Going beyond defining: Preschool educators' use of knowledge in their pedagogical reasoning about vocabulary instruction

Authors

Julie Dwyer, Quinnipiac UniversityFollow
Rachel E. Schachter, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

ORCID IDs

Julie Dwyer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7872-8849

Rachel E. Schachter https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3951-858X

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

9-2019

Citation

Published in Dyslexia. 2019; pp 1–27. DOI: 10.1002/dys.1637

Comments

Copyright © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Used by permission.

Abstract

Previous research investigating both the knowledge of early childhood educators and the support for vocabulary development present in early childhood settings has indicated that both educator knowledge and enacted practice are less than optimal, which has grave implications for children's early vocabulary learning and later reading achievement. Further, the nature of the relationship between educators' knowledge and practice is unclear, making it difficult to discern the best path towards improved knowledge, practice, and children's vocabulary outcomes. The purpose of the present study was to add to the existing literature by using stimulated recall interviews and a grounded approach to examine how 10 preschool educators used their knowledge to made decisions about their moment-to-moment instruction in support of children's vocabulary development. Results indicate that educators were thinking in highly context-specific ways about their goals and strategies for supporting vocabulary learning, taking into account important knowledge of their instructional history with children and of the children themselves to inform their decision making in the moment. In addition, they reported thinking about research-based goals and strategies for supporting vocabulary learning that went beyond simply defining words for children. Implications for research and professional development are discussed.