Inductive Use of Semantic Word-Families to Accelerate Vocabulary Development and Reading Comprehension in Grades 3-4-5

Inductive Use of Semantic Word-Families to Accelerate Vocabulary Development and Reading Comprehension in Grades 3-4-5 Michael R. Vitale (vitalem@ecu.edu) College of Education, Greenville, NC 27858 USA Nancy R. Romance (romance@fau.edu) College of Education, Boca Raton, FL 33431 USA Abstract This study explored the acceleration of student vocabulary growth and reading comprehension proficiency through a multi-part instructional strategy for engendering the inductive, semantic word-family-oriented acquisition of vocabulary from context, a difficult task for elementary students. Implemented on a schoolwide basis for an academic year in grades 3-4-5, the intervention was a four- part enhancement to a traditional basal reading program that constructed and used semantic word families for designated vocabulary words within stories. Results from HLM statistical modeling using student minority status and free/reduced lunch as covariates showed that experimental students in grades 3-4-5 obtained significantly higher achievement on both ITBS Vocabulary and ITBS Reading Comprehension subtests. Implications for research and practice are discussed. Keywords: Inductive reasoning, Vocabulary acquisition, Reading comprehension A variety of research has pointed to the interdependent linkage among vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, and level of literacy (e.g., Baker et al., 1998; Becker, 1977; Biemiller & Slonim, 2001; Snow, 2002; Wager, 2005). Although substantial vocabulary growth can be attributed to student acquisition of word meaning from reading context (Baker, Simmons, & Kameenui, 1998), August, Dressler, and Snow (2005) noted that if the proportion of unknown words is too large, then text comprehension which serves as a context for vocabulary development is disrupted (see also Carver, Despite technical details in how words (e.g., counting word roots vs. root variants) and word understanding (e.g., recognition vs. in depth understanding) are defined in the literature (e.g., Anglin, 1993; Beck & McKeown, 1991), research findings agree that children acquire vocabulary at a rate that is too rapid for all the words to be taught directly (see Baker et al., 1998) or learned incidentally through reading (Landauer, 2002; Landauer, & Dumais, 1996, 1997; Landauer, Foltz, & Laham, 1998; Landauer, McNamara, Dennis, & Kintsch, 2007). With this point in mind, the present study addressed the question of whether student vocabulary acquisition could be accelerated by using a multi-part semantic word- family-oriented learning strategy to inductively broaden vocabulary taught directly. In incorporating criteria suggested by Baker et al. (1998) and Beck and McKeown (1991), the intent of the strategy was (a) to engender an inductive broadening of the vocabulary taught directly and, in doing so, to enhance reading comprehension, and (b) to be feasible for use by classroom teachers within regular classroom settings. Implemented as a practitioner-oriented model, the instructional intervention reflected several inter- disciplinary perspectives: (a) vocabulary research findings with both younger (e.g., Coyne, McCoach, & Kapp, 2005) and older (e.g., August et al., 2005; Baker et al., 1998; Blachowicz & Fisher, 2000; Johnson, Gersten, & Carnine, 1988) students, (b) cognitive science models (e.g., Kintsch, 1994, 1998a, 1998b, 2002, 2004, 2005; Landauer, 2002; Landauer, & Dumais, 1996, 1997; Landauer et al., 1998, 2007) that emphasize the central role of prior knowledge in comprehension and, (c) our prior research (Vitale & Romance, 2007) investigating the effect of knowledge-focused reading comprehension strategies on student learning. In the present study, different aspects of these perspectives provided a framework for engendering the semantically-oriented inductive learning of vocabulary. The design of the present study was a significant enhancement of earlier studies (Romance & Vitale, 2012; Vitale & Romance, 2008). First, in this study, the intervention was implemented over an school year in multiple schoolwide sites. Second, teachers were asked to commit to implement the model in eight selected stories in grade 3, 4, and 5. across the school year. And third, the criterion measures (ITBS Vocabulary and Reading Subtests) were administered on a pre-post basis. The specific research questions were:  Did the instructional intervention which incorporated words taught inferentially accelerate student the vocabulary development as measured by story-specific,