The Relationship Between Cognate Awareness and English Comprehension Among Spanish—English Bilingual Fourth Grade Students

The Relationship Between Cognate Awareness and English Comprehension Among Spanish–English Bilingual Fourth Grade Students C PATRICK PROCTOR Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States ELAINE MO Center for Applied Special Technology Wakefield, Massachusetts, United States Second language (L2) learners are, to varying degrees, represented in enrollment percentages in school districts around the world Immigration trends in the United States, Canada, France, Spain, the Netherlands, and other countries have been on the rise for decades, and educators the world over are pressed to incorporate the linguistic needs of L2 learners with the more general curricular requirements that align with expectations of literacy achievement in their respective countries In recent years, efforts have been afoot to understand processes of literacy development among bilingual learners, particularly in the arena of cross-linguistic transfer, so that instruction might be better tailored to meet the distinct linguistic needs of bilingual children Although it appears clear that, for alphabetic languages, skills such as phonemic awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and word reading are quite robust in transferring between languages that share a common alphabet (e.g., Spanish and English, Spanish and French, English and Dutch), the extent of transferability for skills such as vocabulary knowledge is far less clear (Proctor, August, Carlo, & Snow, 2006) It is widely accepted that vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in first language (L1) and L2 reading achievement (Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Proctor, Carlo, August, & Snow, 2005), yet research is only just beginning to show that depth of vocabulary knowledge (e.g., morphological awareness) can leverage L1 literacy skills in the service of L2 reading comprehension One component of lexical depth is cognate recognition A cognate is a word that shares similar orthographic and semantic characteristics in two languages, such that the spelling and meaning of a word and its cognate are highly similar For example, rapid and rápido are Spanish–English cognates, and escuela, école, and escola are Spanish–French–Portuguese cognates Cognate recognition may be especially useful for L1-literate students who are reading academic L2 texts, because high frequency conversational words in Spanish, such as rápido, are often low frequency academic 126 TESOL QUARTERLY terms in English (e.g., rapid) This phenomenon is consistent for Spanish– English bilinguals in English-dominant countries worldwide The shared Latin base between high frequency Spanish words, like rápido, and low frequency English words, like rapid, theoretically may allow bilingual students to draw on their L1 knowledge in making sense of more challenging English vocabulary without any explicit vocabulary teaching (though explicit teaching does appear to help matters, as Nagy, García, Durguno˘glu, & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993, have shown) Indeed, teachers and researchers alike have reported on L1-literate students who appear to benefit from cognate recognition during L2 reading (HancinBhatt & Nagy, 1994; Jiménez, García, & Pearson, 1996) At present, however, relatively little is known about how cognate knowledge interacts with the English reading performance of Spanish–English bilinguals Hancin-Bhatt and Nagy (1994) have suggested that students’ cognate awareness is developmentally constrained The researchers investigated the cognate and noncognate translation abilities of Grade 4, 6, and Latino bilingual students and found a significant interaction between grade and cognate status They concluded that an age-based developmental trend in recognizing Spanish cognates accounted for a significant proportion of translation ability It is quite possible, however, that the discriminating effect of age may have been confounded with English language proficiency, opening a different, though clearly related, window on the developmental parameters of Spanish–English cognate recognition RESEARCH QUESTIONS Using English reading comprehension as the developmental benchmark within a group of monolingual and bilingual Grade students, this study sought to answer two research questions: Do Spanish-speaking bilinguals perform as well or better than English monolingual students on a reading vocabulary test that has a high percentage of Spanish–English cognates? What is the relationship between Spanish-speaking bilinguals’ knowledge of cognate reading vocabulary and English reading comprehension? METHOD Participants The participants were 30 Grade students in two classrooms in a medium-sized school district in Southern California The students were BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 127 recruited from two connected classrooms to participate in a 4-week intervention designed to promote vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension (for a report on the larger study, see Proctor, Dalton, & Grisham, 2007) The two teachers worked as a team with both of the classes, and they selected all of their Spanish–English bilinguals as well as monolingual English students whom they considered to be struggling with reading Thus, at the beginning of the intervention, the participating students were performing on average at the 31st percentile in reading comprehension on the Gates–MacGinitie Reading Comprehension subtest (MacGinitie, MacGinitie, Maria, & Dreyer, 2000) Performance at this level means 69% of the norming sample population outscored the students participating in the study The students were comprised of 16 Spanish–English bilinguals and 14 English monolinguals There were 11 boys and 19 girls The district in which the school was located was relatively affluent; however, this particular school was the sole recipient of Title I funds in the district, which were based on the percentage of students receiving free or reduced-price lunches Measures Reading Comprehension The Gates-MacGinitie Reading Comprehension subtest, a whole group, timed, multiple-choice assessment, was administered as a test of the students’ reading comprehension The assessment consisted of 14 passages followed by a series of questions, totaling 48, designed to capture main ideas and details described in a particular passage Students had 35 minutes to complete the assessment All scores are reported as percentiles Spanish–English Cognate Awareness The Cognate Awareness Test (Malabonga, Kenyon, August, Louguit, & Carlo, 2004) is a reading vocabulary assessment that consists of 48 items of both cognate and noncognate English words matched for frequency in English All words were of low frequency in English and 50% of them had Spanish cognates that are considered high frequency in Spanish (e.g., English tranquil and Spanish tranquilo); the other half had no Spanish cognate (e.g., frenzied) Students were presented with a target word and had to choose a correct synonym from a list of four possible responses This test was scored in four different ways Monolingual and bilingual students were compared by (a) their percentage correct on the test (variable 128 TESOL QUARTERLY RAW), (b) their percentage correct on noncognate (variable NONCOG) items on the assessment, (c) their percentage correct on the cognate items only (variable COG), and (d) the COG/RAW ratio (variable RATIO), which represents the percentage of total correct items on the assessment that were cognates Procedures The Cognate Awareness Test Malabonga and the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Comprehension subtest were administered in whole group settings to all 30 students following the intervention During this intervention, students read short Internet-based texts, narrative and informational Interactive supports that targeted depth and breadth of vocabulary development (Lively, August, Carlo, & Snow, 2003; Nagy, 1988) were embedded into the digital text (Proctor et al., 2007) In the digital environment, for each text, prereading vocabulary activities targeted five power words, all of which were Spanish–English cognates Students were exposed to the Spanish–English cognate relationship between each word by Al, a bilingual literacy coach embedded in the environment For example, Al’s script for the power word decorate was, The Spanish word for decorate is decorar Do you notice that these words look similar to each other? That means they’re cognates: words that look and mean the same in Spanish and English! Students were exposed to between 20 and 40 of these cognate alerts in total Both bilingual and monolingual students viewed the cognate alerts The fact that the monolinguals viewed Spanish translations and received cognate awareness instruction was considered beneficial by the students, their teachers, and their parents because the district considered foreign language instruction a priority A set of analyses was conducted to investigate performance differences and associations between bilingual and monolingual students on the Gates-MacGinitie and the four variables of interest: RAW, NONCOG, COG, and RATIO RESULTS Table displays the means, standard deviations, ranges, t-statistics, and significance levels for reading comprehension and the cognate awareness overall test scores (RAW) by bilingual (BIL) status Individual t tests for equality of means indicated that bilinguals and monolinguals differed significantly on reading comprehension (t = −2.61, p < 0.05) in favor of the monolingual students However, the total score for the Cognate Awareness Test showed no significant performance differences (t < 1.96) BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 129 TABLE Comparing Bilinguals and Monolinguals on Comprehension Scores and the Cognate Awareness Test (N = 30) Outcome Language status Mean (SD) Min-Max t Gates MacGinitie Comprehension percentile ranking Cognate Awareness Test Total percentage correct (RAW) BIL MONO BIL MONO 21.53 (16.80) 41.47 (24.38) 35.28 (0.12) 37.78 (0.11) 6–61 10–95 19–54 17–58 −2.61* −0.61 * p < 0.05; BIL = bilingual; MONO = monolingual; SD = standard deviation The bivariate scatterplot in Figure displays results depicting the relationship between percentage correct on the entire test and the percentage correct on cognates only, disaggregated by bilingual status This figure graphically displays how bilinguals (indicated by stars) who performed similarly to monolinguals on total percentage correct posted generally higher proportions of correct cognates, suggesting that cognate FIGURE Bivariate Scatterplot of Percentage of Correct Cognate Items by Total Percentage of All Items on the Cognate Awareness Test 130 TESOL QUARTERLY TABLE Comparing Bilinguals and Monolinguals on the Cognate Awareness Test Using Two Outcome Measures Cognate Awareness Test Percentage of correct cognates to total correct (RATIO) Percentage of correct cognates (COG) Language status Mean (SD) Min-Max t BIL 49.95 (0.01) 31–64 2.77* MONO BIL MONO 40.49 (0.01) 36.11 (0.15) 29.44 (0.01) 27–63 17–58 17–46 1.52 * p < 0.05; BIL = bilingual; MONO = monolingual; SD = standard deviation presence positively influenced the overall performance of the bilingual students Table displays additional analyses using the ratio of correct cognates to total percentage correct (RATIO), and percentage of correct cognates overall (COG) In the first case, there is a significant difference for ratio of cognates correct to total score, in favor of the bilingual students (t = 2.77, p < 0.05) That is, when assessing the correct items from the Cognate Awareness Test, a significantly larger percentage of the bilingual students’ correct responses were on the cognate items A t test indicated no significant difference between the groups for the percentage of correct cognates, further suggesting that cognate presence may be a factor in narrowing the vocabulary performance difference between these groups Table displays the correlations between the different variables There was a significant, strong, negative correlation between bilingual status and reading comprehension score on the Gates–MacGinitie, further indicating that monolingual students outperformed their bilingual counterparts Similarly, bilingual status and noncognate scores showed a significant, strong, negative correlation such that monolinguals were outperforming their bilingual counterparts on noncognate items What was TABLE Correlations Between Predictor (Bilingual), Control (Reading Comprehension), And Possible Outcome Variables Bilingual (0 = no, = yes) Reading comprehension NONCOG COG RATIO — −0.44* — −0.39* 0.55** — 0.28 −0.35 0.29 — 0.46** −0.45* 0.53** −0.60** — * p < 0.05 ∼ p < 0.10; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001 BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 131 surprising was the absence of a significant correlation between bilingual status and percentage of correct cognates That is, monolinguals did not outperform their bilingual peers, suggesting an additive effect of word type (cognate vs noncognate) on the vocabulary performance of the bilinguals in the sample In addition, the strong, positive correlation between bilingual status and the ratio of correct cognates to total score also suggests that the bilingual students’ vocabulary performance may have been affected by the presence of cognate items Given that these results suggested that cognate presence may be influencing test performance, two regression models were tested to investigate the relationship between cognate awareness and English reading comprehension We chose to run regression analyses despite our small sample size because the primary focus of the study was to test the developmental relationship between English reading comprehension and cognate recognition, which is difficult to adequately assess through bivariate correlations alone Each regression model controlled for English reading comprehension and assessed the effect of bilingual status on the cognate recognition variables: COG and RATIO Both models in Table showed interesting results for the interactive relationship between language status (bilingual or monolingual) and English reading comprehension In each case, it appeared that increased reading comprehension was associated with higher cognate recognition for bilinguals but not for monolinguals A model predicting total score (RAW) on the Cognate Awareness Test resulted in no significant main effects for English reading comprehension or bilingual status nor of any significant interaction between them Thus, overall on the test, monolinguals and bilinguals were performing comparably TABLE Final Regression Models Explaining Variation in Scores for Two Outcome Measures on the Cognate Awareness Test Predicting RATIO Intercept Reading Comprehension BIL BILxComp R2 SSE dfE 0.515*** −0.003** −0.004 0.004* 0.426 0.179 26 Predicting COG 0.333*** −0.001 −0.10 0.10* 0.222 0.340 26 * p < 0.05 ∼ p < 0.10; ** p < 0.01; *** p < 0.001 Note Small regression coefficients are due to the difference in scale between the outcome measures (RATIO and COG), inputted as decimal representations of percentages, and the reading comprehension measure, inputted as whole numbers 132 TESOL QUARTERLY FIGURE Predicted Values of RATIO as a Function of Comprehension Scores by Bilingual (ELL) or Monolingual (non-ELL) Status Figure graphs the interaction between comprehension score and language status in predicting RATIO For lower levels of English comprehension scores, bilinguals and monolinguals resembled each other with respect to RATIO, but positive changes in English comprehension were associated with increasing differences in group RATIOs For example, a bilingual and monolingual with English comprehension scores at the 10th percentile would have similar predicted RATIO scores of 47% and 49% However, a bilingual and monolingual student with English reading comprehension at the 60th percentile would have predicted RATIOs of 53% and 36%, respectively, an appreciable group difference A similar phenomenon was noted in predicting the percentage correct for cognate items only (COG) Gates–MacGinitie comprehension score and language status interacted significantly (t = 2.130, p < 0.05) such that bilingual and monolingual students with comprehension scores at the 5th percentile would have similar predicted cognate scores of 31% and 33%, respectively, but dissimilar predicted cognate scores of 62% and 28% when comprehension is at the 60th percentile, or just above average performance in reading (see Figure 3) DISCUSSION This study was designed to investigate the effect of English reading comprehension on cognate knowledge among a sample of Spanishspeaking bilinguals alongside their monolingual English-speaking counterparts In order to understand this developmental relationship, the effects of English reading comprehension were controlled in regression analyses, and the impact of language status (i.e., bilingual or monolingual) was assessed BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 133 FIGURE Predicted Values of COG as a Function of Comprehension Scores by Bilingual (ELL) or Monolingual (Non-ELL) Status We found a significant effect of bilingual status predicting cognate awareness Bilingual students significantly outperformed their monolingual counterparts on the ratio of correct items that were represented by cognates Current trends in research on bilingual populations, dating to Cummins’s (1979, 1984) theories of a common underlying proficiency and L1 thresholds for adequate L2 acquisition argue strenuously that L1 literacy skills are important, if not crucial, in understanding variation in L2 comprehension outcomes Almost paradoxically, however, research among adolescent and adult L2 learners, who are more likely to have well-developed L1 literacy skills than their younger counterparts, has focused on the role of improved L2 reading achievement as the key to fostering the cross-linguistic transfer for improved L2 literacy outcomes Specifically, as L2 lexical and grammatical knowledge improve, adult L2 reading increasingly resembles the L1 reading process, and the reader is thus able to use comprehension strategies developed in the L1 to L2 reading (Laufer, 1997; Nation, 2001) The results reported here are in line with this phenomenon We have related instructional recommendations for teachers of English to speakers of other languages Instruction that promotes depth and breadth of vocabulary knowledge, including cognate awareness for bilinguals who speak typologically similar languages, deserves further consideration and implementation An example of such an approach to improve young readers’ comprehension is the recent work by Carlo et al (2004) The authors worked in several urban classrooms with high numbers of immigrant bilingual and English language learners implementing a vocabulary improvement program targeting depth and breadth of vocabulary development The program was specifically designed to teach students 134 TESOL QUARTERLY word-learning strategies that focused on five components of word knowledge: depth of meaning, polysemy, morphology, cross-linguistic features (including cognate recognition), and spelling and punctuation By focusing on depth of vocabulary knowledge, fewer words were targeted in deference to learning “useful words and word-learning strategies” (p 192) The program proved effective for both bilingual and monolingual students Coady (1993), writing from an English as a foreign language perspective, argues that strategies such as cognate recognition may be more effective after students have gained some L2 proficiency Indeed, more genuine metalinguistic insights are likely possible when the two language and literacy systems are relatively well established so that the learner can begin to make meaningful comparisons between them Surely, then, native language literacy is of crucial importance in thinking about how first and second languages interact, and it is a limitation of this study that we did not collect Spanish language literacy data Thus, future research in this area would well to collect data among larger samples of students and a more complete assessment battery, including measures of L1 literacy development Additionally, more inquiry is needed into the relationships between other orthographically linked languages where cognate relationships may be exploited Does a similar phenomenon exist among French–English bilinguals, for example? Answering these questions would shed light on whether there exists a degree of universality relative to cognate recognition and improve thinking on how to best exploit the use of cognates for instructional and academic gain ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank the students and teachers for their participation and dedication to this project In addition, we thank Bridget Dalton for her support as well as her keen eye on previous versions of this manuscript THE AUTHORS C Patrick Proctor is an assistant professor of literacy and language arts at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States His primary focus is on the literacy development of bilingual students at risk for literacy difficulties His current research focuses on vocabulary instruction for students from various linguistic backgrounds to improve reading comprehension Elaine Mo is a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Wakefield, Massachusetts, United States Her work centers on language and literacy development of English language learners, and her interests include investigating how culture influences learning and teaching Her current research focuses on the vocabulary development of both English monolingual and bilingual students BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 135 REFERENCES Anderson, R C., & Freebody, P (1981) Vocabulary knowledge In J T Guthrie (Ed.), Comprehension and teaching: Research reviews (pp 77–117) Newark, DE: International Reading Association August, D., Kenyon, D., Malabonga, V., Louguit, M., Caglarcan, S., & Carlo, M (2001) Cognate Awareness Test Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics Available from http://www.cal.org/acquiringliteracy/assessments/cognate.html Carlo, M S., August, D., McLaughlin, B., Snow, C E., Dressler, C., Lippman, D N., et al (2004) Closing the gap: Addressing the vocabulary needs of English language learners in bilingual and mainstream classrooms Reading Research Quarterly, 39, 188–206 Coady, J (1993) L2 vocabulary acquisition through extensive reading In J Coady & T Huckin (Eds.), Second language vocabulary acquisition: A rationale for pedagogy (pp 225–237) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Cummins, J (1979) Linguistic interdependence and the educational development of bilingual children Review of Educational Research, 49, 222–251 Cummins, J (1984) Wanted: A theoretical framework for relating language proficiency to academic achievement among bilingual students In C Rivera (Ed.), Language proficiency and academic achievement (pp 2–19) Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters Hancin-Bhatt, B., & Nagy, W (1994) Lexical transfer and second language morphological development Applied Psycholinguistics, 15, 289–310 Jiménez, R T., García, G E., & Pearson, P D (1996) The reading strategies of bilingual Latina/o students who are successful English readers: Opportunities and obstacles Reading Research Quarterly, 31, 90–112 Laufer, B (1997) The lexical plight in second language reading: Words you don’t know, words you think you know and words you can’t guess In J Coady & T Huckin (Eds.), Second language vocabulary acquisition: A rationale for pedagogy (pp 20–34) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Lively, T., August, D., Carlo, M., & Snow, C E (2003) Vocabulary improvement program for English language learners and their classmates Baltimore, MD: Brookes MacGinitie, W H., MacGinitie, R K., Maria, K., Dreyer, L G., & Hughes, K E (2000) Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests (4th ed.) 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