Title of dissertation: DOES DISCUSSION MAKE A DIFFERENCE

                                            IN VOCABULARY LEARNING FROM

                                            EXPOSITORY TEXT READ ALOUDS?

		 	                Sarah Beall Zelinke, Doctor of Philosophy,

                                            2011				

Dissertation directed by: Dr. Mariam Jean Dreher

			                Department of Curriculum & Instruction

			                University of Maryland, College Park

This study investigated the effects of discussion on vocabulary learning from expository text read alouds. This study used a pre-/post within-subjects design to investigate whether discussion contributed to improved vocabulary knowledge from expository text read alouds and whether the placement of discussion makes a difference in vocabulary learning. Fifty-five second-grade students participated in a total of six read aloud sessions. There were two sessions for each of three expository texts. Intact classrooms were randomly assigned to condition by book. All participants experienced each of three discussion conditions, which varied by book. For the Discussion During (DD) condition, students experienced discussion of target vocabulary words during the read aloud sessions. For the Discussion After (DA) condition, students experienced discussion of target vocabulary words after the read aloud sessions. For the No Discussion (ND) condition, students listened to an expository text read aloud without discussing the text at all.

An expressive vocabulary measure was used to examine growth in vocabulary knowledge. For each book, no difference was found for the ND condition. However, statistically significant treatment effects, with large effect sizes, were found for both the DA and DD conditions, indicating that discussion contributed to greater growth in vocabulary knowledge than no discussion. Post-hoc tests revealed that for one book, the DA condition led to significantly greater vocabulary growth than the DD condition. However, for the other two books there was no difference between the DD and DA conditions. These findings indicate that discussion of vocabulary words is an important factor in vocabulary learning.