Whole class intervention to improve vocabulary learning skills in post-primary shcool students

Background: There is a need for evidence-based interventions that target the language skills of adolescents from areas of socioeconomic disadvantage. This study will implement a whole class vocabulary intervention programme, in schools in an area of disadvantage. A whole class approach allows the intervention to target adolescents at risk of delayed language in a natural setting. It also fosters collaboration between teachers and Speech and Language Therapists. Objectives: 1) To investigate if a whole-class vocabulary intervention can improve vocabulary learning skills in first year post-primary school students. 2) To investigate the relationship between behaviour and improvement on vocabulary measures. Method and Procedure: Vocabulary assessments were used to measure vocabulary skills of 245 first year students in an area of socioeconomic disadvantage. A Pre-Post-Test repeated measures design was used. Two schools (149 students) received a twelve week teacher-led vocabulary intervention, in collaboration with a Speech and Language Therapist. Two schools (96 students) did not receive intervention. Results: Treated schools raw scores improved significantly more than the Control schools on three assessments; the ‘Word Classes Expressive’ subtest, the ‘Word Associations’ subtest and ‘BPVS3’ assessment. There was a weak significant negative relationship between students’ ‘SDQ’ ‘Overall Stress’ score and amount of improvement they made on the vocabulary measures. Conclusions and Implications: The vocabulary intervention significantly improved scores of first students attending the Treated schools, in comparison to Control Schools. This suggests that the whole class vocabulary intervention was successful at improving some vocabulary learning skills. A weak significant relationship between behaviour and vocabulary improvement suggests that, students with greater social, emotional and behavioural difficulties did not improve as much as other students. This warrants further research.