Running head: VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 1

The Effects of Vocabulary Instruction on English Language Learners' Reading Comprehension

Manjot Kaur

June 19, 2022

Sacramento State University in fulfillment of the Master of Arts in Curriculum

and Instruction
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 2

Introduction

Research Focus:

A student’s vocabulary knowledge is a significant predictor of his or her overall reading

comprehension and academic success. However, when students enter school with limited vocabularies

they often struggle with successful reading comprehension. Providing students daily rich and

meaningful vocabulary instruction may be the missing link to promoting successful reading

comprehension, including in my third grade students. I notice that with my own 3rd grade students,

those with limited vocabularies also struggle with reading comprehension. The goal of this proposed

research study would be to closely examine the following questions: What happens to vocabulary and

reading comprehension of EL ( English Language Learners) students in the third-grade classroom

when implemented explicitly? What is the effect of daily explicit and implicit vocabulary instruction

on third grade student’s reading comprehension?

The research was in a public school located within California’s central valley, specifically in a

third-grade classroom. The district has fourteen elementary schools, each housing between 600-700

students. The research site is a Title 1 school servicing approximately 650 students in transitional

kindergarten through sixth grade. Approximately 70% of students come from homes where the primary

language is other than English. The ethnic make-up includes 69% Hispanic, 15% White, 1% African

American, 11% Asian, 1% Filipino, and 1% Pacific Islander. 2% of the students are migrant students.

Approximately 1% of the intermediate students are identified as Gifted and Talented Education (GATE)

students. 77% of the students receive free or reduced-cost breakfast and lunch.

The participants in this study included my 23 third grade students. The class consists of 9 females

and 14 males. The demographics of the class closely mirror the school. 60% of the students are English

language learners, with 11 of the students’ native language being Spanish and 3 student’s native language

being Punjabi. In addition, 80% of students receive free or reduced-cost breakfast and lunch at school.
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 3

One student has an Individualized Education Plan with 180 minutes of support services weekly. Another

student is chronically absent and has missed 20% of school days thus far.

Research Design

Round 1:

Intervention/Innovation

In Round 1, I started off my intervention and innovations by presenting a student survey for my

students to take on their thoughts and ideas on Vocabulary Instruction and Reading. I had read the

question to them, paraphrased the question by using short, student friendly terms, and again explained

to be honest and write as much as you can. This allowed my students take control of their own

response and reflect back on their learning. At the beginning of the week, I introduced the Unit for

ELA (English Language arts). Unit 7 was all about Communities Then and Now. The Essential

Question, which is the focus and what students should be able to answer and address by the end of the

unit is: What is a community? Overall, in this unit, students read and compare selections about

different types of communities to understand what a community is. During the next few days students

focused on tasks and activities focusing on the essential question.

Data Collected

The data that was collected in Round 1 included: Student survey (Google Form), Notes from

one-on-one interviews, Student work samples, pre/post VRT (Vocabulary Recognition Task), and the

Vocabulary Summative Assessment. Each task and activity were done by my whole class; however,

my focal students are the ones who I was most focused on. Within the weeks there were some students

who were absent, therefore some data on certain tasks and activities vary.
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 4

Data Analysis

First, I began taking a look at the class survey as well as student reflection notes using open

coding qualitative methodology. While reviewing my notes on the focal student one-on-one interviews,

I used a highlighter to highlight student’s feeling towards reading and the way it is instructed in the

classroom (Vocabulary being imbedded). I also went through my own observations notes I had noticed

during the week on my focal students. After looking through and organizing student responses, I found

how similar some student responses were and how some were quite interesting that I was not aware of.

Using a highlighter again, I went through notes and marked students’ feelings on reading and

vocabulary instruction. The following chart will give a better description on student responses.

There were two forms of assessment taken by students during Round 1. One was the pre/post

test VRT (Vocabulary Recognition Task). I had my whole class take the pre and post test. This

assessment had twenty-one vocabulary words from previous units, however from those twenty-one,

five were related to the current unit on Communities. Even though this research proposal is focused

specifically on my focal students, for curiosity reason I still decided to give my whole call the post test

as well. The reason behind that is I wanted to see if there were any changes and possible growths in all

of my students. The following graph shows a better visual of how my class did overall.

The Vocabulary Assessment was also administered. This measure uses a five-point scale within

a paragraph. I had all my students take this assessment, however I was most focused on. Both charts

are displayed one, with my whole class, and one specifically just my five focal students. From my 23

students, 2 were absent, one including my focal students, therefore 2 assessment scores were not

present.

Findings
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 5

Based on all the activities, tasks, and assessments that were done in Round 1, I found that most

specifically my focal students did an amazing job comprehending the text through explicit vocabulary

instruction. Beginning with the student’s survey that was presented before the instruction, the

following are the questions and responses students stated. The day this was delivered, only nineteen

students were present, yet from the nineteen, all my focal students were present.

Connections

In Round 1 I did research many vocabulary strategies and assessments, one happen to be the

on The Vocabulary Recognition Task (VRT). The Vocabulary Recognition Task (VRT) is a teacher-

constructed yes-no task used to estimate vocabulary recognition in a content area. Like the VKS, it

combines self-report with demonstrated knowledge. The purpose was to identify content-related words

that the students could both read and associate with a unit of study. In addition, I referenced back the

curriculum I use for ELA (English Language Arts) to plan my Unit 7: Communities tasks, activities,

and assessments.

Round 2:

Intervention/Innovation

In Round 2, I started off my intervention and innovations by showing students the weather

report. This was done because I wanted my students to experience how the weather report was done on

television, as well as frontload new learning we were going to begin. At the beginning of the week, I

introduced the Unit for ELA (English Language arts). Unit 8 was all Weather and Climate. The

Essential Question, which is the focus and what students should be able to answer and address by the

end of the unit is: How do we predict the unknown? Overall, in this unit, students read and compare

selections about different types of communities to understand what a community is. During the next

few days students focused on tasks and activities focusing on the essential question. This included the

use of semantic mapping, vocabulary games, sentence writing, and choral readings.
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 6

Data Collected

The data that was collected in Round 2 included: Student survey (Google Form), Student work

samples, pre/post VRT (Vocabulary Recognition Task), and the Unit 8 Performance Task. Each task

and activity were done by my whole class; however, my focal students are the ones who I was most

focused on. Within the weeks there were some students who were absent, therefore some data on

certain tasks and activities vary.

Data Analysis

First, I began taking a look at the class survey results on their favorite vocabulary task and

activity using open coding qualitative methodology. While reviewing my notes on the focal student

one-on-one interviews from round 1, I reviewed the highlights responses and feelings towards reading

and the way it is instructed in the classroom (Vocabulary being imbedded). I also looked at my focal

student’s class work and I looked at completion, quality of work, and how much invested they were in

their work.

There were two forms of assessment taken by students during Round 1. One was the pre/post

test VRT (Vocabulary Recognition Task). I had my whole class take the pre and post test. This

assessment had twenty-one vocabulary words from previous units, however from those twenty-one,

seven were related to the current unit on weather and climate. Even though this research proposal is

focused specifically on my focal students, for curiosity reason I still decided to give my whole call the

pre/post test as well. The reason behind that is I wanted to see if there were any changes and possible

growths in all of my students. Unfortunately, during the first day of this lesson when given the pre-test

there were 16 students present that day. However, when the post-test was given I had 21 students

present. The Performance Task for Unit 8 was also administered. This measure uses a three-point scale

within a paragraph. I had all my students take this assessment, however I was most focused on. Both
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 7

charts are displayed one, with my whole class, and one specifically just my five focal students. From

my 23 students, 3 were absent, however that did not include any of my focal students, therefore 2

assessments scores were not present.

Findings

Based on all the activities, tasks, and assessments that were done in Round 2, I found that most

specifically my focal students did an amazing job comprehending the text through explicit vocabulary

instruction. I provided various lessons and activities all including: listening, speaking, reading, writing,

recognizing vocab words, identifying vocab words, and more.

Connections

In Round 2, I continued to use The Vocabulary Recognition Task (VRT). However, I wanted to

give my students a break from books and relate vocabulary in a fun way. Using word games has been

suggested as a promising way to teach vocabulary items and to transform vocabulary knowledge from

passive to active. In a recent search on vocabulary strategies focused on ELL students, I came across a

study aimed to find the effects of word games on Iranian elementary EFL learners' vocabulary

achievement. 60 (N=60) Iranian elementary students were randomly divided into a control and an

experimental group; they took a vocabulary pre-test and re-took it as the post-test. Descriptive and

inferential statistics were used to analyze the scores obtained from the two groups. To find any

probable differences in the achievements of the two groups, a mixed between-within design ANOVA

was conducted. Results concluded that the same increase learners' motivation to improve their

vocabulary knowledge and provide opportunities for them to be more successful in their vocabulary

learning.

Round 3
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 8

Intervention/Innovation

In Round 3, I started off by introducing the topic through the new Unit: Forces and Interactions.

I presented a video of force and motion to front load background knowledge of what my students will

be reading and understanding about. The Essential Question was: How does understanding science

help us achieve our goals? Hence, students wrote down their thoughts on a sticky note to help generate

ideas on the essential question. Afterwards as a class we have a classroom discussion on science, goals,

and other topics related. During the next few days students focused on tasks and activities focusing on

the essential question. Just like round 1 and round 2, I wanted to keep the consistency of the tasks so

students are not only familiar with activities, but also have the opportunity for growth and

improvement. However, due to SBAC testing, I was limited to days on teaching this last unit, as well

as time for tasks and activities. So, I reflected and only did the activities that were meaningful to my

students, which were games, as well as meaningful to myself and my focus point this time, which is

summary writing.

Data Collected

The data that was collected in Round 3 included: Student survey (Google Form), Student work

samples, pre/post VRT (Vocabulary Recognition Task), and the Unit 10 Summary assessment. Each

task and activity were done by my whole class; however, my focal students are the ones who I was

most focused on. Within the weeks there were some students who were absent, therefore some data on

certain tasks and activities vary.

Data Analysis

First, I began taking a look at the class survey results on their favorite vocabulary task

and activity using open coding qualitative methodology. While reviewing my notes on the focal

student one-on-one interviews from round 1 , I reviewed the highlights responses and feelings towards

reading and the way it is instructed in the classroom (Vocabulary being imbedded). I also looked at my
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 9

focal student’s class work and I looked at completion, quality of work, and how much invested they

were in their work.

There were two forms of assessment taken by students during Round 3. One was the pre/post

test VRT (Vocabulary Recognition Task). I had my whole class take the pre and post test. This

assessment had twenty-one vocabulary words from previous units, however from those twenty-one,

seven were related to the current unit on weather and climate. Even though this research proposal is

focused specifically on my focal students, for curiosity's sake I still decided to give my whole class the

pre/post test as well. I went ahead and created two graphs to see the difference and the specify just to

reflect on The reason behind that is I wanted to see if there were any changes and possible growths in

all of my students. Unfortunately, during the first day of this lesson when given the pre-test there were

all students present that day as well as, when the post-test was given I had all students present. The

Summary assessment for Unit 10 was also administered. This measure uses a three-point scale within a

paragraph. I had 3 of my students absent, however all of focal students were present. Both charts are

displayed one, with my whole class, and one specifically just my five focal students. From my 23

students, 3 were absent, however that did not include any of my focal students, therefore assessments

scores were not present.

Findings

Based on all the activities, tasks, and assessments that were done in Round 2, I found that most

specifically my focal students did an amazing job comprehending the text through explicit vocabulary

instruction. The summary writing I thought would be somewhat difficult because it was something I

had not done in previous rounds, however overall my students, including my focal students did well. I

provided various lessons and activities all including: listening, speaking, reading, writing, recognizing

vocab words, identifying vocab words, and more.

Connections
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 10

The use of semantic maps and graphic organizers idea came from the study conducted in five

fifth-grade ELs from John M. Clayton Elementary School. They participated in this nine-week study to

determine the effectiveness of using context clues to define unknown vocabulary words and using

semantic mapping to increase in-depth vocabulary knowledge. Participants received direct instruction

using Graves’s (2005) four-step process to define unknown vocabulary words using context clues until

they were independently utilizing the strategy on their own. Along with this process, participants used

semantic mapping to track their understanding and connection between vocabulary words in a unit of

study before, during, and after reading a curriculum text to deepen their overall knowledge of

vocabulary words. Overall, the study focused on vocabulary instructional strategies that could provide

continued improvement for the reading comprehension of ELs.

Lastly, another research study explored the relationship between summary writing and reading

comprehension. Summary writing both boosts and measures reading comprehension. When learners

write a summary of a reading, they are supposed to demonstrate their comprehension of the target text

through writing; they are required to attend more closely to what they are reading to be able to

communicate it in their own words. Summary writers are therefore involved in an active process where

reading and writing are closely interrelated. This is why I decided to give a writing assessment in

summarizing the text to check for understanding in reading comprehension.

Synthesis of Findings

Each round in this study had it own purpose, which was to see what happens to vocabulary and

reading comprehension of students in the third-grade classroom when implemented explicitly. As it

happens, sometimes each round did not go as planned due to many factors (minimum days, spring

break, state test etc…), however taking a look at the overall process has it benefits to reflect on for

strength and room for improvement.

VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 11

One of the meaningful tasks from each round wad the Vocabulary Recognition Task (VRT).

The reason why I chose this as one of my highlighted data results is because this was one of the tasks I

was consisted in for round 1, 2, and 3. This task was a teacher constructed task that measures students’

vocabulary recognition in content areas (Stahl & Bravo, 2010). To get a better understanding of my

classes background knowledge, I had them take the pre-VRT (Vocabulary Recognition Task) to assess

which vocabulary terms are known and unknown. Laster the same task was repeated as the post-VRT

at the end of the unit. The graph below shows the average scores of my focal student only on their

post-VRT. What this information provides is the growth in rounds. As a result, less instructional time

was devoted to known words while providing more intense instruction to less familiar vocabulary

words. In addition to learning about the students' vocabulary growth, the VRT post-test allowed myself

to reflect on my teaching.

In round 1, five terms were taught and by the end of the unit my focal students were able to

identify at least 3. In round 2, six terms were taught and by the end of the unit my focal students were

able to identify at least 4 by the end of the lesson. Likewise, by round 3, there was only 4 terms

introduced and all my focal students were able to identify the terms by the end of the unit. This is the

highlight of my data as my students were able to associate the terms taught and be able to recognize the

words with the current unit of text.

Aside from the Vocabulary Recognition Task (VRT), the ultimate learning and reflecting was

from the assessments given at the end of the rounds. Each round had it own unique form of assessment

varying from multiple choice forms to summary writing. However, each round assessment was on a 3-

point scale, 1 being the lowest, 2 being approaching, and 3 being standard sufficient. The below graph

displays the assessments from each round. Again, the focus for this graph is for my focal student only.

In round 1, students had the average score of a 2, meaning they may have known the main idea,

however were not able to support or provide key details to support their response. Likewise, in round 2
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 12

students had the same results in their overall understanding of the main ideaThe graph displays the

average scores my students received from each round. This graph indeed allowed me to reflect on the

amount of growth students made from unit after unit. By round 3, my students were aware and

understood the process of my instruction and how this would allow them to better assist them in their

end of the unit assessment. Again, the formats of the assessment differed, however the ultimate goal of

these assess reading comprehension. By round 3, my focal students performed an excellent job on not

only identifying the main idea of the text, however referencing the text by including key details and

citing the text ( for example, including paragraphs). This was the ultimate piece in my research that

allowed me to reflect on my teaching and help, not only my focal student, but my class as a whole.

This piece of data specifies how thing were in each round, changes made for success, and how overall

each round reflect my student and myself.

Teaching explicitly in the classroom has not only brought my students growth in knowledge,

but also myself as a teacher as well. I have found that selecting a specific set of words from the texts

and other materials students will be expected to read makes reading meaningful. Teaching words in

context, rather than in isolation, by providing student-friendly definitions, creating sentences using the

words, showing pictures, giving examples students can relate to. Providing opportunities for their

learning is essential because English learners can learn the meaning of words from the printed text and

orally, however they must come across the words more than once or even twice; there must be multiple

exposures in meaningful contexts. This means engaging in meaningful reading experiences,

accompanied by discussions and writing. Lastly, as students develop word consciousness, they

understand that words have meanings and that these meanings are knowable. Often, English learners

encounter words they can’t understand but don’t know why. Once teachers help them learn more about

words and how they work, they’ll be more likely to figure out the meaning through fun engaging

activities, such as games. Overall, the question I asked myself every round was, “How many words can
VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION AND READING COMPREHENSION 13

I teach meaningfully, have kids use to practice and apply their new learning, and assess within a

particular lesson?” It wasn’t about the most words in the lesson to teacher, rather it was the selected

meaningful words that will best prepare my students to comprehend text.

References