Date of Graduation

5-2015

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Communication Disorders (MS)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

Rehabilitation, Human Resources and Communication Disorders

Advisor/Mentor

Lisa M. Bowers

Committee Member

Andrew Bowers

Second Committee Member

Pradyumn Srivastava

Keywords

Health and environmental sciences, Education, Assessment, Preschool, Vocabulary

Abstract

Vocabulary knowledge of preschool children is a key factor in predicting literacy success in elementary school (Hammer, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2010). However, few deliberate attempts to teach basic concept vocabulary have been studied (Bowers & Schwarz, 2013; Wilson, 2004). The purpose of this research is to determine if large group explicit instruction with interactive activities of specific basic concept vocabulary will increase preschool children's understanding of basic concept terms when measured by a standardized basic concept assessment. This research will also assess the validity of a basic concept-curriculum based measure (BC-CBM) as an efficient tool to monitor a child's understanding of basic concept vocabulary over time. There were 30 preschool children (M age=53.8 months) who participated in this experiment. Results demonstrated the standardized assessment and BC-BM raw scores improved through intervention. Further research is supported to evaluate the BC-CBM on a larger scale and control for more factors, which influence vocabulary development in children.

Keywords: basic concept, vocabulary, preschool, assessment

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