Two scenes of children in educational settings: on the left, a boy sits at a desk reading a book; on the right, a group of children and an adult interact with materials on the floor.

VINE

VINE was a three-year federally funded research project that explored the development of vocabulary knowledge through word consciousness. It was a collaboration between the University of California-Santa Cruz, San Jose State University, and seven districts in the surrounding areas.

Goals

To co-construct, with teachers, an intervention that helps fourth grade students, particularly English learners and those traditionally under-served by schools, develop word consciousness and an understanding of how to use academic language as a tool of communication.
To obtain evidence that our co-constructed intervention improves the reading, writing, and vocabulary achievement of fourth graders.

Research Questions

How did word study/word consciousness affect students’ reading comprehension?
How did word study/word consciousness affect students’ writing?
Did word study/word consciousness significantly enhance students’ writing achievement?
Did word study/word consciousness significantly enhance students’ reading comprehension?

Research Participants

Fourth grade teachers from metropolitan, town, and rural areas of California.

Previous experience with writing workshop
15-50% ELL students in their classes
Willing to make a 1-3 year commitment
Flexibility in teaching

Research Plan

Staggered entry design so that the teachers who were in the “control” group in the first year became “intervention” teachers the following year.
Think-tank model through which we built a collaborative community based on shared expertise and action research.
Data sources included: student and teacher questionnaires and interviews, California Standards Tests in reading, writing, and vocabulary, writing samples, pre- and post-tests of linguistic/semantic knowledge about words, teacher journals, field notes, videotaped classroom observations, an inventory of classroom libraries, and student book logs.
Data analyses focused on reading, writing, and vocabulary growth by case-study students and by control and intervention classes. Professional growth of the control and intervention teachers was also analyzed.

VINE: “We gratefully acknowledge funding by the US Dept of Education: Institute of Education Sciences/National Center for Educational Research. Reading and Writing Education Research Grant – #R305G060140. This presentation is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the US Department of Education.”