Connective Frequency Bands informed by textbook frequencies and midadolescents’ knowledge of connectives: a tool to support Spanish literacy instruction across content areas

Abstract

This study focuses on connectives, linguistic devices that signal relations between ideas. Connective knowledge varies widely across grades and is known to support reading comprehension and school writing. Despite the important role that connective knowledge plays in reading and writing, few resources exist to support teachers in understanding which connectives to prioritize in Spanish literacy instruction. In this study we combined a secondary analysis of midadolescents’ connective assessment data (810 students in grades 4–8) with a corpus linguistics frequency analysis of connectives in Chilean national science and social studies textbooks (1,079,593 total words), with the goal of generating a pedagogically relevant tool to support the instruction of connectives in Spanish literacy across content areas. To generate the Connective Frequency Bands Tool, we first examined the role of grade and connective type in midadolescents’ connective knowledge. Secondly, we examined associations between students’ knowledge and textual frequencies across content areas for each connective included in the assessment. Finally, informed by midadolescents’ connective knowledge and by the corpus linguistics analysis of science and social studies textbooks from grades 1–8, we generated the Connective Frequency Bands Tool listing connectives frequencies by grade, connective type, and content area.