Newsmaker Spotlight

Vocabulary and Early Reading: A conversation with Dr. Dennis Ciancio

Dr. Dennis Ciancio is an assistant professor and a developmental psychologist in the Children’s Learning Institute. His research includes intervention evaluation, early literacy development, and children's cognitive and socio-emotional development. Currently, Dr. Ciancio is investigating early literacy intervention and assessment in preschool and primary-grade children and quantitative methodology.  Dr. Ciancio is a co-author of the Texas Primary Reading Inventory (TPRI), a classroom-based reading assessment for Kindergarten through Third Grades. The TPRI is used nationwide and by more than 95% of schools across Texas.  He is responsible for the continued development and support of this instrument.

In 2006, the Institute for Education Sciences awarded Dr. Ciancio a three year grant to develop and implement vocabulary curricula for use in kindergarten and first grades. The Building Vocabulary for Emerging Readers Curriculum is the product of this study. The curriculum development team is partnering with classroom teachers at schools in the Houston Independent School District where the curriculum is being implemented. Dr. Ciancio and his team are in the process of analyzing the accumulated data. In the meantime, other districts and classrooms have asked for the curriculum to augment their language and literacy programs.

Q. In your work in early reading, you stress the importance of developing a rich vocabulary. Why is this so important?

A. We have found in our work with early elementary school children that they often lack age appropriate vocabulary skills. The point of reading is to gain meaning from words. Research has shown that if a child knows around ninety percent of the words he encounters in a paragraph, he is likely to be able to understand the passage. When vocabulary and reading comprehension skills are limited it hinders children’s appreciation and enjoyment of reading. Children from a language-impoverished environment particularly benefit from systematic vocabulary instruction. Once they fall behind in their reading skills, it is very difficult for them ever to catch up.

Q. With the current emphasis on literacy, it would seem vocabulary would already be taught in schools. Is that not the case?

A. We find that while vocabulary is sometimes taught, the manner in which it is taught is unsystematic and typically ineffectual. High-quality vocabulary instruction does not generally occur. Teachers may attempt to teach it, but the tendency is for these efforts to be sporadic. We began our work on this curriculum in response to requests from teachers for a more focused and consistent means to help children learn appropriate vocabulary from a young age.

Q. Would you describe this curriculum for us?

A. “Building Vocabulary for Emerging Readers” is the name of the curriculum we developed. Hopefully, our connection to literacy is evident even in the title. We start with a set of quality children’s literature books for kindergarten and first grade.  Many of these books or authors already appear in classrooms and all of them are conducive to an interactive read-aloud. At the beginning of the week, teachers will read the story.  Then, throughout the week, we talk about specific words used in the book. We pull words and concepts and discuss their meaning from the context of the story and teach children to deepen their understanding of these words by using them in new contexts. We want our students to take “ownership” of their new language. We also incorporate a heavy writing component. Each child has a journal where we encourage daily usage. In a sense, we deconstruct the language from its original context and allow children the opportunity to learn new ways to use it.

Q. Tell us about how many words are included in the curriculum, and how you determine which words to teach.

A. Our curriculum features a systematic and empirical approach to vocabulary word selection. Research demonstrates that it is critical the right words are taught. Common sense tells us that if we’re going to invest any amount of time teaching vocabulary, the words we choose had better be worth it.  In our curricula, the words we selected had to fit two specific criteria. We selected words we would expect most 3rd and 4th grade students to know well. These are words that appear frequently in children’s literature – words these students will encounter and need to know as they become independent readers. We have targeted 450 of these kinds of words for both the kindergarten and first grade curricula. So, if a child completes two years of the BVER curriculum, he will know and understand 900 new words.

Q. The BVER was developed for a research study in classrooms here in Houston, but has been adopted by schools outside of HISD.  How did this expansion occur?

A. When we began this study, it was in response to a national appeal for a better understanding of reading and writing instruction, in our case through a vocabulary curriculum.  For our study, we have piloted and then implemented this curriculum in sixty classrooms in the Houston Independent School District. Over the last two years, more teachers have come to us asking for our help in their classrooms. This year, even though our study is officially “over” we know that many of our Houston classrooms are still using the curricula. Also, we have expanded locally into KIPP charter schools. Thanks to the generosity of Julius and Suzan Glickman, we have also expanded into eight Austin classrooms. Additionally, a school district in Knoxville, Tennessee is implementing it in twenty of their classrooms. This expansion has come about totally through word of mouth.

Q. What results have we found from this research study?

A. We are still analyzing data, but preliminary results are promising and definitively show a benefit to incorporating this curriculum into children’s school day.  Students in BVER classrooms performed significantly better than students in the control classrooms on measures of BVER words and on broader language measures such as the Expressive Vocabulary Test.   We are very excited by the results of these broader measures because students demonstrated improvement in language that extended beyond vocabulary directly covered in our instructional materials.  In addition to children’s performance, we saw stark differences between teachers in BVER classrooms and control classrooms in how they taught vocabulary and supported broad language use.  We provided classrooms in the control setting with practical guidance and professional development about what good vocabulary instruction entails, but we saw little evidence of these practices during our observations throughout the year.  Conversely, teachers in BVER classrooms not only closely followed the curriculum but extended the principles of supporting language during other instructional times.  We saw teachers encouraging students to use our words - BVER words - while lining up, during lunch, and on the playground.  Teachers in BVER classrooms were not only teaching about specific meanings of words, but fostering an atmosphere of interest in words and language.

Q. What future plans do you have for the curricula?

A. I’d say there are a few immediate “next steps” for our research with this approach to vocabulary instruction. One thing we must do is branch out to more and different settings.  Thanks to both the collaboration with the Tennessee schools and the Glickmans’ generosity, the implementation in Austin presents extraordinary opportunities for us to understand more about this approach to vocabulary instruction. We’re looking forward to continuing with our new partners and learning from them.  Another important step would be to apply our research findings to other populations of language impoverished children.  Our study was directed at providing English language enrichment for native-English speaking children who are in language impoverished settings (e.g., children who do not have great exposure to broad and varied language environments).   Children who are learning English as a second language (ESL) share many similar academic and language needs as the ones in our development study.  With some slight modifications, we think this would be a fantastic approach to vocabulary instruction for ESL children and are pursuing opportunities to find out.

Photos provided by Sabrina Sanchez.