Effects of pre-service teachers’ receptive vocabulary knowledge on their interactive read-alouds with elementary school students

Abstract

There are individual differences in the amount and type of vocabulary that adults produce to young children in the home environment before the children enter school. How many words a mother knows is a significant predictor of a child's vocabulary. The current study addressed the question of whether there were individual differences in the amount and type of vocabulary that pre-service teachers produced in their first read-aloud lessons to first and second grade students. Specifically, would pre-service teachers with higher vocabulary scores differ from those with lower vocabulary scores in their choice of books to read and in the language they used to discuss the books? Results indicated that pre-service teachers with more advanced vocabulary scores chose books with more vocabulary diversity and sophistication. When they chose narrative texts, they also chose books that were more difficult in terms of their semantic cohesion. Both the receptive vocabulary of pre-service teachers and the language in the books that they chose had an effect on the ''teacher talk'' that they used in the lesson surrounding the book reading. Just as parents show individual differences in the richness of the language input provided to their children before they enter school, pre-service teachers own knowledge of language varies, and this influences the linguistic input that they provide to their students.

The Relation Between Exposure to Sophisticated and Complex Language and Early‐Adolescent English‐Only and Language Minority Learners’ Vocabulary

“…Instead, our findings suggest that teachers’ use of complex language may be something more intrinsic—more of a personal style of speaking. This conjecture is consistent with the findings of a recent study showing that elementary school teachers’ own vocabulary knowledge was related to their classroom language use (Corrigan, 2010). Specifically, Corrigan (2010) found that teachers who evidenced higher vocabulary performance on a receptive vocabulary measure tended to use more sophisticated and diverse language to address their first‐ and second‐grade students than teachers with lower vocabulary skills.…”

Early-adolescents’ reading comprehension and the stability of the middle school classroom-language environment.

“…In light of these findings of the stability of individual teacher's language use, together with those of recent studies showing that teachers' language use varies as a function of their own knowledge of language (Corrigan, 2011), it is important to consider, empirically, the ways in which the teacher's language use may be amenable to change. Indeed, there may be several possible strategies and tools to investigate as platforms for doing so; these include working with teachers on rephrasing and recasting features of their own language, and/or designing and implementing classroom-based reading comprehension programs and interventions aimed at increasing sophisticated language use in the classroom, by students and teachers.…”

Gender in children's literature and kindergartener's responses to gender in interactive read‐alouds

“…In addition, teachers play a critical role in creating an environment that fosters multiple learning opportunities during interactive read‐aloud sessions (Sipe, 2008), through encouraging active student participation and creating an environment that provides children with opportunities to express themselves and share their experiences (Lennox, 2013; Wiseman, 2011). However, while research on interactive read‐alouds has primarily focused on experienced teachers, few studies have explored preservice teachers and their use of interactive read‐alouds to discuss social issues such as equity and injustice (Corrigan, 2011; Pendergast et al., 2015). Hence, there is a need for further research to explore how preservice teachers use interactive read‐alouds to promote critical thinking and discussion of social issues, such as women's inequality, in early childhood education.…”