A NAEP Report on the Vocabulary Achievement Gap

In this Education Week article, Eric Robelen reports on a first-of-its-kind National Assessment of Educational Progress analysis showing stark racial/ethnic/income gaps in American fourth and eighth graders’ vocabulary knowledge. The rich-poor gap was 31 points at fourth grade and 28 points at eighth grade. African-American students were 29 points behind white students in both fourth and eighth grade, and Hispanic students were 29 points behind white students in fourth grade and 28 points behind in eighth. Girls were slightly ahead of boys in both grades.

The study showed a consistent relationship between students’ performance on vocabulary questions (a proxy for prior knowledge) and their ability to comprehend a text. Fourth and eighth graders scoring above the 75^th percentile in reading comprehension had the highest average vocabulary scores, and students scoring at or below the 25^th percentile had the lowest average vocabulary scores. Here are some of the words that half or more students didn’t understand:

• 8^th grade: permeated, urbane
• 4^th grade: puzzled, barren, detected, eerie

The words in the new NAEP test were presented to students in context; they were chosen to be characteristic of written (as opposed to everyday spoken) language; used in a variety of content areas (versus technical or specialized); generally familiar concepts, feelings, or actions; and necessary to understanding part or all of a passage.

“Brand-New NAEP Report on Vocabulary Shows Same Old Gaps” by Erik Robelen in Education Week, Dec. 12, 2012 (Vol. 32, #14, p. 14),

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/12/06/14naep.h32.html 

From the Marshall Memo #465