UCSC Review Winter 1997

Grant boosts study of vocabulary growth in bilingual children

Psychology professor Barry McLaughlin is teaming up with 24 fourth- and fifth-grade teachers--several from local schools--to conduct a major three-year study of the vocabulary development of bilingual children.

McLaughlin has received a $900,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research to conduct the investigation. Working with colleagues from Boston and Washington, D.C., McLaughlin will develop a program for enhancing the vocabulary and literacy of children whose first language is not English. The program will be distributed nationally, an effort that will be overseen by Sharon Maxwell, a teacher at DeLaveaga Elementary School in Santa Cruz.

"Vocabulary is a key to successful reading and to successful academic learning generally," says McLaughlin. "In spite of excellent programs and devoted teachers, many children for whom English is a second language have trouble doing well in American schools."

Studies of native English-speaking children show that they make enormous strides in vocabulary growth during elementary school. Researchers estimate that children learn around 3,000 new words every year during their school career, says McLaughlin, adding that the average fifth grader encounters almost 10,000 different words that he or she does not know.

"Imagine the burden this places on a child learning English as a second language," McLaughlin said. "These children have to catch up with classmates who are constantly learning more and more words. We want to see to what extent they succeed in doing this."