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From http://languagemagazine.com/2017/03/helping-academic-english-learners-develop-productive-word-knowledge/

Helping Academic English Learners Develop Productive Word Knowledge
by Dr. Kate Kinsella
March 17, 2017

“Native speakers of English with anemic school-based vocabulary and weak verbal abilities struggle with reading and related writing tasks, contributing to disappointing overall academic achievement beyond the primary grades (Biemiller,1999; Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998). If words are not in children’s verbal repertoire, those children understandably have trouble mapping sounds to words in print and accessing relevant background knowledge as they move from relatively accessible narrative selections to a range of complex texts across subject areas (National Reading Panel, 2000).

“Research focused on school-age English learners similarly correlates vocabulary knowledge with second-language reading comprehension and other measures of school success, including high-stakes test scores and writing proficiency (August and Shanahan, 2006; Carlo et al., 2005). In fact, depth of word knowledge proves to be the most reliable predictor of English learner academic achievement across grade levels and curriculum (Marzano, 2004; Saville-Troike, 1984).”

Read the full article at http://languagemagazine.com/2017/03/helping-academic-english-learners-develop-productive-word-knowledge/