The Impact of Vocabulary Instruction on Passage-Level Comprehension of School-Age Children: A Meta-Analysis

Improving the General Language Skills of Second-Language Learners in Kindergarten: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…This finding is consistent with the findings of Roberts and Neal (2004) and Collins (2010) and supports the idea that rich explanations of words through storybook reading are an efficient and age-appropriate tool with which to teach younger second-language learners the meanings of target words. These results are also in line with those of many other studies of language interventions on first language learners-namely, that near-transfer effects can be obtained on criterion measures similar to the tasks that are trained (Elleman et al, 2009, Marulis & Neuman, 2010. Although these results are not very surprising, they are promising in that they show that vocabulary instruction of words to prepare second-language learners for the language encountered in textbooks is effective.…”

“…Rather, the words are embedded in the program using book sessions and are presented in a natural setting. The focus on presenting the word in context rather than rehearsal definitions is likely to explain why the present study found somewhat smaller effects on the trained words than what has been found in other studies (see Elleman et al, 2009).…”

“…Usually, these studies include custom tests designed to measure the effect of something explicitly addressed in an intervention as well as standardized tests designed to examine whether the effects generalize to distal measures of an intervention. The majority of these studies have found storybook reading and/or direct vocabulary instruction to be effective in increasing general language skills based on custom measures but less effective based on standardized measures (Elleman et al, 2009;Marulis & Neuman, 2010). Nevertheless, recent studies that involve a broad approach to language instruction for young first-language learners have shown promising results by producing effects that generalize to standardized language outcomes (Bowyer-Crane et al, 2008;Fricke, Bowyer-Crane, Haley, Hulme, & Snowling, 2013).…”

“…When skills generalize in this way, it is often referred to as "near transfer." However, in an intervention program, a child is typically presented with 3-6 novel words per week (Elleman et al, 2009). This presentation rate is hardly enough to close the gap with children who have superior general language skills or the gap that exists between first-and second-language learners because the comparison children also continuously develop their language skills.…”

“…We know from a number of studies that children can easily be taught the meaning of novel words with which they are presented in an intervention (see Elleman, Lindo, Morphy, & Compton, 2009). When skills generalize in this way, it is often referred to as "near transfer."…”