IES Study Under Way

SERP is currently conducting a comprehensive evaluation of the Word Generation program in a large-scale experimental study funded by the Institute of Education Sciences with the cooperation of the Baltimore and Pittsburgh school districts.

Recent Findings

Snow, C., Lawrence, J., & White, C. (2009). Generating knowledge of academic language among urban middle school students. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness, 2(4), 325-344.

A quasi-experimental study of a novel, cross-content area vocabulary intervention program called Word Generation showed significantly greater growth among 6th- to 8th-grade students in schools implementing the program than in comparison schools, on a curriculum-specific test. Furthermore, the language-minority students in the treatment, but not the comparison, schools showed greater growth than the English-only students. Improvement on the curriculum-specific test predicted performance on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) English language arts assessment, again only for students in the treatment schools. Recognizing the need to implement a more rigorous experimental study of this program, nonetheless we conclude that participation in the intervention, with its focus on deep reading, comprehension of current-events topics, productive classroom discussion, developing arguments, and producing persuasive essays, was a plausible contributor to student performance on the MCAS.

Early Findings

During the 2007-2008 academic year, Word Generation was implemented at the middle-school level in six urban schools (five middle schools and one K-8 school). Two of the schools were completing their second year in the program. In one middle school, the intervention was delivered to a mixed sixth, seventh, and eighth grade special education cluster.

Harvard Graduate School of Education Professor Catherine Snow conducted a quasi-experimental study with colleagues Claire White, SERP Word Generation Director, and Harvard postdoc Joshua Lawrence. The study was designed to compare student performance in five middle schools implementing Word Generation with student performance in three schools not using the program.

Pilot data from this preliminary analysis show a positive impact of the Word Generation program on middle school students’ learning of academic vocabulary. English language learners appear to make the largest gains.