Understanding Depth of Vocabulary Online With Bilingual and Monolingual Children

Abstract

The sheer quantity of words known (breadth) is strongly predictive of reading comprehension, yet little is understood about how quality of word knowledge (depth) affects comprehension. A group of 35 bilingual and monolingual 5th-grade students worked on developing depth of knowledge of 8 words, culminating in an activity in which the students produced captions for images related to each word. The captions were scored using a 4-point depth scale, and similarities and differences between bilingual and monolingual students were assessed. Results indicated a significant effect of depth of word knowledge in predicting reading comprehension, particularly for students with average to strong oral language skills.

The research reported here was funded by Grant R305G050029 from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education to CAST, Inc. The opinions expressed are our own and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education. We would like to thank our research team and the administrators, teachers, and, especially, the children who have contributed to this work.

Notes

¹Bauer and Nation (1993) defined a word family as including a base word, its inflections, and some regular derived forms.

Note. Semantic depth was coded using a 4-point scale, with a maximum score of 4. Significant differences between bilingual and monolingual groups are indicated in bold. MCAS–ELA = Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System—English Language Arts.

Note. Semantic depth is the overall average score on the Caption It assessment. MCAS–ELA = Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System—English Language Arts.

∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001.

Note. Expressive vocabulary, oral comprehension, and passage comprehension were measured using the corresponding standardized subtests from the Woodcock–Muñoz Language Survey–Revised. MCAS–ELA = Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System—English Language Arts.

†p < .10. ∗p < .05. ∗∗p < .01. ∗∗∗p < .001.