge, concepts, and categories

six months later. Students in Head Start were eligible

for a second year only if they had entered the program

at age 3; therefore, our sample of students in Head Start

represented only an age-related analysis (ages 4.0–4.6

only). There was no supplemental treatment provided

in this year. Table 10 describes the means and standard

deviations of those students who remained in Head

Start.

Since students had dispersed to different class-

rooms, we co nducte d an ANC OVA usin g the

Woodcock-Johnson Picture Vocabulary Test (Form

A) as the covariate to examine the retention of words,

concepts, and categories after treatment. Results of

this analysis indicated that the treatment group was

significantly different from the control group on word

knowledge: F(1, 120)=16.49, p<.001. Knowledge of

categories and properties was significantly different as

well: F(1, 120)=6.17, p=.02. In both cases, the results

favored the treatment group. However, there were no

significant differences between treatment and control

on conceptual development: F(1, 120)=1.00, p=.75. In

summary, students in the treatment group appeared to

retain their advantage in word knowledge and identi-

fying categories and properties but did not retain their

advantage in conceptual development.

Discussion

The primary goal of the present study was to examine

the hypothesis that helping preschoolers learn words

through categorization and embedded multimedia

might enhance their ability to retain these words and

their conceptual proper ties, acting as a bootstrap for

self-learning. We examined this hypothesis by investi-

gating the effects of the WOW instructional program,

a supplemental intervention for students in preschool

designed to teach word knowledge and conceptual

development th rough categorization and embedded

multimedia. We subjected our hypothesis to a rigorous

experimental trial, focusing not only on students’ tra-

jectory of growth but also on their ability to go beyond

what was specifically taught, giving us some initial evi-

dence of transfer.

Our focus was to promote oral language develop-

ment and thinking in categories as a basic mental pro-

cess known to support problem solving and reasoning

(Gelman, 2003). Although students have been shown to

use a variety of different types of category relationships

to organize information, our focus was on taxonomic

categorization. For these categories, items are grouped

based on shared properties and are hierarchical, with

principles of class inclusion that apply to lower and

higher level categories (Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson,

& Boyes-Braem, 1976). As a result, they have strong

generative proper ties, ideal for cog nitive tasks like

Assessment

Treatment group (N = 69) Control group (N = 63)

Raw score (SD) Percentage (SD) Raw score (SD) Percentage (SD)

Word knowledge*** 28.40 (6.40) 71 (16) 25.60 (6.00) 64 (15)

Categories and properties* 14.64 (4.32) 61 (18) 13.44 (3.84) 56 (16)

Concepts 17.92 (4.48) 56 (14) 17.60 (4.48) 55 (14)

Table 10. Delayed Posttest by Outcomes Six Months Later

Note. SD = standard deviation.

*p < .05. ***p < .001.

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 267

novel word learning and inductive reasoning. Studies

by Brown and her colleagues (Brown et al., 1993; Smiley

& Brown, 1979) have shown a shift in categorization be-

havior from thematic to taxonomic sor ting as a result

of instruction. Therefore, we hypothesized that teach-

ing words in richly structured categories might not only

improve word knowledge but also help students draw

inferences beyond what was specifically taught.

The results of our study, replicated in each unit of

instruction, suppor ted our contention. Students who

received the intervention not only learned curriculum-

related vocabulary associated with each topic but were

also better able to identify concepts and their conceptu-

al properties and categories. In each unit of instruction,

there were statistically significant differences and edu-

cationally meaningful gains reported between the treat-

ment and control groups. Further, although incoming

expressive language was significantly predictive of out-

comes on six of the eight author-created measures, its

impact was relatively modest in comparison with other

vocabulary intervention studies (Coyne et al., 2010) and

was not exacerbated by the intervention; in fact, for two

outcomes—knowledge of categories and properties in

Unit 2 and conceptual knowledge in Unit 3—incoming

expressive language was less predictive for treatment

students.

It was unsurprising that treatment students per-

formed better on curriculum-related words than those

in the control group. One might presume that students

learn what is taught. Given the emphasis on these par-

ticula r words in the curriculum compared with the

more general literacy activities for the control group,

one would assume that the treatment students certainly

had an advantage on these word knowledge assess-

ments. However, this was not the case with the other

assessments, which were less susceptible to direct appli-

cation. Concept, category, and property assessments all

required students to apply knowledge in new contexts.

In this case, the pattern was very clear and consistent:

Students in the treatment group improved significantly

in their ability to categorize and conceptualize as com-

pared with their control g roup counterparts. These

results demonstrate the potential of instruction for im-

proving conceptual development among preschoolers.

Our work emphasized the relationship between

words, categories, and concepts. Building on the work

of Anderson and Freebody (1981), our study supports

the knowledge hypothesis, which is the understanding

that vocabulary terms may be surface representations

of underlying concepts. Bos and Anders (1990), for ex-

ample, conducted a study comparing the effectiveness

of three interactive vocabulary strategies—semantic

mapping, semantic feature analysis, and semantic-

syntactic feature analysis derived from the knowledge

hypothesis—with definition instruction based on the

access and instrumental hypothesis. The researchers

found that greater gains in comprehension, both short

and long term, were associated with interactive strate-

gies desig ned to emphasize conceptual understand-

ings, lending support to the knowledge hypothesis and

interactive learning. Bos and Anders’s research further

emphasized the importance of providing rich opportu-

nities for students to learn the underlying concepts and

their relation to one another.

If further research bears out our findings, this in-

structional design feature may have potential for struc-

turing knowledge in such a way that could potentially

accelerate vocabulary development while simultane-

ously building a rich network of knowledge that under-

lies reading comprehension and reasoning. As Stahl

and Nagy (2006) have argued, it might not be the size of

one’s vocabulary per se that ultimately determines how

well a person can understand what he or she reads, but

rather the rich network of knowledge and concepts that

these words represent. Consequently, by encouraging

students to think in categories early on, teachers may be

developing students’ ability to comprehend, reason, and

think on their own.

Further, categorization, which is an integral part of

conceptual knowledge (Medin et al., 2000), may allow

students to organize their knowledge and more effi-

ciently process incoming information. Students in our

study were able to use the inductive potential of catego-

ries to develop inferences about the meaning of novel

words, as shown by the results of the inductive reason-

ing measure. Once students were given the category,

they could use its proper ties to illuminate some basic

understanding of a word not previously encountered.

Knowing that a bulldozer is a building tool, for exam-

ple, treatment students could hypothesize that it was a

powerful machine that you could use to move things.

Students who had received the intervention were sig-

nif icantly more successful than their control counter-

parts, providing some initial evidence of bootstrapping.

Students used what they had learned about categories to

induce knowledge of new words.

These findings substantiate the results of a previous

design study with 322 Head Start students (Neuman &

Dwyer, in press), focusing on the inductive potential of

using categories to develop the meaning of new words.

In this design experiment, we used a Picky Peter task

that engaged students in sorting words not specifically

taught in the curriculum into categories. For example,

shown a picture card of an insect—in this case, a spider,

a word that had not been taught—a student was asked,

“How do you know that it is not an insect?” and asked to

provide a justif ication, such as “because it doesn’t have

six legs.” Results indicated significant quantitative dif-

ferences and substantial qualitative differences between

students in the treatment and comparison groups.

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

268

Despite students’ gains in word and conceptual

knowledge, our study did not show signif icant im-

provements in expressive language as measured by the

Woodcock-Johnson Picture Vocabulary Test. In fact,

students’ scores remained rather stable throughout the

year. These results need further exploration. One ex-

planation could be that the measure was insufficiently

sensitive to vocabulary growth for young students. That

said, however, our selection of this particular standard-

ized assessment was based on its norming sample (e.g.,

its greater sensitivity to diversity, native language status,

and age range), relative to other standardized vocabu-

lar y measures (e.g., the Peabody Picture Vocabulary

Test). It could also be that vocabulary interventions

do not necessarily transfer to global vocabulary gains.

Recent evidence from a meta-analysis by Elleman and

her colleagues (2009), for example, found only a 0.13

effect size for standardized measures. The National

Reading Panel (National Institute for Child Health and

Human Development, 2000) also predicted a lower esti-

mate of effect sizes when using standardized tests, lead-

ing researchers (e.g., Coyne, McCoach, & Knapp, 2007;

Sénéchal, Ouellette, & Rodney, 2006) to increasingly

rely on author-created measures to detect fine-grained

and more comprehensive vocabulary growth.

Yet, the lack of improvement in expressive language

might also reflect a limitation of the intervention itself

and the context in which it was presented. It could be

that students needed a greater dosage of instruction with

opportunities to practice words and concepts through-

out the day. Our intervention, after all, involved only a

modest amount of time each day. Another potential ex-

planation might relate to group configuration. Our in-

tervention was provided in a whole-group setting. As a

whole-group activity, teacher interactions may be more

global and less responsive to individual students than in

a small-group context. Our research team is currently

conducting an experiment to examine the relationship

between context and students’ interactions.

In addition to the work on conceptual develop-

ment, our research might also add to the growing lit-

erature on the selection of words to teach in the early

years. As noted by Beck and McKeown (2007), the

typical approach in vocabulary interventions for early

learners has been to select words that are likely to be

unfamiliar to students and that may be important to a

story or text, or simply to choose words judged as likely

unfamiliar. Recently, researchers have proposed more

specific considerations. For example, Biemiller (2006)

has advocated focusing on words that are partially fa-

miliar, those which 40–70% of a particular age group of

students might know, because this is the area in which

students might make the greatest gains. In contrast,

Beck and her colleagues (Beck et al., 2002) have argued

for sophisticated words—Tier 2 words of high utility for

mature language users that are characteristic of written

language.

Our approach in this study represented yet a third

approach: emphasizing the semantic relatedness of

words and their contribution to the category and con-

ceptual framework within the topic of study. Although

we cannot determine definitively whether this approach

contributed to students’ outcomes, the results of our

delayed posttest suggested that young students both

retained words and appeared to relate them to their cat-

egorical properties some six months later. In addition,

recent evidence from two follow-up laboratory studies

have found that semantic relatedness of words within

known taxonomies influenced 3- and 4-year-old chil-

dren’s rate of learning (Kaefer, 2009).

Our study had a number of strengths. As a cluster-

randomized experiment, schools throughout a county-

wide program were randomly assigned to treatment.

Classroom resources and the staffing structure were

similar among all classrooms. Because of the structure

of the countywide program, both the timing and fre-

quency of professional development and support were

similar across sites and groups. In addition, the treat-

ment and control groups received roughly a similar

dosage of language and literacy instruction. All class-

rooms were supervised by a strong management team.

Ongoing progress monitoring headed by a local site ed-

ucational director ensured that all classrooms focused

on areas of early literacy development, health, science,

and math instruction as indicated in the Head Start ear-

ly outcome standards. Our fidelity measure indicated

that the teachers used similar practices across the dif-

ferent schools and classrooms and that they could ef-

fectively deliver the vocabulary intervention.

Our study also had significant limitations. Although

the study was conducted in an economically distressed

urban area, the program was well funded with an ex-

ceptiona lly well managed supervisory team, who

ensured that teachers understood how to align their ex-

isting curricula and supplementary programs with pre-

kindergarten guidelines and standards consistent with

these goals. We cannot make a case that these results,

therefore, could be generalized to other early childhood

contexts or conditions. However, there is no reason to

believe that its advantages would only be limited to par-

ticular types of programs (e.g., Head Start).

Second, our study would have benef ited from an

analysis of the active ingredients of the curriculum.

The instructional design of WOW was based on sev-

eral key principles: intentional word selection related

to content-rich topics, words semantically clustered

to support conceptual development, and the uses of

embedded multimedia as a mechanism to instanti-

ate words through dual coding of images as well as

words. At this point, it is impossible to disentangle

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers’ Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development 269

these instructional design features to determine which

of them might be the strongest determinant of the ef-

fects. Future studies are needed to examine each of the

instructional components in greater detail. It would also

be useful to gather qualitative evidence of teachers’ en-

actments of the intervention and how it might extend to

other areas of the preschool curriculum. We intend to

examine these issues in our future work.

Third, our work would have benefited from a more

comprehensive set of standardized measures to comple-

ment our focus on conceptual development. However,

these measures lacked content validity in relation to our

instructional goals; further, we found very limited op-

tions for students at these age ranges. However, we rec-

ognize that it is important to explore the relationship of

words and concepts with more conventional standard-

ized measures in the future.

Finally, it would have been idea l to follow those

students who went on to kindergarten in addition to

those who remained in Head Start. Our initial analysis

indicated that these kindergarten students went on to

65 different classrooms in many different private, char-

ter, and public schools. Consequently, although ideal, it

was unfeasible to conduct a longitudinal follow-up. As a

result, evidence is lacking on the sustainability of word

and conceptual knowledge for these kindergartners.

With these limitations in mind, this study provides

substantial evidence for the improvement of content-

rich vocabulary and conceptual development among

pre-K students. Preschoolers learned these words within

taxonomic categories and their conceptual properties,

which appeared to act as a bootstrap for self-learning

and inference generation.

Notes

All clips have been specially selected from the archives of Sesame

Street and Elmo’s Wo rld; clip length var ies from 40 seconds to 1.5

minutes.

2Head Start is typically a one-year program.

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Submitted December 15, 2009

Final revision received February 2, 2011

Accepted February 16, 2011

Susan B. Neuman is a professor in educational studies

at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA; e-mail

sbneuman@umich.edu.

Ellen H. Newman is a lecturer at the IE University, Segovia,

Spain; e-mail eehamilt@gmail.com.

Julie Dwyer is an assistant professor in early childhood,

Boston University, Massachusetts, USA; e-mail dwyerj@

bu.edu.

Reading Research Quarterly • 46(3)

272

Appendix

Intercorrelations Among Assessments

in Units 1–3

**p < .01.

Assessment 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Unit 1

1. Word knowledge —

2. Conceptual development 0.40** —

3. Woodcock-Johnson Picture

Vocabulary Pretest

0.44** 0.28** —

Unit 2

4. Word knowledge —

5. Conceptual development 0.55** —

6. Categories and properties 0.54** 0.45** —

7. Woodcock-Johnson Picture

Vocabulary Test–Interim

0.55** 0.36** 0.42** —

Unit 3

8. Word knowledge —

9. Conceptual development 0.65** —

10. Categories and properties 0.41** 0.24** —

11. Woodcock-Johnson Picture

Vocabulary Posttest

0.41** 0.21** 0.18** —

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Mar 2021

Zoi T. Apostolou

The subject of this PhD thesis is "Knowledge, perceptions and practices of kindergarten and first grade primary school teachers for the relationship between emergent/first and conventional/school literacy". The purpose of this research study is the investigation of the relationship between emergent/first and conventional/school literacy in the area where they first appear, that is, in kindergarten and the first grade of primary school. In particular, the language curricula of kindergarten and first grade of primary school are studied, and the perceptions of kindergarten and first grade teachers are explored on the issue of the existence of a connection between the two levels, kindergarten and primary school, in terms of enhancing literacy and their practices. In this PhD thesis we were concerned with the answer to the following research questions: a) are kindergarten teachers familiar with the basic principles and methodology proposed in the Cross Thematic Curriculum Framework for Kindergarten (DEPPS) and the Kindergarten Teacher's Guide regarding literacy and what are their perceptions of them? b) Are the teachers of the first grade of primary school aware of the basic principles and the methodology delineated in the Cross Thematic Curriculum Framework for Compulsory Education (DEPPS) and in the Teacher's Book, in terms of language and what are their perceptions of them? c) Are the kindergarten teachers aware of the language teaching program in the primary school and accordingly, do the primary school teachers know the literacy practices that take place in the kindergarten? What perceptions do they have about them? d) What are the perceptions of kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers about the possible integration of the curricula of kindergarten and of the first grade of primary school, regarding the language module? e) What are the practices adopted by kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers in their literacy classes (which literacy pedagogy do they seem to support)? f) To what extent are kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers influenced by parents' expectations and concerns regarding their children's literacy and what practices do they adopt to cooperate with them? g) What are the perceptions and practices of the kindergarten teachers and the first grade teachers of the primary school for the cooperation between them, regarding the teaching of language? The research data were collected: a) by providing a questionnaire to a final sample of 326 kindergarten teachers and 306 teachers who teach the year of the process in the first grade of primary schools in the prefectures of Achaia and Ilia (Region of Western Greece), and b) by conducting semi-structured interviews with 32 kindergarten teachers and primary school teachers chosen among those who completed the questionnaire. Our research findings revealed partial knowledge of the curricula by kindergarten teachers and school teachers, an ignorance of the principles and methodology of the level that follows or precedes their own, respectively, a "confusion" of their perceptions and teaching practices, divergence between theoretical principles and teaching practices at every level, discontinuity of the literacy enhancement program from kindergarten to primary school, lack of effective cooperation between them, lack of substantial interest from parents regarding literacy, hesitation and critical disposition of teachers concerning the possible unification of the two curricula. The educators who participated in the research proposed joint training of kindergarten teachers and first grade teachers by establishing a framework for effective cooperation between them and planning joint actions, cooperation with parents to ensure the continuation of the literacy program from home to kindergarten and from kindergarten to primary school, as well as partial integration of the curricula of kindergarten and of the first grades of primary school, only in terms of some axes and goals. The work concludes with the use of the findings from which arises the proposal to create the above framework to function as a bridge between the kindergarten and the first grade of primary school with obvious positive results for young students, teachers and the school community at large.

Impact, Intervention and Equity

Chapter

Jul 2022

McKean Cristina

The majority of children acquire language effortlessly but approximately 10% of all children find it difficult especially in the early or preschool years with consequences for many aspects of their subsequent development and experience: literacy, social skills, educational qualifications, mental health and employment. With contributions from an international team of researchers, this book is the first to draw together a series of new analyses of data related to children's language development, primarily from large-scale nationally representative population studies, and to bring a public health perspective to the field. The book begins with a section on factors influencing the patterns of language development. A second section explores continuity and change in language development over time. The third explores the impact on individuals with developmental language disorders (DLD), the effectiveness of available interventions, and broader issues about the need for equity in the delivery of services to those with DLD.

Educational Interventions Targeting Language Development

Chapter

Jul 2022

Children’s science vocabulary uniquely predicts individual differences in science knowledge

Article

Sep 2022
J EXP CHILD PSYCHOL

Science achievement gaps are a persistent social issue and are largely explained by individual differences in science knowledge before formal schooling. We were interested in whether children’s science vocabulary relates to these differences in science knowledge. This experiment examined whether children’s science vocabulary predicted their science knowledge above and beyond general vocabulary size and demographic variables. Children aged 3 to 11 years (N = 91; 59 boys) participated in-person at a laboratory within a large university in a mid-size city in the midwestern United States. The tasks that the children completed assessed general receptive vocabulary, science productive vocabulary, general science knowledge, and conceptions of science as a practice. We found that science vocabulary was the strongest predictor of science knowledge above and beyond other factors, indicating that science vocabulary production may predict individual differences in science knowledge specifically when achievement gaps emerge (β = .28). In addition, children who produced more of certain types of science words, such as size and physical property words, depicted more science equipment and language elements in their drawings of scientists. These findings suggest that learning new words may be related to conceptual development in science and that examining early science vocabulary is a key step toward fully understanding science knowledge gaps.

A Longitudinal Randomized Trial of a Sustained Content Literacy Intervention From First to Second Grade: Transfer Effects on Students’ Reading Comprehension

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022

We developed a sustained content literacy intervention that emphasized building domain and topic knowledge from Grade 1 to Grade 2 and evaluated transfer effects on students’ reading comprehension outcomes. The Model of Reading Engagement (MORE) intervention emphasizes thematic lessons that provide an intellectual framework for helping students connect new learning to a general schema (i.e., how scientists study past events). A total of 30 elementary schools (N = 2,952 students; N = 144 teachers) were randomly assigned to a treatment or control group. Over 12 months, the treatment group students participated in (a) spring Grade 1 thematic content literacy lessons in science and social studies followed by wide reading of thematically related informational texts during summer, and (b) fall to spring Grade 2 thematic content literacy lessons in science. After implementation of Grade 1 thematic content literacy lessons and summer support for reading, treatment group students experienced smaller summer losses on a domain-general measure of reading than control group students. Following the sustained implementation of thematic content literacy lessons in science through Grade 2, treatment group students also outperformed their control group peers on a science content reading comprehension outcome (ES = .18). Furthermore, we found transfer effects on science content reading comprehension that varied by passage-item type (near-, mid-, and far-transfer passages determined by the inclusion and number of directly taught words in passages). A sustained content literacy intervention that aligns content and instruction across grades can help students transfer knowledge to novel reading comprehension tasks.

Vocabulary development and instruction: A prerequisite for school learning

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2006

Andrew Biemiller

Teaching Word Meanings

Book

Jul 2007

Knowledge acquisition in foundational domains

Article

Jan 1997

Connecting early language and literacy to later reading (dis)abilities: Evidence, theory, and practice

Article

Jan 2009

The misunderstood giant: On the predictive role of early vocabulary to future reading

Article

Jan 2006

Young Children Learning

Article

Feb 2008

This fascinating account of an unusual research project challenges many assumptions about how young children learn and how best to teach them. In particular it turns upside-down the commonly held belief that professionals know better than parents how to educate and bring up children; and it throws doubt on the theory that working-class children underachieve at school because of a language deficit at home. The second edition of this bestselling text includes a new introduction by Judy Dunn. Fascinating account of an unusual research project challenges many assumptions about how young children. Turns upside-down the commonly held belief that professionals know better than parents how to educate and bring up children. Throws doubt on the theory that working-class children underachieve at school because of a language deficit at home. The authors' evidence is the children's own conversations which are quoted extensively and are delightful. The second edition of this bestselling text includes an introduction by Judy Dunn.

Vocabulary knowledge

Article

Jan 1985

Implications of new vocabulary assessments for minority children

Article

Jan 2007

The early catastrophe: The 30 million word gap by age 3

Article

Jan 2003

Statistical Methods for Meta-Analysis

Article

Jun 1986

Educational Effects of a Vocabulary Intervention on Preschoolers' Word Knowledge and Conceptual Development: A Cluster-Randomized Trial

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