The Accessibility of Academic Vocabulary to Spanish SpeakingHigh School Biology Students

Deborah K. Reed, Luis A. Medina, Norma A. Martinez, Lorena G. Veleta

The High School Journal, Volume 97, Number 2, Winter 2013, pp. 80-91(Article)

Published by The University of North Carolina PressDOI: 10.1353/hsj.2013.0025

For additional information about this article

Access provided by Florida State University Libraries (4 Feb 2014 12:04 GMT)

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hsj/summary/v097/97.2.reed.html

The Accessibility of Academic Vocabulary to Spanish SpeakingHigh School Biology Students

Deborah K. ReedFlorida State University, Florida Center for Reading Research

dkreed@fcrr.org

Luis A. MedinaThe University of Texas at El Paso

lamedina@miners.utep.edu

Norma A. MartinezThe University of Texas at El Paso

namartinez4@miners.utep.edu

Lorena G. VeletaThe University of Texas at El Paso

lgveleta@miners.utep.edu

One recommendation for better preparing English language learners (ELLs) forscientific fields is to capitalize on Spanish speakers’ knowledge of cognates. How-ever, little is known about the presence of cognates in high school biology content.This study examined the linguistic basis of 968 terms co-occurring in at least oneof four textbooks and one of five sets of biology standards. Approximately 85.5%of terms were Spanish-English cognates, another 7.5% were partial cognates, and1% had false cognates. Most terms were low frequency in both English (91%) andSpanish (89%). The discussion addresses the implications for teaching ELLs aca-demic language and science content.

Recent educational reform efforts have elevated the profile of science, technology,engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses in the preparation of students forpostsecondary endeavors (U.S. Department of Education, 2010 March). The U.S.Department of Education’s Race to the Top initiative (as funded by the AmericanRecovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) required applicant states to address rigorouscourses of study in the STEM fields, particularly for underrepresented groups suchas English language learners (ELLs; U.S. Department of Education, 2010). Successfulproposals included plans to align biology courses to the Common Core State Stan-dards (CCSS), add biology to graduation requirements, and develop assessments forbiology content (RMC Research Corporation, 2011).

An increase in the number of students who are proficient in STEM subjects is con-sidered critical to U.S. competitiveness in the global economy (Jones, 2008). However,

© 2013 The University of North Carolina Press

80

35% of eighth graders scored below basic on the 2011 National Assessment of Edu-cational Progress (NAEP) science test (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES],2012). Although the average scale score of most students demonstrated a small butsignificant increase from 2009 to 2011, there was no significant improvement reportedfor ELLs. A scale score of 141 denotes performance at a basic level, but ELLs had anaverage scale score of 106 compared to the non-ELL average scale score of 154.

Over 10% of the school-aged population in the U.S. is classified as ELL, and approxi-mately 79% of those are from Spanish speaking backgrounds (Loeffer, 2007). Inmany communities, official classification as ELL does not capture all of the studentswho speak Spanish at home. Under Title I, Part A, of the amended Elementary andSecondary Education Act (ESEA), students are considered to have limited profi-ciency if English is not their native language and their difficulty understandingEnglish is sufficient enough to deny them the ability to succeed in academic class-rooms and on state assessments (No Child Left Behind Act, 2001). That definitionwould omit students whose parents decline to have their children participate inan ELL program, those who speak Spanish in the home but whose parents donot report Spanish to be their child’s “native language” on the home languagesurvey, or students who are Spanish-English bilingual. Therefore, it may be helpfulto look more broadly at the academic performance of Hispanic students, regard-less of their language status, to better contextualize the performance of Spanishspeaking adolescents.

Unfortunately, this ethnic subgroup did not fare much better on the 2011 NAEPeighth grade science test. The average scale score of Hispanic students was 137,which was well below the 163 average scale score of White students (NCES, 2012).Approximately 21% of the test takers were Hispanic, but among those scoring belowthe 25th percentile, 35% were Hispanic. ELLs and Hispanic students also demon-strated lower performance on the NAEP reading and writing tests (NCES, 2009;Salahu-Din, Persky, & Miller, 2008). This is important to understanding students’science scores because evidence suggests that lower literacy levels impact students’science content learning (O’Reilly & McNamara, 2007). A study conducted by ACT(2008) found that only 1% of students who did not meet the EXPLORE1 ReadingBenchmark were able to meet the EXPLORE Science Benchmark; whereas, 31%of students who met the EXPLORE Reading Benchmark also met the ScienceBenchmark. In addition, researchers have found moderate associations betweensecondary students’ scores on vocabulary probes and science content knowledge(Borsuk, 2010; Busch, Lembke, Seo, & Espin, 2002; Espin & Deno, 1994–1995). Therelationship between literacy and science achievement is believed to be even morecritical for ELLs (Torres & Zeidler, 2002).

The Role of Vocabulary in ELLs’ Science LearningTextbooks are the primary vehicle for delivering science content instruction(Craig & Yore, 1996; van den Broek, 2010) but are challenging for students tounderstand (Gee, 2004; Snow, 2002). This difficulty in reading to learn science is par-tially attributable to the kinds of vocabulary included: terms that convey scientificconcepts are rarely used in everyday English but occur quite frequently in textbooks(Fang, 2006). They tend to be longer, multimorphemic words that tax the wordrecognition skills of adolescents with reading difficulties (Bhattacharya, 2006).

1 The EXPLORE Test is operated by ACT and consists of four multiple-choice tests (i.e., English, Math,Reading, Science) administered to students in grades 8 and 9. It is intended to help students plan theirhigh school coursework, prepare for the ACT test for college admissions, and consider their futurecareer options.

Accessibility of Academic Vocabulary to Biology Students

81

Moreover, vocabulary are presented in clusters related to a concept and are usedto form the context for that concept (Bravo, Hiebert, & Pearson, 2007). Hence,knowledge of the terms is inextricably linked to content knowledge.

When science texts and oral instruction are presented entirely in English, students’proficiency with the language “becomes a de facto prerequisite for science learning”(Lee, 2005, p. 493). High school biology teachers have acknowledged that readingis integral to learning science, even though they do not report actively incorporatingliteracy instruction into their lessons (DiGisi & Willett, 1995). Without explicitguidance and prompting to use literacy practices in science lesson activities, it seemsunlikely that students will become self-directed in doing so. In fact, adolescents ofvarying ability levels have not demonstrated proficiency with independently apply-ing cognitive strategies to support their reading and writing of science and socialstudies texts (Englert et al., 2009).

It has been suggested that content area vocabulary instruction attempt to capitalizeon bilingual students’ familiarity with cognates, or words with a similar pronuncia-tion, spelling, and meaning in two languages (August & Shanahan, 2006). Previousresearch suggests that students require instruction to develop awareness of cognates(García & Nagy, 1993), a skill found to correlate with students’ Spanish vocabularyknowledge (Malabonga, Kenyon, Carlo, August, & Louguit, 2008) and found to trans-fer to English (Jimenez, García, & Pearson, 1996). Emphasizing cognates would alsofacilitate pronunciation of the target words because Spanish is a more orthographi-cally shallow language than English and, therefore, has a closer sound-symbol corre-spondence (Goikoetxea, 2006). An examination of 86 terms in a science curriculumfor the primary grades indicated that as many as 76% of the key words werecognates, about half of which occurred with greater frequency in Spanish than inEnglish (Bravo et al., 2007).

It is unknown whether these features of science vocabulary remain true in highschool where STEM courses, such as the biology course emphasized in recent reforminitiatives, are more closely linked to college and career readiness (ACT, 2008; RMCResearch Corporation, 2011). Biology is commonly taken in ninth grade, a school yearconsidered particularly critical for students’ academic success and school completion(Chapman, Laird, & KewalRamani, 2010). Therefore, information about the linguisticbasis of biology vocabulary would help guide the development of appropriate instruc-tional practices with the potential to improve ELLs’ academic language and scienceoutcomes. If the biology content of high school courses contains a large number ofSpanish-English cognates that are commonly used terms among native Spanishspeakers, it may be worthwhile to prepare materials that draw upon and/or trainteachers to use the shared linguistic basis of the terminology conveying importantscientific information. Conversely, if the biology content contains few cognates, thenresources and recommendations might be better directed toward other efforts.

Hence, the purpose of this exploratory study was to expand on the work of Bravo andcolleagues (2007) by examining the linguistic basis of high school biology terms. Itaddressed the following research questions: (a) What proportion of biology termsoccurring in high school textbooks and biology standards are Spanish-English cog-nates; and (b) What proportion of biology terms are high frequency words in Englishor Spanish?

MethodIdentification of key biology terms was done in two phases. The first involvedreviewing the textbooks and standards that define high school biology curricula.

The High School Journal – Winter 2013

82

This included culling vocabulary from the glossaries and teaching guides of thefollowing publishers’ materials: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston (Postlethwait & Hopson,2006); Glencoe/McGraw Hill (Biggs et al., 2004); Pearson (Biology Classic PlaceEdition, n.d.; Miller & Levine, 2004); and Region 4 Education Service Center (2010).These texts were chosen after querying school districts in several states (i.e., California,Florida, New York, Texas, and Virginia) as to which biology textbooks they adoptedfor use. Copies of those most commonly used were borrowed from the school districtsand, where applicable, the glossaries were also accessed from the publishers’ web-sites. The latter step was deemed necessary when the version of the text used bythe school district was not the most current edition of the text. The versions werecross-referenced and all words appearing in either edition were included.

In addition to the search of commonly used textbooks, six documents outliningbiology standards were read in their entirety to determine the terms and conceptsspecified as expectations for students’ learning. Those documents included theCalifornia (California State Board of Education, 1998), Florida (Florida Departmentof Education, 2008), New York (The University of the State of New York, StateEducation Department, 2005), Texas (Texas Education Agency, 2009), and Virginia(Commonwealth of Virginia Board of Education, 2003) state standards as well asthe Advanced Placement (AP) biology course and examination description (CollegeBoard, 2012). California, Florida, New York, and Texas were chosen based onthe size of their student populations and high concentration of ELLs (Capps, Fix,Murray, Ost, Passel, & Herwantoro, 2005). Virginia was included because it isamong only six states experiencing over 200% growth in the ELL student popula-tion (U.S. Department of Education, 2011). The Advanced Placement (AP) biologycourse description was reviewed to offer a set of college readiness standards thatare shared across the nation. The development of all textbooks and standardsincluded in this study reportedly involved consultation with experts in and teachersof biology.

The second phase involved narrowing the list to those vocabulary words thatco-occurred in at least one textbook and one set of standards. Technical assis-tance provided to teachers suggests that terms appearing in state standards begiven higher instructional priority (Marzano & Pickering, 2005). Therefore, a termonly located in a textbook but not specifically included in any standards wasassumed to be afforded less instructional significance. Similarly, terms drawnfrom the state standards that were not incorporated into commonly used curricularmaterials were assumed to be inconsistently taught. This is because textbooks are theprimary means by which science content is conveyed (Craig & Yore, 1996; van denBroek, 2010), so any terms not included in popular biology texts would requiremore deliberate attention from and planning by individual teachers.

Once the key vocabulary were identified, the Spanish equivalent of each term wasobtained by consulting the Spanish glossaries provided with three sources (Biggset al., 2004; Miller & Levine, 2004; The University of the State of New York, StateEducation Department, 2009), a Spanish-English dictionary used by Bravo and col-leagues (2007; Spanish-English Online Dictionary, 2000), a Spanish-English cognatedictionary divided by subject area (Nash, 1997), and two graduate assistants (GAs)who were native Spanish speakers with professional experience in STEM fields.The GAs had documented oral and written proficiency in Spanish and English:one completed high school in Mexico and had returned to Mexico to work asan engineer after earning a Bachelor’s degree in the United States, and the otherGA had to pass a Spanish-English translation test as part of the hiring process.

Accessibility of Academic Vocabulary to Biology Students

83

The Real Academia Española (2012) was used to confirm Spanish equivalents.If there were two acceptable Spanish equivalents for an English term (e.g., theEnglish term mixture can be mezcla or mixtura in Spanish), both were retainedfor consideration.

When all of the terms were listed in both English and Spanish, the two GAs inde-pendently coded each Spanish equivalent as either a cognate, partial cognate, ornon-cognate. Terms were considered partial cognates if they were comprised oftwo or more words of which some but not all of the words were cognates. Forexample, the term vascular tissue has the Spanish equivalent tejido vascular. Onlyone word in the pair comprising the term has a cognate: vascular/vascular. Simi-larly, the multiple word term sliding filament theory has the Spanish equivalentteoría del filamento deslizante, of which only the word filament has a cognate:filamento. Non-cognates were either single words or multiple word terms that didnot have a Spanish equivalent with a similar sound, spelling, and pronunciationsuch as fins/aletas and death rate/índice de mortalidad. Any terms with alternativeSpanish equivalents were coded as cognates or partial cognates if one of the two accept-able Spanish equivalents was a cognate or partial cognate with the English term.Using the earlier example of mixture, mezcla is not a cognate but mixtura is. There-fore, the biology term would have been coded as a Spanish-English cognate.

No words were decomposed into their constituent morphemes (i.e., prefixes, roots,and suffixes). Rather, they were left as whole words and only considered cognatesif the whole word had a similar sound, spelling, and definition in both Englishand Spanish. Work by Lubliner and Hiebert (2011) found that cognates vary intheir degree of transparency, or obvious match. Therefore, it is important to notethat words with phonologic (related to pronunciation) and orthographic (related tospelling) shifts still were classified as cognates. Examples of cognates with thesekinds of shifts include: abiotic and abiótico, lichen and liquen, petiole and peciolo,secretion and secreción.

Inter-rater reliability, calculated as the number of agreements divided by the totalterms evaluated, was .94. Of the disagreements, 48 concerned whether multiple wordterms should be considered partial cognates or non-cognates. In addition, therewere six terms on which the GAs disagreed with the Spanish equivalent obtainedfrom the glossary of a source. All disagreements were resolved in discussion witha third native Spanish speaking GA who was pursuing a graduate degree in scienceeducation and was a certified Spanish-English bilingual educator, which requiresoral and written proficiency in both languages.

After examining the list for cognates, the terms were evaluated again to determinewhether any had a false cognate in Spanish, or a word that had a similar pronuncia-tion and spelling but a different meaning. This was done to determine the potentialthat an emphasis on similar sounding biology terms might contribute to studentconfusion. False cognates were identified by consulting a dictionary of false cognates(Prado, 1993) and the native Spanish speaking GAs. As in English, some Spanishterms are polysemous. Therefore, false cognates were operationalized as only thoseSpanish terms with a similar pronunciation and spelling that did not have at leastone meaning consistent with the English definition applied in the biology textbooksand standards.

Finally, the English and Spanish word frequency counts for all terms were obtainedusing available online tools: the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA;Davies, 2008) and the Corpus del Español (CdE; Davies, 2002). The COCA is based

The High School Journal – Winter 2013

84

on 450 million words found in English language texts from 1990–2012 with approxi-mately 20 million words coming from each of the inclusive years. The texts used tocompile the corpus were evenly balanced across a variety of genres: spoken, fiction,popular magazines, newspapers, and academic journals of all major disciplines. TheCOCA was chosen because it is larger, more diverse, and more current than othercommonly used corpora for determining word frequencies (e.g., Ide & Macleod,2001; Zeno, Ivens, Millard, & Duvvuri, 1995).

The CdE is based on 20 million words found in Spanish language texts in the 1900s.Although the full corpus includes 100 million words dating back to the 1200s, onlythe most recent century was searched in an effort to be more consistent with theupdated COCA. Sources of words in the CdE include over 12,500 texts from a varietyof sources: academic, news, literature, and interviews. Using Bravo and colleagues’(2007) criteria, terms occurring less than 10 times per one million word corpus wereconsidered low frequency, and terms occurring 10 or more times per million wordcorpus were considered high frequency. These same rules were applied to evaluatingboth the English and Spanish variations.

ResultsA total of 2,819 unique terms were identified in the first phase. As described in themethods, a single “term” may contain multiple words such as the term polymerasechain reaction. Despite the involvement of expert panels in the development of alltextbooks and standards examined, there was proportionally little overlap amongthe terms that each included for ninth grade biology instruction. After the secondphase, or elimination, of the vocabulary not found in both types of sources (i.e.,textbooks and standards), 968 biology terms remained in the list. That represents34% of the original 2,819 identified. Of the 968 terms co-occurring in at least onetextbook and one set of standards, only 12 terms (1% of the narrowed list) weredetermined to have an alternative Spanish equivalent such as the alternativesmezcla or mixtura for the English mixture.

Table 1 displays the distribution of cognate types across the biology vocabulary eval-uated in this study. Of the 968 terms, 85.5% were Spanish cognates. This included276 terms that were comprised of two or more words, all of which functioned as cog-nates. An additional 7.5% of the terms were multiword terms of which some words,but not all, were cognates. Hence, only 7% did not contain a single word that had asimilar pronunciation, spelling, and meaning as the English term. Among the 73 partialcognates, 63 were two-word terms in which one of the two words had a cognate.Seven other partial cognates were three-word terms with one (n 5 1) or two (n 5 6)words having a cognate. Two of the 73 partial cognates were four-word terms withone of the words having a cognate, and one was a five-word term with two of thewords having a cognate.

Within the set of 66 non-cognates, six terms were identified as false cognates becausethey could be matched to a Spanish word with a similar sound and spelling but didnot share the appropriate meaning. The only other false cognate was identified in theset of partial cognates. The term large intestine contained one word with a Spanishequivalent that had a similar pronunciation and meaning, intestino. However, theother word of the term could be matched to a Spanish word with a similar soundand spelling, largo, which means “long” or “abundant” rather than “large.” In all,slightly less than 1% of the English biology terms had a false cognate in Spanish.

As can be seen from the distributions in Table 1, most of the 968 terms were deter-mined to occur with low frequency in English (91%) and Spanish (89%). These

Accessibility of Academic Vocabulary to Biology Students

85

percentages did not change when examining the subset of terms that were cognates.Partial cognates were even more likely to occur with low frequency, constituting 99%of the English terms and 100% of their Spanish equivalents. The proportion ofhigh frequency terms with no shared cognate was greater (29%) in both the Englishand Spanish lists. Among the seven Spanish false cognates identified, 86% occurredwith high frequency in the language.

DiscussionThe results of this study examining the linguistic basis of high school biologyvocabulary revealed that most of the 968 terms were cognates and of low frequencyin both English and Spanish. The previous work by Bravo and colleagues (2007)that examined only 86 life and earth science words in the primary grades founda slightly lower proportion of cognates (76%) but a much higher proportion ofwords that were high frequency in Spanish (38% of their total list and 50% of theirsubset of cognates). What seems evident in the comparison of findings from theBravo et al. study to the present one is that as the biology terminology becomesmore complex, it also becomes increasingly discipline specific and narrower inutility. Hence, it would be uncommon for speakers of either English or Spanish to haveencountered high school level vocabulary outside of the context of biology instruction.

However, the discipline specific nature of the terms might also contribute to theiruniversality across languages. Because they are highly technical and specific, theyhave not experienced the kinds of culturally rooted changes across time experiencedby language of more common usage (Aitchison, 1991). Rather, the more advancedbiology terms often have only been changed from their original in orthographicrepresentation, such as the alphabet used and corresponding phonological rulesapplied. This difference between common and discipline specific terms can be seenin words like seed and chlorophyll. Seed has a high frequency in English where it

Table 1: Distribution of Biology Terms

Number ofTerms

Word FrequencyLF English/LF Spanish

HF English/LF Spanish

HF English/HF Spanish

LF English/HF Spanish

All BiologyTerms

968 839 21 70 38

Biology Terms by Cognate TypeFullCognates

829 725 15 56 33

PartialCognates

73 72 1 0 0

No SharedCognate

66 42 5 14 5

FalseCognates*

7 0 1 1 5

Note. LF 5 low frequency; HF 5 high frequency.*Because false cognates are terms that have a different meaning, the number counted hereoverlaps the counts of other cognate types which are based on equivalent definitions in Englishand Spanish. Six of the false cognates were identified within the list of terms for which theactual Spanish equivalent had no shared cognates with the English terms. One false cognatewas identified within the list of terms for which the actual Spanish equivalent had a partialcognate with the English term.

The High School Journal – Winter 2013

86

is used for more than conveying biology content (e.g., plant a seed in your mind;grant seed money to start a project) and no shared cognate with its high frequencySpanish equivalent semilla. The low frequency term chlorophyll, which has noapplication outside of biology content, is only changed in spelling to the low fre-quency Spanish cognate clorofila.

The orthographic representation of chlorophyll/clorofila, and others like it, hasimportant implications for instruction. Although Spanish speaking students haveno advantage over their monolingual English counterparts when it comes to know-ing the meaning of such a rare word, Spanish speakers will be better able to pro-nounce the cognate. The closer sound-symbol relationship of Spanish as comparedto English (Goikoetxea, 2006) makes it more likely students independently can pro-duce the correct pronunciation of clorofila than chlorophyll. Far from trivial, wordidentification has been linked to students’ success in content areas because it facili-tates their access to curricular materials and enables them to demonstrate their con-ceptual learning (Bhattacharya, 2006).

Consistent with recommendations for teaching ELLs (Francis, River, Lesaux, Kieffer,Rivera, 2006), this aspect of cognates used in biology classes might assist in makingthe input comprehensible, giving students greater confidence to participate in oralinteractions, and reinforcing alternate English spellings for certain sounds. How-ever, cognates involve a variety of phonologic and orthographic shifts (Lubliner &Hiebert, 2011), which may contribute to students not recognizing them intuitively(García & Nagy, 1993). Therefore, it would be necessary for a teacher to use appro-priate Spanish equivalents purposefully and make overt connections between theway the terms are written and pronounced in the two languages. This may be par-ticularly critical for multiword terms in which the order of the words in a nounphrase is altered when going from English to Spanish or vice versa. For example, theterm follicle stimulating hormone has the Spanish cognate hormona estimulante delfolículo that reverses the order in which the modifiers are placed relative to thetarget noun and adds an article (del).

Results of this study suggest cognates may be a useful intermediary tool for sup-porting students’ pronunciation of important terms if two important caveats can beaddressed. First, appropriate instructional practices must be developed to movestudents from the Spanish to the English word identification in order to lessen thebottom-up processing demands of reading biology texts. Second, instruction incognates must take into account the fact that identifying the words is not thesame thing as knowing what they mean. The evidence from the frequency of theterms suggests that pointing out Spanish-English cognates in biology will not suf-fice for vocabulary instruction because the high school level terms probably are asunfamiliar in Spanish as they are in English. Mispronunciations made by mono-lingual English students can serve as an indicator that further instruction is neededto build the students’ knowledge of the term and the concept that it represents. Inthe absence of this cue from bilingual students who have been taught to rely on theSpanish cognate for word identification, teachers may mistakenly assume a level ofunderstanding that is not present. Consequently, they may fail to provide more com-prehensive vocabulary and content instruction that the bilingual students needed.

The similar sound and spelling of a cognate pair are seductively salient features,but without a connection to the term’s meaning there is limited value to contentlearning. The emphasis on meaning would also ensure the very few false cognatesidentified did not create unnecessary confusion for students. It is worth reiteratingthat knowledge of vocabulary is considered necessary for developing conceptual

Accessibility of Academic Vocabulary to Biology Students

87

knowledge (Fang, 2006), and fourth-grade ELLs have demonstrated greater improve-ments in academic language when provided explicit and intensive instructionin science content terms that included cognate knowledge activities (Taboada &Rutherford, 2011). As the authors of the latter study noted, cognates are essentiallyword labels that assist students with superficial features of the term but are insuffi-cient at fostering deeper understanding without more robust instruction in the con-cepts they are labeling.

LimitationsThe selection of biology terms was conducted to identify those most likely to begeneralized to a number of states and a variety of curricular programs. However,the process potentially excluded or included vocabulary such that the list mightnot be well aligned to a particular state or school district framework. A large number(n 5 1,851) of uniquely occurring words was eliminated when narrowing the list,so it is possible the original 2,819 terms are more representative of the biologyvocabulary students encounter across their educational experiences. The selectionprocess also did not include querying experts in biology about the importance ofthe terms to content learning. The textbooks and standards examined in this studyall referred to panels of experts assembled to create or review the products, but theterms identified in those sources were not independently verified. It was decidedthat, regardless of what independent experts might recommend, ultimately theterms being taught to students are those that are stipulated by the state standards(Marzano & Pickering, 2005) or incorporated into the primary instructional vehicle(Craig & Yore, 1996; van den Broek, 2010). In fact, Weiss (2001) found that most ofthe large number of teachers surveyed considered their textbooks to be “of relativelyhigh quality” (p. 86). Whether or not having confidence in and relying almost exclu-sively upon textbooks is wise or malleable must be taken up in other research.

Directions for Future ResearchIt is important to keep in mind that the list of terms analyzed here was not devisedas a blueprint for vocabulary instruction in a high school biology course. Rather,the intent of this study was to determine the potential for Spanish-English cog-nates to leverage the development of academic language and biology contentknowledge among the largest group of ELLs in U.S. public schools – irrespectiveof the specific curriculum framework or textbook currently in use in a given class-room. A search of the extant literature revealed only one intervention study thatincorporated cognates (August, Branum-Martin, Cardenas-Hagan, & Francis, 2009).This was conducted with sixth grade Spanish speakers, and the specific instruc-tional procedures were very briefly described as: “Students were taught strategiesto improve word learning (i.e., drawing on cognate knowledge; using root words,base words, and affixes)” (p. 354). Hence, future studies are needed to developthe effective practices and materials for cognate instruction that could be tied effi-ciently to a high school biology course.

Previous research suggests general education teachers are more apt to implementaccommodations for ELLs if those practices do not require much extra time, prepa-ration, assistance, or changes to the teachers’ typical practices (Platt, Harper, &Mendoza, 2003). Other research has found high school biology teachers rarelyimplement literacy instruction within science lessons (DiGisi & Willett, 1995).Unfortunately, working with Spanish-English cognates as part of providing richvocabulary instruction is probably a dramatic departure from the textbook bound“business as usual” condition in most high school biology classes. Hence, thereis still a great deal of work to do in translating the high proportion of cognates

The High School Journal – Winter 2013

88

and low frequency terms into instruction that will be feasible for teachers and effec-tive at improving outcomes for ELLs.

ReferencesACT. (2008). The forgotten middle: Ensuring that all students are on target for college and career readiness

before high school. Retrieved from http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/pdf/ForgottenMiddle.pdf.Aitchison, J. (1991). Language change: Progress or decay? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: Public Law 111–5, 26 U.S.C. § 1 (2009).August, D., Branum-Martin, L., Cardenas-Hagan, E., & Francis, D. J. (2009). The impact of an instructional

intervention on the science and language learning of middle grade English language learners. Journal ofResearch on Educational Effectiveness, 2(4), 345–376. doi: 10.1080/19345740903217623.

August, D., & Shanahan, T. (2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners: Report of the NationalLiteracy Panel on language-minority children and youth. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Retrieved from http://www.cal.org/projects/archive/nlpreports/executive_summary.pdf.

Bhattacharya, A. (2006). Syllable-based reading strategy for mastery of scientific information. Remedial &Special Education, 27(2), 116–123. doi: 10.1177/07419325060270020201.

Biggs, A., Hagins W. C., Kapicka, C., Lundren, L., Rillero, P., Tallman K. G., & Zike, D. (2004). Biology:The dynamics of life. Columbus, Ohio: Glencoe/McGraw Hill.

Biology Place Classic Edition. (n.d.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education. Retrieved from http://www.phschool.com/science/biology_place/glossary/.

Borsuk, E. R. (2010). Examination of an administrator-read vocabulary-matching measure as an indicator ofscience achievement.Assessment for Effective Intervention, 35(3), 168–177. doi: 10.1177/1534508410372081.

Bravo, M. A., Hiebert, E. H., & Pearson, P. D. (2007). Tapping the linguistic resources of Spanish-Englishbilinguals: The role of cognates in science. In R. K. Wagner, A. E. Muse, & K. R. Tannenbaum (Eds.),Vocabulary acquisition: Implications for reading comprehension (pp. 140–156). New York: Guilford Press.

Busch, T. W., Lembke, E., Seo, K., & Espin, C. A. (2002, April). Curriculum-based measurement inscience: How much are students with LD learning? Paper presented at the Council for ExceptionalChildren Annual Conference, New York.

California State Board of Education. (1998). Science content standards for California public schools.Sacramento, CA: Author. Retrieved from http://www.cde.ca.gov/be/st/ss/documents/sciencestnd.pdf.

Capps, R., Fix, M., Murray, J., Ost, J., Passel, J., & Herwantoro, S. (2005). The new demography of America’sschools: Immigration and the No Child Left Behind Act. Washington, D.C: The Urban Institute.

Chapman, C., Laird, J., and KewalRamani, A. (2010). Trends in High School Dropout and Completion Ratesin the United States: 1972–2008 (NCES 2011-012). National Center for Education Statistics, Instituteof Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.

College Board. (2012). Advanced Placement biology course and exam description: Effective fall 2012.Retrieved from http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/public/repository/AP_BiologyCED_Effective_Fall_2012_lkd.pdf.

Commonwealth of Virginia Board of Education. (2003). Science standards of learning curriculum frame-work: Biology. Richmond, Virginia: Author. Retrieved from http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/frameworks/science_framewks/framework_science-bio.pdf.

Craig, M. T., & Yore, L. D. (1996). Middle school students’ awareness of strategies of resolving compre-hension difficulties in science teaching. Journal of Research and Development in Education, 29(4),226–238.

Davies, M. (2008). The corpus of contemporary American English: 450 million words, 1990-present.Retrieved from http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/.

Davies, M. (2002). Corpus del Español: 100 million words, 1200s–1900s. Retrieved from http://www.corpusdelespanol.org.

DiGisi, L., & Willet, J. (1995). What high school biology teachers say about their textbook use: A descrip-tive study. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 32(2), 123–142. doi: 10.1002/tea.3660320204.

Englert, C. S., Mariage, T. V., Okolo, C. M., Shankland, R. K., Moxley, K. D., Courtad, C. A., Meier, B.,O’Brien, J. C., Martin, N., & Chen, H. Y. (2009). The learning-to-learn strategies of adolescent stu-dents with disabilities: Highlighting, notetaking, planning, and writing expository texts. Assessmentfor Effective Intervention, 34(3), 147–161. doi: 10.1177/1534508408318804.

Espin, C. A., & Deno, S. L. (1994–1995). Curriculum-based measures for secondary students: Utility andtask specificity of text-based Reading and vocabulary measures for predicting performance on content-area tasks. Diagnostique, 20(1), 121–142.

Fang, Z. (2006). The language demands of science reading in middle school. International Journal ofScience Education, 28(5), 491–520. doi: 10.1080/09500690500339092.

Florida Department of Education. (2008). Standards information and resources: Life science grade 9to 12. Miami, FL: Author. Retrieved from http://www.floridastandards.org/Standards/FLStandardSearch.aspx.

Francis, D., Rivera, M., Lesaux, N., Kieffer, M., & Rivera, H. (2006). Practical guidelines for the educa-tion of English language learners: Research-based recommendations for instruction and academicinterventions. Portsmouth, NH: RMC Research Corporation, Center on Instruction. Retrieved fromhttp://www.centeroninstruction.org/files/ELL1-Interventions.pdf.

Accessibility of Academic Vocabulary to Biology Students

89

García, G. E., & Nagy, W. E. (1993). Latino students’ concept of cognates. In D. Leu & C. K. Kinzer (Eds.),Examining central issues in literacy research, theory, and practice (pp. 367–373). Chicago: Yearbookof the National Reading Conference (Vol. 42).

Gee, J. P. (2004). Language in the science classroom: Academic social languages as the heart of school-based literacy. In E. W. Saul (Ed.), Crossing borders in literacy and science instruction: Perspectiveson theory and practice (pp. 383–394). Newark, DE: International Reading Association, and Arlington, VA:National Science Teachers Association.

Goikoetxea, E. (2006). Reading errors in first- and second-grade readers of a shallow orthography: Evidencefrom Spanish. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 76(2), 333–350. doi: 10.1348/000709905X52490.

Ide, N., & Macleod, C. (2001). The American National Corpus: A standardized resource of AmericanEnglish. Proceedings of Corpus Linguistics 2001, Lancaster UK. Retrieved from http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~ide/papers/CorpLing01.pdf.

Jimenez, R. T., García, G. E., & Pearson, D. P. (1996). The reading strategies of bilingual Latina/o studentswho are successful English readers: Opportunities and obstacles. Reading Research Quarterly, 31(1),90–112. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.31.1.5.

Jones, R. B. (2008). Science, technology, engineering, and math. SETDA. Retrieved from http://www.setda.org/c/document_library/get_file?folderId5270&name5DLFE-246.doc.

Lee, O. (2005). Science education with English language learners: Synthesis and research agenda. Reviewof Educational Research, 75(4), 491–530. doi: 10.3102/00346543075004491.

Loeffer, M. (2007). NCELA Fast FAQ 4: What languages do ELLs speak? Washington, D.C: NationalClearing House for English-Language Acquisition and Language Instruction.

Lubliner, S., & Hiebert, E. H. (2011). An analysis of English-Spanish cognates as a source of generalacademic language. Bilingual Research Journal, 34(1), 76–93. doi: 10.1080/15235882.2011.568589.

Malabonga, V., Kenyon, D. M., Carlo, M., August, D., & Louguit, M. (2008). Development of a cognateawareness measure for Spanish-speaking English language learners. Language Testing, 25(4), 495–519.doi: 10.1177/0265532208094274.

Marzano, R. J., & Pickering, D. J. (2005). Building academic vocabulary: A teacher’s manual. Alexandria,VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Miller, K., & Levine, J. (2004). Biology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Pearson Education Inc.Nash, R. (1997). NTC’s dictionary of Spanish cognates thematically organized. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.National Center for Education Statistics. (2009). The Nation’s Report Card: Reading 2009 (NCES 2010–458).

Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C.National Center for Education Statistics. (2012). The Nation’s Report Card: Science 2011 (NCES 2012-465).

Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C.No Child Left Behind Act of 2001: Public Law 107-110, 20 U.S.C. § 6301 (2002).O’Reilly, T. O., & McNamara, D. S. (2007). The impact of science knowledge, reading skill, and reading

strategy knowledge on more traditional “high-stakes” measures of students’ science achievement.American Educational Research Journal, 44(1), 161–196. doi: 10.3102/0002831206298171.

Platt, E., Harper, C., & Mendoza, M. B. (2003). Dueling philosophies: Inclusion or separation for Florida’sEnglish language learners. TESOL Quarterly, 37(1), 105–133. doi: 10.2307/3588467.

Postlethwait, J. H., & Hopson, J. L. (2006). Modern biology. Austin, TX: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Prado, M. (1993). NTC’s dictionary of Spanish false cognates. Chicago, IL: NTC Publishing Group.Real Academia Española. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.rae.es/diccionario/drae.htm.Region 4 Education Service Center. (2010). Gateways to biology: Our living planet. Houston, Texas: Author.RMC Research Corporation. (2011). Summary of funded Race to the Top applications: Science, technology,

engineering, and mathematics activities in eleven states and the District of Columbia. Portsmouth,NH: Center on Instruction.

Salahu-Din, D., Persky, H., and Miller, J. (2008). The Nation’s Report Card: Writing 2007 (NCES 2008–468).National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education,Washington, D.C.

Snow, C. (2002). Reading for understanding: Toward an R&D program in reading comprehension. SantaMonica, CA: RAND.

Spanish-English Online Dictionary. (2000). Retrieved from www.dictionaries.travlang.com/SpanishEnglish.Taboada, A., & Rutherford, V. (2011). Developing reading comprehension and academic vocabulary for

English language learners through science content: A formative experiment. Reading Psychology, 32(2),113–157. doi: 10.1080/02702711003604468.

Texas Education Agency. (2009). Texas essential knowledge and skills for science: Subchapter C §112.34:High school: Biology. Retrieved from http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter112/ch112c.html#112.34.

Torres, K., & Zeidler, D. L. (2002). The effects of English language proficiency and scientific reasoningskills on the acquisition of science content knowledge by Hispanic English language learners andnative English language speaking students. Electronic Journal of Science Education, 6(3). Retrievedfrom http://wolfweb.unr.edu/homepage/crowther/ejse/torreszeidler.pdf.

United States Department of Education. (2010, March). A blueprint for reform: The reauthorization ofthe elementary and secondary education act. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/blueprint.pdf.

United States Department of Education. (2010, May). Race to the Top program guidance and frequentlyasked questions. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from http://www2.ed./gov/programs/racetothetop/.

United States Department of Education. (2011). The growing number of English language learner stu-dents: 2009/10. Washington, DC: Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and

The High School Journal – Winter 2013

90

Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students (OELA). Retrieved from http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/files/uploads/9/growing_EL_0910.pdf.

The University of the State of New York, State Education Department. (2005). The Living Environment CoreCurriculum. Albany, NY: Author. Retrieved from http://www.p12.nysed.gov/ciai/mst/pub/livingen.pdf.

The University of the State of New York, State Education Department. (2009). High school level livingenvironment glossary English/Spanish: Translation of living environment terms based on the courseworkfor living environment grades 9–12. Albany, NY: Author. Retrieved from http://www.p12.nysed.gov/biling/docs/hs_livingenviron_spanish.pdf.

van den Broek, P. (2010). Using texts in science education: Cognitive processes and knowledge representa-tion. Science, 328(5977), 453–456. doi: 10.1126/science.1182594.

Weiss, I. R. (2001). Report of the 2000 national survey of science and mathematics education. ChapelHill, NC: Horizon Research.

Zeno, S. M., Ivens, S. H., Millard, R. T., & Duvvuri, R. (1995). The educator’s word frequency guide.New York: Touchstone Applied Science Associates, Inc.

Accessibility of Academic Vocabulary to Biology Students

91