Beck and McKeown's "Increasing Young Low-Income Children’s Oral Vocabulary Repertoires through Rich and Focused Instruction" (2007) details 2 studies that show the importance of rich and extended vocabulary instruction for students from low socioeconomic status backgrounds. Study 1 Research Question. In study 1, the research question wa s, "How well do students in kindergarten and first grade learn vocabulary through direct instruction compared to those who are just exposed to the words in text (incidental acquisition)?" Participants. Participants in this first study were in four kindergarten classes and four first graders from the same small, urban school district. Although the study began with 119 students, pre -test and post-test data was collected on a total of 98 students (46 in the control condition and 53 in the experimental condition). Further, the school was one of high poverty, and of those in the study, all were African-America...
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