Testing the Efficacy of a Cognate Curriculum

CREATE 2009 10/5/09

Empirical and Theoretical Background:

 Considerable previous work (García, 1991; Nagy, TESTING THE EFFICACY OF 1997; National Reading Panel, 2000; Verhoeven, 1990) suggests that one major determinant of poor A COGNATE CURRICULUM reading comprehension, for Latino children and for other lagging readers, is low vocabulary.

 Lack of knowledge of the middle and lower Maria Carlo, University of Miami frequency 'academic' words encountered in Diane August, Center for Applied Linguistics middle and secondary school texts impedes comprehension of those texts, which in turn Chris Barr, University of Houston impedes the natural process of learning new Ana Pazos-Rego, St. Thomas University word meanings from exposure during reading (Stanovich, 1986). Austin, CREATE Conference, October 5-6, 2009

Continued… Research Questions

 One strategy believed to be successful in promoting the rapid acquisition of vocabulary by ELLs involves  Can an intervention developed to teach teaching children about the morphological structure of cognate awareness to Spanish/English words. bilingual 3rd and 5th graders improve their  Researchers believe that it is beneficial for ELLs if instruction on the structural analysis of words includes learning of English words that have cognate making students aware of the cross-linguistic status in Spanish? morphological relationships between words in their two languages (García & Nagy, 1993; Nagy, García,  Does the cognate recognition strategy transfer Durgunoglu, & Hancin-Bhatt,1993; Jiménez et al., 1996; to other cognates that have not been Nation 2001). instructed?  This involves making students aware of words that are cognates (words that are spelt alike and have similar meanings in two languages), and making them aware of similarities between derivational morphemes in the two languages (e.g, motivación-motivation).

Subjects Measures

 130 (122 completed program) 3rd grade Spanish-speaking English Spanish students Pre & Post-intervention Pre-intervention Only th  Cognate Awareness Test (48  128 (105 completed program) 5 grade Spanish-speaking  Extract the Base (28 items) students items)   Extract the Base (28 items) WLPB Picture-Word  All designated as English Language Learners Vocabulary  WLPB Passage Comprehension  Three public schools in Miami that offered Spanish  WLPB Letter-word ID maintenance for 45 minutes 3 times a week (2 schools Pre-intervention Only  WLPB Listening implemented at each grade level)  WLPB Letter-word ID  WLPB Picture-Word Vocabulary Comprehension  Majority within each school were Latino/a  WLPB Listening Comprehension  WLPB Passage  Schools had obtained grades of at least B Post-intervention Only Comprehension  SVT Cognate Comprehension (24 items)

Maria S. Carlo University of Miami 1 CREATE 2009 10/5/09

Instructed not instructed Instructed not instructed Cognate Intervention cognates cognates noncognates noncognates permanent pensive feasible allot

 3 units on Exploration: Antarctica, Coral Reefs, & Space conduct obligated sway strife accumulation adorn prey discard  General lesson on cognates and learning to recognize them on basis of phonology, orthography, and shared meaning. miniscule tranquil shallow pun  Target words consisted of cognates or noncognates consists impede source drought

 Units open with a theme-related video and biography of an potent detain environment jest explorer. isolated augment bound haul  Pre-teaching of target words using translation equivalents, expand edifice thrive gritty child-friendly definitions, and extension activities such as occupies terminus replenished brittle those suggested by Beck and colleagues. rituals profundity rough snug  Words then presented in informational texts with pallid feasibility comprehension questions inserted at critical points within castigate clutch the text. All reading conducted as group and orally by the teacher anterior leery

rd th Delivery of Treatment and Control Design 3 & 5 grade Study Curricula

rd th  Recruited all 3 and 5 grade Spanish speaking ELLs in  6 weeks (24 lessons) a school to participate in an after school program and provided free transportation to any family needing it.  Small groups of 8-10 students  Cognate intervention vs. FCAT Preparation course  Delivered by school teachers who (Preparing Students for the FCAT: Thematic, Standards- received 8 hours of training in 4 Based Instruction Grades 4-5 published by Carson Dellosa) sessions. (2 pre-treatment and 2  4 treatment & 4 control classrooms in each school. during treatment)  Stratified random assignment of students to conditions  One hour after-school 4 times a on the basis of WLPB measures in Spanish and English. week

Hypotheses: Summary of Findings

 Positive effect of cognate instruction  Obtained positive effect for treatment on . Treatment > Control on instructed cognates instructed cognates and noncognates . Treatment > Control on non-instructed cognates  No strong evidence of transfer of cognate . Treatment > Control on instructed non-cognates recognition strategy to uninstructed cognates . Treatment=Control on non-instructed non-cognates  Spanish Word Knowledge (SWK) predicts to  Effect of word type favoring cognates cognates only  Effect of English Word Knowledge (EWK) and Spanish Word Knowledge (SWK). EWK and SWK are composite of WLPB Letter-Word ID; Picture-Word ID; Extract the Base  Interaction of Rx with SWK & EWK . SWK should not predict to non-cognates Maria S. Carlo University of Miami 2