Justification for the Research Study
In order to ascertain best practices in improving the quality of students’ writing at the elementary level, it was important to take an approach to instruction that would benefit students’ improvement of their vocabulary. The expectations for students in fourth grade with regard to improving the quality of their writing are greater at this level. The fourth-grade year of public school is an important time for students to produce quality writing, not only so they can perform well on the writing component of the state-mandated MCAS test but to write for a variety of purposes and for different audiences with greater quality in terms of ideas, word choice, and sentence fluency. Fourth grade is also a pivotal year in this particular elementary school for word learning as students are required to engage in reading more complex texts as part of their curriculum in varied content areas. In order to do this, explicit instruction in analyzing word parts, specifically morphemes such as affixes and root or base words, is important and currently not present in this fourth grade curriculum.
Comprehension of texts is also more easily attained when students have the proper skills to approach an unfamiliar word. The practice of mnemonic instruction of vocabulary through rote memorization is non-generative, does not promote independent word learning or the internalization of words, and is uninteresting and not engaging for the student. “Knowledge of morphological word units…expands vocabulary acquisition and can improve reading skills and ability” (Stygles, 2011, p. 60). Through interaction with text students also incorporate words into their word schema incidentally. Having knowledge and skills that relate to decoding and segmenting words for understanding is effective not only for comprehension, but for building vocabulary for use in writing. Having the breadth and depth of knowledge about words will help ensure that students have at their disposal richer, more descriptive, and “artful” words to draw upon.
The areas of instruction which are most needed for students to acquire the vocabulary necessary for their success in school include:
- Incidental and intentional vocabulary instruction: This helps students make connections with word meanings through multiple exposures to words, word parts, and word families. During discourse and text interactions, independent reading and read-alouds, students encounter many words. Intentional scaffolded activities in word sorting, word play, and word analysis promote internalization of words as students make connections with their background knowledge. As in Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) theory (1986), instruction is supported through interaction with the teacher and other students around the use of Tier 2 words and the use of these words in writing.
- Analytical Trait Writing Assessment: These traits are qualities of strong writing. Becoming familiar with the use and the concepts behind the language of Analytical Trait Writing gives students the guidelines and a “mental checklist” to incorporate into their thought process during their writing and common language in the assessment of their writing. “When the language environment is enriched and adequate time and instruction is given to the writing process, student writing improves” (Smith, 2003a, p. 5).
