The Impact of Knowledge-Building through Conceptually-Coherent Read Alouds on Vocabulary and Comprehension

We explored whether knowledge building through read alouds of a conceptually coherent (CC) set of texts might support children’s incidental acquisition of vocabulary in these texts and listening comprehension of related texts. Eleven classrooms of first (n = 83) and second grade students (n = 112) were randomly assigned to read alouds of either a set of six CC informational texts or a set of texts that addressed a range of topics. After the read alouds, we found larger effect sizes favoring the CC group on conceptually-central target words and no differences between groups on general academic words or on the listening comprehension passages. Within treatment comparisons demonstrate the CC participants had stronger listening comprehension of a passage that contained both concepts and vocabulary from their text set than of other passages. Findings suggest that CC read alouds may be a promising way to enhance learning opportunities during read alouds for young learners.