This dissertation studied the effects of Teacher Directed Games (TDGs) on student vocabulary development and student engagement in a second language. Achieving automaticity with vocabulary is crucial to mastering a second language. A sample of 40 first grade students in a Jewish Day School participated in the study. Students learned their…

Integrating content-area and literacy instruction in primary-grade classrooms creates authentic and engaging opportunities for students to build background knowledge and literacy skills. Furthermore, when students engage in meaningful dialogue about content-area topics they can discuss complex ideas and use content-specific vocabulary. These…

The education community has gradually recognized the value of augmented reality (AR) technology and its positive impacts on student learning performance. Still, few studies have proposed specific solutions and results to confirm this phenomenon for first graders in English vocabulary learning. Hence, this research explores the effects of AR apps…

This study aimed to create a game as scaffolding in 3D virtual worlds to enhance linguistic communication skills (LCS) in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Two ADHD children participated in the 17-week study. In 8 of the 17 weeks of the study, they logged in 3D virtual worlds to learn LCS through play twice a week, one…

French Immersion instruction has often focused on the development of oral language as the primary method of early literacy learning. Manitoba Education endorses this focus with its curricular emphasis on oral language acquisition before formal reading and writing instruction. This article examines the role of early years French immersion teachers…

This study has investigated, in a quantitative survey, how the attitudes toward English lessons and the motivation for learning English as a foreign language (EFL) of 276 Danish EFL learners (starting age 7 and 9 years) changed within one year. Second, a subsample of children were interviewed. The study investigated what they liked and disliked…

At the intersection of social studies and world language curricula are opportunities to explore students' prior learning with vocabulary-rich content designed to support language acquisition goals. "Funds of knowledge" is defined as socio-cultural, economic, and historical knowledge from home and community settings. The instructional…

The current study replicated and extended the previous findings of content-integrated literacy intervention focusing on its effectiveness on first- and second-grade English learners' (N = 1,314) reading comprehension, writing, vocabulary knowledge, and oral proficiency. Statistically significant findings were replicated on science and social…

We discuss an original study and two replications conducted over 18 years examining the impact of Teacher Study Group (TSG) in Vocabulary, a professional development (PD) approach for improving pedagogy and student learning. Study 1 focused on the design and development of the PD and included a small-scale randomized controlled trial to assess the…

This research describes language use by four first-grade students during mathematics and Language Arts instruction in a one-way 50/50 Mandarin immersion classroom. The urban public school was situated in the heart of an African-American community in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Participants were video- and audio-recorded…

Children with developmental language disorder (DLD) served as a test case for determining the role of extant vocabulary knowledge, endogenous attention, and phonological working memory abilities in cross-situational word learning. First-graders (M[subscript age] = 7 years; 3 months), 44 with typical development (TD) and 28 with DLD, completed a…

The purpose of this study was to examine how classroom language contexts characterized by peer language skills and proportions of dual language learners (DLL) influenced English language development for DLL and non-DLL children. Participants were 2,131 children from 135 classrooms across preschool through Grade 3. Children were classified into…

The present study examined a six-component theoretical model of word reading acquisition in 449 Spanish-speaking children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Measures of phonological awareness (PA), rapid automatized naming (RAN), vocabulary, letter name-sound knowledge, and parent education were obtained at the beginning of kindergarten and a…

Purpose: This study compares responses of children who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) who use spoken language with responses of children who have typical hearing on a repeated word association task to evaluate lexical-semantic organization. Method: This study included 109 participants in early kindergarten or who had completed first grade. The…

As an effective teaching approach that allows teachers and students to interact collaboratively and actively build on each other's ideas, dialogic teaching can enhance classroom engagement and learning outcomes. This study addresses the use of dialogic teaching for improving English language learning among Chinese children with varied levels of…