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The role of vocabulary depth in predicting reading comprehension among English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual children in elementary school

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An Erratum to this article was published on 01 December 2011

Abstract

The present study investigated the role of vocabulary depth in reading comprehension among a diverse sample of monolingual and bilingual children in grades 2–4. Vocabulary depth was defined as including morphological awareness, awareness of semantic relations, and syntactic awareness. Two hundred ninety-four children from 3 schools in a Mid-Atlantic district and 3 schools in a Northeastern school district participated in the study and were assessed at the beginning and end of one school year on a wide variety of language and literacy measures. Bilingual children were assessed in English and Spanish. A latent difference score model that assessed change in a latent indicator of English reading comprehension from Time 1 (Fall) to Time 2 (Spring) was tested with results showing that vocabulary depth measures made significant contributions to initial status, but not change, in reading comprehension over and above between-subjects factors (grade, ethnicity, language status) and baseline control within-subject factors (word identification and vocabulary breadth). There was no added contribution of Spanish language measures to English reading comprehension among the bilingual students.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Curriculum & Instruction, Lynch School of Education, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Ave., Chestnut Hill, MA, 02467, USA

    C. Patrick Proctor & Christine Montecillo

  2. Department of Special Education, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Rebecca D. Silverman

  3. Department of Measurement, Statistics, & Evaluation, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Jeffrey R. Harring

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  1. C. Patrick Proctor
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  2. Rebecca D. Silverman
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  3. Jeffrey R. Harring
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  4. Christine Montecillo
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Correspondence to C. Patrick Proctor.

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Proctor, C.P., Silverman, R.D., Harring, J.R. et al. The role of vocabulary depth in predicting reading comprehension among English monolingual and Spanish–English bilingual children in elementary school. Read Writ 25, 1635–1664 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-011-9336-5

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