Vocabulary study may boost learning among Spanish-speaking adolescents

[Harold Schiffman]

 Forwarded From edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu


University of Connecticut Advance



Vocabulary study may boost learning among Spanish-speaking adolescents



English language learners often have trouble improving their vocabulary,
leading to reading comprehension difficulties and problems with learning in
all academic content areas. Elizabeth Howard is among a group of researchers
who think that teaching native Spanish speakers about cognates - words
comparable across English and Spanish because of their common Greek or Latin
roots - may facilitate the process. Howard, an assistant professor of
bilingual education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, is
co-investigator of a four-year study exploring the use of cognates to
promote vocabulary development and reading comprehension among native
Spanish speaking adolescents. The project, which received a $1.8 million
grant from the federal Institute of Educational Sciences last year, expands
on previous research by Howard, who has spent most of her career in
bilingual literacy and language acquisition and development.



Full story:

http://www.advance.uconn.edu/2008/080303/08030312.htm


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Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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