Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T01:44:40.227Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Vocabulary growth in second language among immigrant school-aged children in Greece

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 December 2012

PANAGIOTIS G. SIMOS ,
GEORGIOS D. SIDERIDIS ,
ANGELIKI MOUZAKI ,
ASPASIA CHATZIDAKI  and
MARIA TZEVELEKOU
PANAGIOTIS G. SIMOS*
Affiliation:
University of Crete
GEORGIOS D. SIDERIDIS
Affiliation:
University of Crete
ANGELIKI MOUZAKI
Affiliation:
University of Crete
ASPASIA CHATZIDAKI
Affiliation:
University of Crete
MARIA TZEVELEKOU
Affiliation:
Institute of Language and Speech Processing
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Panagiotis G. Simos, Department of Psychology, University of Crete, Rethymno, 74100, Crete. E-mail: akis.simos@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The goal of the study was to assess differences between native Greek and bilingual, immigrant children of Albanian descent learning Greek as a second language on a receptive vocabulary measure. Vocabulary measures were obtained at five time points, 6 months apart, from 580 children attending Grades 2–4. Individual variability on both initial performance (intercept) and growth rate (slope) was assessed using hierarchical linear modeling, which included linguistic/ethnic group, parental education (as a socioeconomic status [SES] indicator), gender, and a measure of nonverbal cognitive ability as time-invariant predictors of vocabulary growth. Results indicated that linguistic/ethnic group, parental education, and baseline nonverbal cognitive ability were significant predictors of initial vocabulary scores, whereas only linguistic/ethnic group and nonverbal ability accounted for significant variability in vocabulary growth rates. Additional analyses confirmed that linguistic/ethnic group remained a significant predictor of receptive vocabulary knowledge at both the intercept and the slope levels even after controlling for the initial differences between groups on parental education and block design subtest scores.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , May 2014 , pp. 621 - 647
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

August, D., Carlo, M., Dressier, C., & Snow, C. E. (2005). The critical role of vocabulary development for English language learners. Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 20, 50–57.Google Scholar
August, D., Carlo, M., Lively, T., Lippman, D., McLaughlin, B., & Snow, C. (1999). Enhancing vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension in English language learners. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal.Google Scholar
August, D., & Shanahan, T. (2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
August, D., Snow, C., Carlo, M., Proctor, C. P., De San Francisco, A. R., Duursma, E., et al. (2006). Literacy development in elementary school second-language learners. Topics in Language Disorders, 26, 351–364.Google Scholar
Baker, C. (2011). Foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (1988). Levels of bilingualism and levels of linguistic awareness. Developmental Psychology, 24, 560–567.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E. (2001). Bilingualism in development: Language, literacy, and cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Craik, F. I. (2010). Cognitive and linguistic processing in the bilingual mind. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 19, 19–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bialystok, E., Luk, G., & Kwan, E. (2005). Bilingualism, biliteracy, and learning to read: Interactions among languages and writing systems. Scientific Studies of Reading, 9, 43–61.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Luk, G., Peets, K. F., & Yang, S. (2010). Receptive vocabulary differences in monolingual and bilingual children. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 13, 525–531.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Majumder, S. (1998). The relationship between bilingualism and the development of cognitive processes in problem solving. Applied Psycholinguistics, 19, 69–85.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., Majumder, S., & Martin, M. M. (2003). Developing phonological awareness: Is there a bilingual advantage? Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 27–44.Google Scholar
Bialystok, E., & Shapero, D. (2005). Ambiguous benefits: The effect of bilingualism on reversing ambiguous figures. Developmental Science, 8, 595–604.Google Scholar
Bowey, J. A. (1995). Socioeconomic status differences in preschool phonological sensitivity and first-grade reading achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 476–487.Google Scholar
Braze, D., Tabor, W., Shankweiler, D., & Mencl, E. (2007). Speaking up for vocabulary: Reading skill differences in young adults. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40, 226–243.Google Scholar
Chatzidaki, A. (2005). Modela diglosikis siberiforas se ikogenies Alvanon mathiton. Dedomena apo embiriki erevna [Patterns of bilingual behavior in families of Albanian pupils: An empirical study]. Epistimes Agoyis, 79–102.Google Scholar
Cobo-Lewis, A. B., Pearson, B. Z., Eilers, R. E., & Umbel, V. C. (2002). Effects of bilingualism and bilingual education on oral and written Spanish skills: A multifactor study of standardized test outcomes. In Oller, D. K. & Eilers, R. E. (Eds.), Language and literacy in bilingual children (pp. 98–117). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155–159.Google Scholar
Craig, R. J., & Olson, R. E. (1991). Relationship between Wechsler scales and Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised scores among disability applicants. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 47, 420–429.Google Scholar
Culbert, J. P., Hamer, R., & Klinge, V. (1989). Factor structure of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children—Revised, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and Peabody Individual Achievement Test in a psychiatric sample. Psychology in the Schools, 26, 331–336.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1976). The influence of bilingualism on cognitive growth: A synthesis of research findings and explanatory hypotheses. Working Papers on Bilingualism, 9, 1–43.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1978). Bilingualism and the development of metalinguistic awareness. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 9, 131–149.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 222–251.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (1984). Bilingual education and special education: Issues in assessment and pedagogy. San Diego, CA: College Hill.Google Scholar
Cummins, J. (2000). Language, power, and pedagogy: Bilingual children in the crossfire. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
D'Amato, R. C., Gray, J. W., & Dean, R. S. (1988). Construct validity of the PPVT with neuropsychological, intellectual, and achievement measures. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 44, 934–939.Google Scholar
De Houwer, A. (2005). Early bilingual acquisition: Focus on morphosyntax and the separate development hypothesis. In Kroll, J. & De Groot, A. (Eds.), The handbook of bilingualism (pp. 30–48). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dixon, P., LeFevre, J.-A., & Twilley, L. C. (1988). Word knowledge and working memory as predictors of reading skill. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 465–472.Google Scholar
Duncan, L., Casalis, S., & Cole, P. (2009). Early metalinguistic awareness of derivational morphology: Observations from a comparison of English and French. Applied Psycholinguistics, 30, 405–440.Google Scholar
Dunn, L. M., & Dunn, L. M. (1981). The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised. Circle Pines, MN: American Guidance Service.Google Scholar
Efron, B. (1979). Bootstrap methods: Another look at the Jackknife. Annals of Statistics, 7, 1–26.Google Scholar
Efron, B. (1982). The jackknife, bootstrap, and other resampling plans. Philadelphia, PA: SIAM.Google Scholar
Efron, B. (1985). Bootsrap confidence intervals for a class of parametric problems. Biometrica, 72, 45–48.Google Scholar
Fenson, L., Dale, P. S., Reznick, J. S., Bates, E., Thal, D. J., & Pethick, S. J. (1994). Variability in early communicative development. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 59(5, Serial No. 242).Google Scholar
Francis, D. J., Schatschneider, C., & Carlson, C. D. (1999). Introduction to individual growth curve analysis. In Drotar, D. (Ed.), Handbook of research methods in pediatric and clinical child psychology (pp. 51–73). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Frost, J., Madsbjerg, S., Niedersoe, J., Olofsson, A., & Sorensen, P. M. (2005). Semantic and phonological skills in predicting reading development: From 3–16 years of age. Dyslexia, 11, 79–92.Google Scholar
Genesee, F., Lindholm-Leary, K., Saunders, W., & Christian, D. (2005). English language learners in U.S. schools: An overview of research findings.Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 10, 363–385.Google Scholar
Georgas, D. D., Paraskevopoulos, I. N., Bezevegis, I. G., & Giannitsas, N. D. (1997). Ελληνικó WISC–III: Wechsler κλίμακες νοημοσύνης για παιδιά [Greek WISC–III: Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children]. Athens: Ellinika Grammata.Google Scholar
Gkaintartzi, A., & Tsokalidou, R. (2011). “She is a very good child but she doesn't speak”: The invisibility of children's bilingualism and teacher ideology. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 588–601.Google Scholar
Gogonas, N. (2009). Language shift in second-generation Albanian immigrants in Greece. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 30, 95–110.Google Scholar
Goodz, N. (1994). Interactions between parents and children in bilingual families. In Genesee, F. (Ed.), Educating second-language children: The whole child, the whole curriculum, the whole community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hakuta, K., Butler, Y. G., & Witt, D. (2000). How long does it take English learners to attain proficiency. University of California, Linguistic Minority Research Institute, Policy Report 2000-1. Retrieved from http://www.stanford.edu/hakuta/Docs/HowLong.pdfGoogle Scholar
Hamers, J. F., & Blanc, M. H. A. (2000). Bilinguality and bilingualism (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brooks.Google Scholar
Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jean, M., & Geva, E. (2009). The development of vocabulary in English as a second language children and its role in predicting word recognition ability. Applied Psycholinguistics, 30, 153–185.Google Scholar
Joshi, R. M. (2005). Vocabulary: A critical component of comprehension. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 21, 209–219.Google Scholar
Kasimis, C., and Kasimis, C. (2004). Greece: A history of migration. Migration Information Source. Retrieved from http://www.migrationinformation.org/Profiles/display.cfm?ID=228Google Scholar
Lambert, W. E. (1977). Effects of bilingualism on the individual: Cognitive and sociocultural consequences. In Hornby, P. A. (Ed.), Bilingualism: Psychological, social, and educational implications (pp. 15–28). New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Leseman, P. P. M. (2000). Bilingual vocabulary development of Turkish preschoolers in the Netherlands. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 21, 93–112.Google Scholar
Macnamara, J. (1966). Bilingualism and primary education. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Mahon, M., & Crutchley, A. (2006). Performance of typically developing school-age children with English as an additional language on the British Pictures Vocabulary Scales II. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 22, 333–351.Google Scholar
Marchman, V. A., Martínez-Sussmann, C., & Dale, P. S. (2004). The language-specific nature of grammatical development: Evidence from bilingual language learners. Developmental Science, 7, 212–224.Google Scholar
Meisel, J. M. (1990). Two first languages: Early grammatical development in bilingual children. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Morisset, C. M., Barnard, K. E., Greenberg, M. T., Booth, C. L., & Spieker, S. J. (1990). Environmental influences on early language development: The context of social risk. Development and Psychopathology, 2, 127–149.Google Scholar
Oakhill, J. V., Cain, K., & Bryant, P. E. (2003). The dissociation of word reading and text comprehension: Evidence from component skills. Language and Cognitive Processes, 18, 443–468.Google Scholar
Ollendick, T. H., Finch, A. J Jr., & Ginn, F. W. (1974). Comparison of Peabody, Leiter, WISC, and academic achievement scores among emotionally disturbed children. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2, 47–51.Google Scholar
Ouellette, G. P. (2006). What's meaning got to do with it: The role of vocabulary in word reading and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98, 554–566.Google Scholar
Páez, M., & Rinaldi, C. (2006). Predicting English word-reading skills for Spanish-speaking students in first grade. Topics in Language Disorders, 26, 338–350.Google Scholar
Pankratz, M., Morrison, A., & Plante, E. (2004). Difference in standard scores of adults on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (revised and 3rd ed.). Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 714–718.Google Scholar
Pasnak, R., Wilson-Quayle, A., & Whitten, J. (1998). Mild retardation, academic achievement, and Piagetian or psychometric tests of reasoning. Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, 10, 23–33.Google Scholar
Perfetti, C. A. (2007). Reading ability: Lexical quality to comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11, 357–384.Google Scholar
Perfetti, C. A., & Hart, L. (2001). The lexical bases of comprehension skill. In Gorien, D. S. (Ed.), On the consequences of meaning selection: Perspectives on resolving lexical ambiguity (pp. 67–86). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Protopapas, A., Sideridis, G. D., Mouzaki, A., & Simos, P. G. (2007). Development of lexical mediation in the relation between reading comprehension and word reading skills in Greek. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11, 165–197.Google Scholar
Rasch, G. (1980). Probabilistic models for some intelligence and attainment tests. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rhodes, R. L., Ochoa, S. H., & Ortiz, S. O. (2005). Assessing culturally and linguistically diverse students: A practical guide. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Selinker, L. (1972). Interlanguage. IRAL, 10, 209–231.Google Scholar
Simos, P. G., Sideridis, G., Protopapas, A., & Mouzaki, A. (2011). Psychometric characteristics of a receptive vocabulary test for Greek elementary students. Assessment for Effective Intervention, 37, 34–49.Google Scholar
Smith, E. V., & Smith, R. M. (2004). Introduction to Rasch measurement: Theory, models, and applications. Maple Grove, MN: JAM Press.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E., Burns, M. S., & Griffin, P. (Eds). (1998). Preventing reading difficulties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.Google Scholar
Tucker, G. R. (1977). The linguistic perspective. In Tucker, G. R. (Ed.), Bilingual education: Current perspectives: Vol. 2. Linguistics. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Uccelli, P., & Páez, M. M. (2007). Narrative and vocabulary development of bilingual children from kindergarten to first grade: Developmental changes and associations among English and Spanish skills. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 38, 225–236.Google Scholar
Vance, B., Kitson, D., & Singer, M. G. (1989). Relationship between the standard scores of Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised and Wide Range Achievement test. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 41, 691–693.Google Scholar
Vance, B., West, R., & Kutsick, K. (1985). Prediction of Wechsler preschool and primary scale of intelligence IQ scores for preschool children using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised and the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 45, 642–644.Google Scholar
Vellutino, F. R., Tunmer, W. E., Jaccard, J. J., & Chen, R. (2007). Components of reading ability: Multivariate evidence for a convergent skills model of reading development. Scientific Studies of Reading, 11, 3–32.Google Scholar
Verhoeven, L., & van Leeuwe, J. (2008). Prediction of the development of reading comprehension: A longitudinal study. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 22, 407–423.Google Scholar
White, K. R. (1982). The relationship between socioeconomic status and academic achievement. Psychological Bulletin, 91, 461–481.Google Scholar
Yovanoff, P., Duesbery, L., Alonzo, J., & Tindal, G. (2005). Grade-level invariance of a theoretical causal structure predicting reading comprehension with vocabulary and oral reading fluency. Educational Measurement: Issues and Practice, 24, 4–12.Google Scholar