CAL: Projects: Vocabulary Instruction and Assessment for Spanish Speakers (VIAS): VIAS Components

Projects

Vocabulary Instruction and Assessment for Spanish Speakers (VIAS)

Components

The VIAS program of research is comprised of four research subprojects, an administrative core, and a research core.

Subproject 1: Predicting Spanish-Speaking Children’s Growth in Reading: PreK through 7th Grade

Principal Invesigator: Nonie Lesaux, Harvard University

This subproject will extend data collection through seventh grade on the same sample of Spanish-speaking children studied from prekindergarten through second grade in the Acquiring Literacy in English (ALE) Program Project. . The VIAS study will continue the examination of the English literacy development of children from Spanish-speaking families educated in the United States. The study investigates the influence of variables such as home literacy, language proficiency (Spanish and English), and language and quality of instruction on the trajectory of reading development over time.

Subproject 2: Early Childhood Intervention Study—Improving the Language and Literacy Skills of Spanish-English Bilingual Kindergartners

Principal Investigator: Mariela Páez, Boston College

This subproject builds on knowledge gained from the longitudinal study conducted as part of the Acquiring Literacy in English (ALE) Program Project and will assess the effects of home and classroom interventions on bilingual kindergarten students. The subproject assesses the effect of an intervention program focused on improving children’s oral language development, including vocabulary, narratives, and exposition. The study will use a quasi-experimental design to compare literacy outcomes for two versions of the intervention (home vs home plus classroom and a control group (regular classroom instruction).

Subproject 3: Developing English Vocabulary in Spanish-Speaking English-Language Learners

Principal Investigator: Diane August, Center for Applied Linguistics
Co-Investigator: David Francis, University of Houston

This subproject is comprised of a series of studies that investigate the vocabulary knowledge of young Spanish-speaking English-language learners (ELLs) and methods to develop robust vocabulary knowledge in this group of students. The first study will assess the types of words (e.g. degree of concreteness and conceptual complexity, and cognate status) known by third grade ELLs schooled in English since first grade, compared with types of words known by monolingual English speakers. The types of words that ELLs appear to struggle with will become the basis for a series of interventions that match word type to instructional method and provide reinforcement activities for words that appear to be most difficult to learn.

Subproject 4, Linked IES Research Project: Content-Based Vocabulary Instruction: Using Cognates to Promote the Vocabulary Development of Native Spanish Speakers

Principal Investigator: Igone Arteagoitia, Center for Applied Linguistics
Co-Investigator: Elizabeth Howard, University of Connecticut

The fourth research project in VIAS is funded through the U.S. Department of Education, Institute for Education Sciences. The research is focused on developing and testing the efficacy of two cognate-based interventions on the vocabulary development, morphological awareness, and reading comprehension of native Spanish speakers in the middle school grades. The investigators will conduct a quasi-experimental study with native Spanish speaking middle school students (grades 6 through 8). A 21-week cross-linguistic vocabulary intervention will be provided to one-third of the participating students, a monolingual vocabulary intervention will be provided to another third of the participating students, and the remaining students will serve as a control group and will receive no treatment. Both intervention curricula will focus on the same target words (affixed cognates). The cross-linguistic curriculum will make explicit connections to the Spanish equivalents of the target words and their constituent parts, while the monolingual English curriculum will not.

Core A: Administration

Principal Investigator: Diane August
Co-Investigators: Catherine Snow, Donna Christian, Annette Zehler

The Administrative Core will perform the following functions: administrative support for the components of the research program; facilitating meetings and other communications among program project members and the Scientific Advisory Committee; disseminating information about the research program; maintaining and updating a Web site about the program; and facilitating presentations by the program’s researchers at professional conferences. In addition, the Administrative Core will ensure quality control by providing leadership for theoretical and methodological concerns that run through the individual subprojects and the Research and Assessment Core; overseeing, together with the Research and Assessment Core, comparability of approach, method, and analysis across projects; maintaining files of consent forms and other research-related paperwork; and overseeing the budget and fiscal processes.

Core B: Research and Assessment

Principal Investigator: Dorry Kenyon, Center for Applied Linguistics
Co-Investigator: Carolyn Fidelman, Center for Applied Linguistics

The Research and Assessment Core will perform the following functions: (1) development of new assessments focusing on oral and reading vocabulary to be used across all subprojects; (2) collaborating with subprojects on intervention-specific assessments; (3) advising all subprojects on assessment, measurement, and methodological issues; (4) implementing standardized machine-scoreable procedures for collecting data across all subprojects; (5) processing data from all subprojects and storing data in a centralized data archive; and (6) conducting cross-project analyses across the different age groups in the program on the relationships between home language and literacy practices, program language and literacy practices, the development of oral and reading vocabulary, and reading comprehension. In addition, the Research and Assessment Core will be involved in the development of common data collection instruments to be used across the subprojects. The Research and Assessment Core will also provide guidance to the subprojects on analysis of the data collected using these instruments.

Learn more about the common research framework behind the VIAS subprojects and cores.

Acquiring Literacy in English was supported by Grant No. 5-P01-HD39530 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and from the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education. Vocabulary Improvement and Assessment of Spanish-speakers is supported by Grant No. 2 P01 HD39530-06 A2 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and from the Grant No. R305A070438 from the Institute of Education Sciences. However, the content of this Web site does not necessarily represent the positions or policies of these agencies, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

Return to the VIAS main project page.