Neuman, Susan B., & Dwyer, Julie. (2011). Developing vocabulary and conceptual knowledge for low-income preschoolers: A design experiment. Journal of Literacy Research, 43(2), 103-129.
This article is part of a larger body of research by Neuman and her colleagues on vocabulary and conceptual development for low-income preschoolers. At least one other article on this research was published in the Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) at about the same time as this article appeared in the Journal of Literacy Research, and I have created annotations for both articles. Both articles describe the implementation of an intervention (called World of Words, or WOW for short) designed to boost the vocabulary and conceptual development of low-income preschoolers, so that the well-documented vocabulary gap between those children and their middle-class counterparts could be narrowed. Implementation took place in several Head Start classrooms, and participants were low-income preschoolers. The vocabulary gap seems to be an important piece of the overall achievement gap between low-income and middle-income children. Because that gap widens with time, the concerns of Neuman and her colleagues are well-warranted.
As a reader of research, I find it really deepens my knowledge when I can read two articles by the same researchers which approach the same issues, but focus on those issues in two different ways. The earlier article in RRQ was more detailed and comprehensive than this one in the Journal of Literacy Research was, but this one focused more on the process of conducting a design experiment, which helped me understand better some of the things that had puzzled me in the RRQ article’s account. Design experiments, as opposed to traditional experiments, allow for in-flight revisions and emergent hypotheses. I appreciated hearing about the two phases of implementation of the intervention here, and how when the intervention did not work as well as the researchers hoped in Phase 1, they were able to make revisions and in effect had a “do-over” with the improved version of the intervention (improvements involved adding more opportunities for exposure to and practice with harder words). The results were promising, which was helpful in understanding how best to craft an intensive intervention such as this one.
As with the earlier article, I continue to be impressed with certain aspects of the WOW intervention, especially the rigor of the approach, and the stress on meaningful categorization of words, which is a higher order skill than the typical memorization of definitions that still is common in many schools. Young children’s thinking abilities are honored and nurtured by such an approach. Unlike the earlier article in RRQ, this article gives little space to information about the teachers, the training they received, and the materials themselves. If I had read this article first, the concerns I had upon reading the RRQ article, specifically about this kind of program being heavily scripted and possibly being inflexibly mandated, would not have been aroused. Reading both articles helped me build a more complete picture of this important research and this promising but potentially problematic intervention. As with the earlier article, I am still interested in learning more, and would like to see specific lesson plans and transcripts of student and teacher talk for WOW.
An interesting (and worrisome) piece of information came to my attention in this article that for some reason did not catch my attention when I read the other article. The WOW intervention features multimedia input, specifically educational videos in combination with more traditional classroom media such as children’s books. While multimedia input such as this could be beneficial, there also have been concerns raised about some of the effects on children. The multimedia input is described in a bit more detail in the RRQ article than here, but in neither article are the concerns about it given much discussion. At the end of this article, I noticed in the credits that the videos came from Sesame Street and Elmo’s World, children’s series that are broadcast by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Characters from these videos are used to market branded merchandise such as toys, children’s books, and clothing, so one might raise the concern that these Head Start children were being subjected, at least indirectly, to marketing for those products. I found myself wondering who actually created and produced those videos—was Neuman or any of her colleagues involved (I noticed a statement in which she denies conflict of interest here)? Do those who created the videos, whoever they are, receive royalties when those videos are played in classrooms? Who could potentially benefit economomically from the playing of PBS videos in Head Start classrooms? I know, it’s “public television”, but it is still television, which is a multi-million dollar, competitive corporate enterprise. Could showing young children PBS videos be in effect a promotion of PBS programming? I have to ask myself, is this really very different from showing Disney videos or even videos featuring cereal box characters in Head Start classrooms?
In reading the credits further here, we find out that this entire research project was funded by the Corporation (note that it IS a corporation) for Public Broadcasting/Public Broadcasting System, which operates through the Office of Innovation and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, so there is also government involvement and funding connected to this research. I haven’t yet sorted out all the possible agendas here, but this funding information set off a few warning bells in my head, which causes me to be cautious about this research while still valuing some of the things it tells us. I always appreciate it when journals require such documentation of funding sources. Knowing where the obligations lie can help a reader make inferences about the possible agendas, hidden or transparent, that unavoidably underlie all research.
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