Developing Cognate Awareness

Language Testing 2008 25 (4) 495–519

© 2008 SAGE Publications (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) DOI:10.1177/0265532208094274

Development of a cognate awarenessmeasure for Spanish-speaking Englishlanguage learnersValerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon Center forApplied Linguistics, Washington, DC, USAMaria Carlo University of Miami, USADiane August and Mohammed Louguit Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, DC, USA

This paper describes the development and validation of the CognateAwareness Test (CAT), which measures cognate awareness in Spanish-speaking English Language Learners (ELLs) in fourth and fifth grade. Aninvestigation of differential performance on the two subtests of the CAT(cognates and noncognates) provides evidence that the instrument is sensi-tive to English–Spanish cognate awareness among elementary school-ageSpanish-speaking ELLs. Cognates were highly correlated with the children’sSpanish WLPB-R Picture Vocabulary scores, whereas noncognates werehighly correlated to children’s English WLPB-R Picture Vocabulary scores.

Keywords: applied linguistics, cognates, English language learners, mor-phological awareness, Spanish-speaking children, vocabulary

Vocabulary knowledge plays a crucial role in the development of read-ing comprehension for both monolingual, native-English-speakingchildren (Anderson & Freebody, 1983; Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998;Snow, Cancini, Gonzales & Shriberg, 1989) and English languagelearners (ELLs) (August & Hakuta, 1997; Carlisle, Beeman, Davis& Spharim, 1999; Carlisle, Beeman & Shah, 1996; Dufva & Voeten,1999; Jiménez, García & Pearson, 1996). August, Carlo, Dresslerand Snow (2005) report that many ELLs in US schools are deficientin English vocabulary, and that this deficiency impedes their readingcomprehension.

Address for correspondence: Valerie Malabonga, Center for Applied Linguistics, 4646 40th StreetNW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20016, USA; email: [email protected]

496 Development of a cognate awareness measure

One particular type of vocabulary, cognates, is the focus of theCognate Awareness Test (CAT) described in this paper. Whitley(2002) defines cognates as words that have similar meaning, spellingand form, and have been inherited from the same ancestor language.In the case of Spanish and English, cognates are descended fromearlier derivatives of the Indo-European language family (Anthony,1954; Lalor & Kirsner, 2000; Schelletter, 2002). Cognate awarenessis the perception or knowledge that helps individuals recognize therelationship between an unfamiliar word in one language and afamiliar word (cognate) in another, and thus understand the meaningof the unfamiliar word (Cunningham & Graham, 2000; Nagy,Garcia, Durgonoglu & Hancin-Bhatt, 1993). In this paper wedescribe the development and validation of the CAT as a measure ofthe ability of Spanish-speaking third through fifth graders to useknowledge of Spanish words to discern the meaning of their Englishcognates.

According to the 2000 US Census, native Spanish speakers(NSSs) constitute 66% of the school-age population of ELLs(Batalova, 2006). The large number of English words with Spanishcognates provides some support in English text comprehension forthese ELLs if they are aware of cognate relationships (Jiménez et al.,1996). As Nagy et al. (1993, p. 242) wrote: ‘If Hispanic bilingualchildren know the Spanish words, and recognize the cognate rela-tionships, their Spanish knowledge should provide them with sub-stantial help in English vocabulary, especially difficult readingvocabulary.’ Spanish and English share thousands of cognates; theseoften appear in content area academic texts, so increasing children’scognate awareness is one method of accelerating their Englishvocabulary development and comprehension of these texts (August &Shanahan, 2006; August et al., 2005). An instrument such as theCAT, combined with L1 and L2 vocabulary tests, can assess chil-dren’s ability to use L1 vocabulary knowledge to determine themeanings of L2 cognates, and can also measure the effects of inter-ventions designed to build cognate knowledge.

Although Nagy et al. (1993) and Cunningham and Graham (2000)developed cognate awareness measures similar to the CAT, theirtests have some limitations. Neither investigated test reliability andvalidity. Furthermore, although Cunningham and Graham pilotedtheir test with native Spanish-speaking as well as native English-speaking adults, their test was developed for native English-speakingchildren learning Spanish in a two-way immersion program, not forNSS children learning English.

Valerie Malabonga and Dorry M. Kenyon et al. 497

I Development of the test

The CAT was developed as part of a larger study (August, Carlo &Calderón, 2005) whose purpose was to investigate the transfer of read-ing skills from Spanish to English by Spanish-speaking elementary-school children in transitional Spanish-to-English languageprograms. In developing the CAT, it was important to identifySpanish–English cognates that NSS children from third through fifthgrade were likely to know in Spanish but not in English. ManySpanish–English cognates, such as infirm, castigate, and accom-pany, are high-frequency words in oral Spanish but low-frequencywords in oral English (Cunningham & Graham, 2000). We hypothe-sized that knowledge of high-frequency Spanish words would helpchildren with high cognate awareness to understand the meaning oflow-frequency English words. To test this hypothesis, we designedthe CAT using low-frequency English words. Half of the words hadSpanish cognates with high frequency in Spanish, and the other halfhad no Spanish cognates. We used low English frequency as thebasis for determining word difficulty because research on Englishmonolingual children indicates that word frequency is a primarybasis for the order by which children acquire words (Biemiller &Slonim, 2001).

We used Nash’s (1997) dictionary of Spanish cognates and thecognates from Nagy et al. (1993) as starting points. Word fre-quencies were checked using the corpora of Kucera and Francis(2005), Francis and Kucera (1982), and Davies (2005). Althoughthese corpora are based on materials adults read, we believe theyprovide a reasonable approximation of the word frequencies that thechildren in our study would be exposed to in their academic subjects.

Bilingual researchers drew up a word list that included nouns,verbs, and adjectives. We chose only Spanish–English cognates thatwere ranked low in English frequency but generally high in Spanishfrequency and that had high transparency (i.e., had almost identicalspellings and the same or a very closely related meaning). FromKucera and Francis (2005) and Francis and Kucera (1982), weselected noncognates whose frequencies matched those of the cog-nates. We did not include register in our criteria for choosing thewords, and the matched words were not always the same part ofspeech.

Table 1 lists the English words chosen to appear on the CATtogether with their frequencies per million. The frequency of thecognate and noncognate English words ranged from 1 to 8 (per mil-lion), with a mean frequency of 3. On the other hand, the Spanish


Table 1 List of cognates, noncognates, and easy words and their frequencies* forthe operational version of the CAT

Noncognates F English cognates F Spanish cognates F

undermine 8 accompany 8 acompañar 10jest 1 adorn 1 adornar 12tattered 5 anterior 5 anterior 99rehearse 1 castigate 1 (castigar) castigo(a) 30clutch 5 converse 5 (conversar) conversacion 138gritty 1 curative 1 (curativo(a)) curar 6feasibility 3 edifice 3 edificio 69strife 6 epoch 6 época 227drought 5 imitate 5 imitar 7maladroit 1 (impede) impeded 5 impedir 20haul 5 initiate 5 iniciar 22hoist 1 jocose 1 jocoso(a) 2snug 2 malevolent 2 malévolo(a) 1allot 1 matrimonial 1 matrimonio 60brittle 3 pallid 3 pálido(a) 26drowsy 1 pensive 1 (pensativo(a)) pensar 159trustworthy 3 profundity 3 profundidad 36(leery) leering 4 obligated 4 obligado(a) 41fiend 3 odious 3 odioso(a) 3wily 2 terminus 2 terminar 65flee 1 tranquil 2 tranquilo(a) 70pun 1 valor 1 valor 107

Eight ‘Easy’ Wordsconstruction 95 construcción 92idea 195 idea 196literature 133 literatura 114modern 198 moderno/a 48permit 77 permitir 30poet 99 poeta 71production 148 producción 139simple 161 simple 81

*Frequencies are number of words/per million.Sources:English: Kucera, H. & Francis, W. N. Kucera and Francis Word Pool. Retrieved March 3,2005, from http://memory.psych.upenn.edu/wordpools.phpSpanish: Davies, M. Corpus del Español. Retrieved March 3, 2005, from http://www.corpusdelespanol.org/Notes:1) Davies (2005) has a corpus of 20 million words from twentieth-century mater-ials, so the frequencies obtained for the Spanish words were first divided by 20 toget the frequencies of the words per million.2) For castigate, converse, curative, and pensive, an alternate form of Spanishword was used instead for calculating frequency.3) For Spanish adjectives, we added the male and female (gender) frequencies(e.g., pálido and pálida).


counterparts of the English cognates ranged from 6 to 227 and had amean frequency of 63. To add some variability and ensure that thechildren would not top out of the test, three words with infrequentSpanish cognates were also included: jocoso/a, malevolo/a, andodioso/a (with frequencies of 2, 1, and 3 respectively). In the oper-ational version of the test, we also included eight cognates with highfrequencies in both English and Spanish. Frequencies of theseEnglish words ranged from 77 to 248 per million, and frequencies oftheir Spanish cognates ranged from 30 to 196.

For each test word, four high-frequency English words or phraseswere provided as possible responses, only one of which was relatedto the test word in meaning. No Spanish words appeared on theinstrument. Students were instructed to read each test word, thinkabout what it meant, and then choose the one option that they feltwas most closely related to the meaning of the test word.

II Pilot study

Before using the CAT in full-scale studies, we piloted it with 100Spanish-speaking ELLs in order to gather preliminary informationabout its reliability and validity. We also collected feedback on thetest from the children and their teachers.

1 Participants

The pilot study participants were fourth and fifth graders from fourschools in low-income, predominantly Spanish-speaking neighbor-hoods in a large mid-Atlantic city in the USA. Table 2 providesdemographic information on the children.

2 Measure

The pilot version of the CAT had three practice items and 61 testitems (30 cognates and 31 noncognates). The following samplesindicate the format of the pilot test:

1. initiate a) clean b) balance c) begin d) gain2. strife a) plane b) choice c) king d) fight3. infirm a) honest b) afraid c) confused d) sick

During test administration, the researcher wrote the practice items onthe board and reviewed them with the children. The children werethen instructed to work on their own using their test booklets.


3 Analysis

Analysis focused on evaluating the items in the pilot version of theCAT in order to determine the final pool of items to be included inthe operational version. Following the definition of validity as ‘anintegrated evaluative judgment of the degree to which empirical evi-dence and theoretical rationales support the adequacy and appropri-ateness of inferences and actions based on test scores or other modesof assessment’ (Messick, 1989, p. 13; italics in original), we exam-ined two types of empirical evidence.

First, we looked at the set of all test items together, using theRasch model to determine whether the CAT was measuring a singleconstruct of vocabulary knowledge. Our assumption was that if allthe items fit the Rasch model, we could infer that both cognates andnoncognates were measuring a single construct related to Englishvocabulary knowledge. Second, we examined the test’s constructvalidity by investigating performance on the cognates and noncog-nates separately.

We used WINSTEPS software (Linacre & Wright, 2000) to cali-brate the difficulty of the items and the ability of test takers on acommon interval scale and to provide information about the test’sproperties, especially its reliability, scalability, and fit to the Raschmodel. We performed three separate calibrations. In the first, all 61words were calibrated on a single logit scale. This calibration

Table 2 Student demographic information for pilot study

N %

EthnicityLatino/Hispanic 100 100%

GradeFourth (9 year olds) 69 69Fifth (10 year olds) 31 31

Language spoken by child at homeOnly Spanish 8 8Mostly Spanish 5 5Spanish and English 28 28Mostly English 13 13Only English 1 1Missing 45 45

Language program in schoolSpanish Dominant Transitional Bilingual 56 56English Dominant 80–20 Bilingual 16 16English Dominant Regular 28 28


allowed us to determine the difficulty of all of the items, as well asthe children’s ability based on their performance on all 61 words.With the difficulty of the items anchored at their original values,a second and third calibration produced measures of the children’svocabulary ability with respect to the cognates and the noncognatesseparately. In these separate calibrations, we found that the difficultyvalues of the cognates and noncognates, anchored to the difficultyvalue from the calibration of the entire test, were within the normalrange. Thus, the difficulty values of the items calibrated separately didnot vary much from their difficulty when calibrated together. Therange of displacement values for the cognates was !.05 to .04, and therange for the noncognates was !.02 to .08. This finding also supportsthe view that all 61 items were measuring one underlying construct.

Table 3 shows the means, standard deviations and ranges of thescaled scores for cognates, noncognates, and all items in the pilot.(Note: The table shows N " 92 because tests with all correct and nocorrect answers were discarded following standard Rasch analysisprocedure. Rasch logit scores were scaled such that mean item diffi-culty was 100 and the length of a logit was 20.)

4 Results

a Map of children and items: Figure 1 shows the Rasch map of thepilot study children and the pilot test items on a single scale. Thechildren’s ability covers a range of 3.88 logits, which is wider thanthe range of 2.62 logits for item difficulty. The map also shows aneven spread of cognates and noncognates, with no major gaps exceptat the lower end.

The map shows that, in general, the items on the CAT were spreadevenly along the scale, but the mean difficulty for test items (marked‘M’ by the item names) was well above the mean of the children’s

Table 3 Means, standard deviations and ranges of children’s scores on cognates,noncognates and all words for pilot study*

Cognates (30 items) Noncognates (31 items) All words (61 items)

Mean 82.46 83.42 83.44SD 14.18 12.45 10.20Range 80.60 83.60 71.23Min 41.20 32.40 44.14Max 121.80 116.00 115.37

*Scaled scores, N " 92


More Able Children Hard Items

LOGITS

| | | fiend-NC |T

| . | stodgy–NC wily–NC forlorn–NC brevity–C casualty–NC | malevolent–C epoch–C leery–NC |S calumny–C kosher–NC allot–NC quagmire–NC | frenzied–NC undermine–NC | discard–NC infirm–C

. T| flee–NC . | brittle–NC anterior–C | pithy–NC hoist–NC strife–NC pun–NC drought–NC clutch–NC impede–C edifice–C

.# +M nocturnal–C curative–C 6.initiate–C .# | detain–C augment–C terminus–C amicable–C .# | obligated–C faze–NC jest–NC haul–NC maladroit–NC snug–NC navigate–C imitate–C pallid–C valor–C

.# S| tattered–NC profundity–C pensive–C rehearse–NC ## | jocose–C tranquil–C gritty–NC feasibility–NC

###### | odious–C .# |S .# |

.####### | adorn–C castigate–C .## M| trustworthy–NC .##### + .### |T drowsy–NC .## | accompany–C ## | matrimonial–C

### S| converse–C # | .# | . | | # |

T+ | | | | | | | . |

. |

|

|

| |

+

Each ‘#’ is two persons and ‘.’ is one person.Less Able Children Easy Items

–3.5

+

+

0

21

!2

!3

1.5

1

+

Figure 1 Rasch map for pilot study


abilities (marked ‘M’ by the #s). This finding suggested that theitems were very difficult for the children and that a few less chal-lenging items should be added to expand the range of the test andmotivate the children. The separate analyses performed on the cog-nates and the noncognates also showed that the spread of both chil-dren and items was generally even along the scale; however, bothsubtests were quite difficult for the children.

b Reliability: The Rasch reliability of the vocabulary measure basedon all 61 items was .70. Separately, the reliability for the cognatemeasure was .63, and for the noncognate measure .50. The lowerreliability estimate for the noncognates may indicate that these itemsdid not allow the children’s abilities to be as well differentiated as thecognate items.

c Analysis of fit to model: Fit of the items to the Rasch model wasexamined through the infit and outfit mean square statistics.Although Linacre (2007, p. 2) suggests that items with mean squarevalues of between. 5 and 1.5 are ‘productive of measurement,’ wechose a more conservative approach, flagging as misfitting itemswith mean square values greater than 1.3.

Our analysis indicated that three items in the pilot version of theCAT were misfitting, 10 were problematic in terms of answeroptions, and two were mischaracterized as noncognates. Likewise,the children’s and the teachers’ feedback, as well as our observationsof the children, indicated that the test’s layout was difficult to follow.Lastly, the teachers recommended clearer test instructions.

Based on the item analyses conducted in the pilot study, the fol-lowing revisions were made to the CAT:

• Three misfitting items, ten items which had problematic options,and two items that we erroneously classified as noncognates(discard and frenzied) and their two cognate counterparts (aug-ment and detain) were deleted from the original 61 words.

• For clarity, the wording of the responses for three items waschanged.

• Eight new cognate words with high frequencies in both Englishand Spanish were added to the test: construction, idea, simple,literature, modern, poet, production, and permit. These less chal-lenging words, randomly inserted, were included to improve thechildren’s motivation to complete the entire test.

• The instructions and the test layout were modified to make thetest more user-friendly.


III Study 1: Operational version of the CAT, Year 1

The purpose of Study 1 was to obtain information about the reliabil-ity and fit of the CAT to the Rasch model, and to determine the test’svalidity after revisions were made based on the pilot study. Analysisof the operational CAT focused on investigating the construct valid-ity of the test through the types of calibrations used in the pilot studyand through assessment of the relationship between students’ per-formance on the CAT (for both cognates and noncognates) and theirperformance on the Picture Vocabulary subtest of the WoodcockLanguage Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLPB-R/PV) (Woodcock,1991a, 1991b; Woodcock & Muñoz-Sandoval, 1995).

1 Participants

Participants in the study were 173 Spanish-speaking ELLs who wereparticipants in the larger transfer study. The students were fourthgraders in Success for All (SFA) reading programs in three urbanschools in predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods in threestates in the USA. Some were being instructed only in English byfourth grade, while others were still receiving some instruction inSpanish. The first section of Table 4 presents demographic informa-tion on the children.

2 Measures

The operationalized version of the CAT consisted of 52 items: 22 cog-nates and 22 noncognates that were scored, and eight less challengingitems that were added as a result of the pilot study (see Table 1).Figure 2 illustrates the new test format.

The WLPB-R/PV was used to measure the children’s English andSpanish vocabulary knowledge. In the WLPB-R/PV, a child sees apicture and is asked to name the object(s) or action(s) in the picture.The WLPB-R is one of very few vocabulary tests that have bothEnglish and Spanish versions.

3 Data analysis and results

a Scalability: As in the pilot study, three separate calibrations wereperformed. The first included all 52 test items. The second and thirdcalibrations were performed on the cognates and noncognates sep-arately, while anchoring their measures on the first calibration. The


Table 4 Student demographic information for Study 1 (fourth graders) and Study2 (fifth graders)

Study 1: Year 1 with fourth graders N %

Ethnicity: Latino/Hispanic 173 100%Language spoken by child at home

Spanish 132 76.3English 37 21.4Missing 4 2.3

Language instruction in schoolStill instructed in Spanish 75 43.4Fully instructed in English 85 49.1Missing 13 7.5

Study 2: Year 2 with fifth graders N %

Ethnicity: Latino/Hispanic 155 100%Language spoken by child at home

Spanish 111 71.6English 33 21.3Missing 11 7.1

Language instruction in schoolStill instructed in Spanish 62 40.0Fully instructed in English 82 52.9Missing 11 7.1

“For each item, you will read the bolded word and think about what it means. After you have thought about the bolded word and what it means, you are supposed to pick the one word that is most closely related to the meaning of the bolded word.”

CognateconverseO speak with someone O fight with someoneO include someone O leave out someone

NoncognatejestO defendO bendO jokeO observe

Figure 2 Format and sample questions from operationalized CAT

eight less challenging items were excluded from the second andthird calibration. The displacement values were within the normalrange: !.11 to .10 for cognates and !.02 to .02 for noncognates.

The first section of Table 5 shows the means, standard deviationsand ranges of the fourth graders’ scaled scores for cognates, noncog-nates and the entire test. (Note: The table shows N " 170 becausetests with all correct answers and no correct answers were discardedfollowing standard Rasch analysis procedure.)


b Map of children and items: Figure 3 shows the Rasch map for theoperational CAT, with children and items on a single scale. The mapshows an even spread of cognates and noncognates, similar to thepilot results. The map also shows that the eight less challengingwords were all below the mean difficulty for the items as a whole.The difference between mean item difficulty and mean student abil-ity was reduced from one logit in the pilot to just half a logit in thefirst study, demonstrating that the test had become ‘easier’.

The children’s ability range of 2.98 logits was narrower than therange of 3.60 logits for item difficulty. This implies that the test canbe used for children with a wider range of abilities than this fourthgrade group. The mean difficulty of the items was also slightly higherthan the mean ability of the children, indicating that some items werestill difficult for some fourth graders, but that such items would beappropriate for older children or fourth graders with higher abilities.This finding was important since the CAT was intended to be usedwith both fourth and fifth graders.

c Reliability: The estimated reliability was a moderate .70 for theentire test and .65 for the cognates, about the same as on the pilot.Reliability for the noncognates was .37, a decrease from the pilot.Since reliability is influenced by the distribution of ability in the group

Table 5 Means, standard deviations and ranges of cognates, noncognates and allwords (Year 1 [fourth graders] and Year 2 [fifth graders])*

Year 1 (Fourth graders)



*Scaled scores, N ! 170.

Year 2 (Fifth graders)



*Scaled scores, N ! 155.


More Able Children Hard Items LOGITS

+ | |T | | | | epoch–C | fiend–NC | malevolent–C undermine–NC | wily–NC curative–C

XX | XXX |

X + T|S maladroit–NC anterior–C

XX | impede–C X | pun–NC jest–NC allot–NC pallid–C initiate–C

XX | hoist–NC XXXX | jocose–C strife–NC

XXXXX | drought–NC XXXXXXXXX | haul–NC edifice–C

XXXXX S| leery–NC XX | brittle–NC feasibility–NC valor–C

XXXXXXXXX | pensive–C XXXXXXXXX | flee–NC terminus–C

XXXXXXXX +M odious–C XXXXXXXXXXXX | profundity–C snug–NC

XXXXXXX | gritty–NC clutch–NC adorn–C XXXXXX M|

XXXXXXXXXX | castigate–C permit–U XXXXXX | production–U rehearse–NC

XXXXXXXX | obligated–C X | modern–U tranquil–C

XXXXXXXXXXX | tattered–NC XXXXXXXXX | XXXXXXXXX | converse–C imitate–C

XXXXXX S|S XXX +

XXXXX | poet–U literature–U XXXXXX | accompany–C trustworthy–NC matrimonial–C

XXX | X |

XXXX | drowsy–NC T| | | |

X |T | simple–U

+ idea–U | | construction–U | | | | | | | | |

+ Less Able Children

Each ‘X’ is one person.

Easy Items

2

1

0

!1

!2

!3

Figure 3 Rasch map for Study 1 (operational versionwith fourth graders)


taking an assessment, the decrease in reliability of the noncognatescould be explained by the fact that only fourth graders were tested inStudy 1, whereas both fourth and fifth graders were tested in the pilot.Also, with the exception of the eight less challenging words, the itemswere in a restricted range, that is, they were all very low frequencywords. Consequently, we considered these reliabilities acceptable.

d Analysis of fit to model: Using the same conservative criteria asin the pilot, we found that 96% of the items in the total test calibra-tion fit the Rasch model; only two items (fiend and allot) were mis-fitting. In the noncognate calibration, the same two items were foundto be misfitting, while none of the cognates was misfitting. Furtheranalysis showed that the two misfitting words were among the mostdifficult words on the test. Overall, then, all three calibrations showedan acceptable fit of the data to the Rasch model.

e Construct validity: Because the CAT was only one measureamong many given to students in the larger study, it was not possibleto interview the children to discover what strategies they used toanswer the test items. However, we wanted to see if there was anyevidence that students might be drawing on their cognate knowledgein taking the CAT. We hypothesized that knowledge of Spanishvocabulary would help students respond correctly to cognate itemsbut not to noncognate items.

To investigate the validity of the CAT as a measure of cognate aware-ness, we assessed the relationship between students’performance on theCAT and their performance on the WLPB-R/PV. We found a moder-ate relationship between cognate performance and the Spanish WLPB-R/PV for fourth graders (r! .50, N ! 114, p ".01). However, therewas no correlation between cognate performance–and the EnglishWLPB-R/PV (r! #.13, N ! 114, p $ .01). On the other hand, EnglishWLPB-R/PV was moderately related to performance on noncognates(r ! .41, N ! 114, p ".01), but Spanish WLPB-R/PV was not(r ! #.14, N ! 114, p ".01). These results provided evidence thatknowledge of Spanish played a role in children’s performance on CATcognate items.

For additional analyses, we divided the children into four groupsusing WLPB-R scores in Spanish and English (see Tables 7 and 9):

• Low Spanish, Low English (LSLE)• Low Spanish, High English (LSHE)• High Spanish, Low English (HSLE)• High Spanish, High English (HSHE)


The cut-off score used for the WLPB-R/PV was 80. That is,a child with a standard score lower than 80 on the WLPB-R/PVmeasure was categorized as low for that language, whereas a childwith a standard score equal to or greater than 80 was categorized ashigh. The cut-off score was chosen based on a scatter plot in order tohave a meaningful number of students in each of the four quadrants.(Note: for WLPB-R/PV, the mean obtained for the norming sampleof fourth graders was 100 and the standard deviation was 15. Thus,our cut-off score is one and a third standard deviation points lowerthan the mean of a typical monolingual fourth grader.)

To compare children’s cognate and noncognate vocabulary meas-ures on the CAT within each study, and from one study to the next, thelogit measures were converted to scaled scores with a mean of 100 and20 units to a logit. We then compared the mean performance on thecognate and noncognate items by the four groups. We hypothesizedthat if the CAT was tapping into the construct of cognate awareness,then for cognates, knowledge of Spanish vocabulary would play animportant role, but not necessarily knowledge of English vocabulary.We further hypothesized that for noncognates, the opposite would betrue: knowledge of English vocabulary would play an important role,but not necessarily knowledge of Spanish vocabulary.

Table 6 shows the means and standard deviations of each sub-group’s scores on cognates and noncognates.

To check for statistical differences between the mean perform-ances of the four subgroups on the cognates, we conducted anonparametric Kruskal Wallis test for independent samples becausethe number of children in each subgroup was unequal. The overallKruskal Wallis chi square for cognates was significant (!2 (3) "25.82, p # .01). Results of individual tests are presented in Table 7.The upper portion of the table shows that the subgroups with highSpanish consistently outperformed the subgroups with low Spanishon cognates, thus demonstrating their cognate vocabulary knowl-edge, whereas subgroups with high English did not necessarily perform statistically significantly better than subgroups with lowEnglish.

The lower section of Table 7 shows the mean and standard devi-ations of the four subgroups scores on the noncognates. The overallKruskal Wallis chi square was again significant (!2 (3) " 15.69,p # .01). The table shows that subgroups with high English consis-tently outperformed subgroups with low English on noncognates.Furthermore, for both cognates and noncognates, the high Spanish,high English subgroup consistently performed better than other


Table 6 Means and standard deviations of subgroups of fourth graders on cog-nates and noncognates (Study 1)

Means and standard deviations of fourth graders’ scaled scores on cognates

Low Spanish High Spanish (Picture vocabulary ! 80) (Picture vocabulary " 80)

High English M # 87.90 (N # 29) M # 107.91 (N # 18)(Picture Vocabulary " 80) SD #12.87 SD # 15.98

Low English M # 84.85 (N # 12) M # 100.65 (N # 55)(Picture Vocabulary!80) SD #13.22 SD # 17.62

Means and standard deviations of fourth graders’ scaled scores on noncognates

Low Spanish High Spanish Picture vocabulary ! 80) (Picture vocabulary " 80)

High English M # 96.26 (N # 29) M # 102.16 (N # 18)(Picture vocabulary "80) SD # 10.23 SD # 14.29

Low English M # 93.18 (N # 12) M # 88.72 (N # 55)(Picture vocabulary!80) SD # 11.77 SD # 12.34

Table 7 Means and Kruskal Wallis chi square for paired subgroups (Study 1, fourthgraders)

Paired Subgroups (N) Mean Ranks Kruskal Wallis chi-square

CognatesHigh Spanish vs. Low Spanish subgroupsHSHE (18) vs. LSHE (29) 33.50 18.10 $2 (1) # 14.08 , p ! .01HSHE (18) vs. LSLE (12) 19.97 8.79 $2 (1) # 11.69, p ! .01HSLE (55) vs. LSHE (29) 49.45 29.31 $2 (1) # 13.04, p ! .01HSLE (55) vs. LSLE (12) 37.37 18.54 $2 (1) # 9.27, p ! .01

High Spanish vs. High Spanish subgroupHSHE (18) vs. HSLE (55) 43.67 34.82 $2 (1) # 2.38, NS

Low Spanish vs. Low Spanish subgroupLSHE (29) vs. LSLE (12) 21.97 18.67 $2 (1) # .65, NS

NoncognatesHigh English vs. Low English subgroupsHSHE (18) vs. LSLE (12) 17.72 12.17 $2 (1) # 2.89, NSLSHE (29) vs. HSLE (55) 52.97 36.98 $2 (1) # 8.28, p ! .01HSHE (18) vs. HSLE (55) 51.31 32.32 $2 (1) # 11.02, p ! .01LSHE (29) vs. LSLE (12) 22.29 17.88 $2 (1) # 1.17, NS

High English vs. High English subgroupHSHE (18) vs. LSHE (29) 27.47 21.84 $2 (1) # 1.89, NS

Low English vs. Low English subgroupHSLE (55) vs. LSLE (12) 32.89 39.08 $2 (1) # 1.01, NS


subgroups, and this difference was usually (but not always) statisti-cally significant. This finding confirms the CAT as a measure ofvocabulary knowledge.

In summary, our results consistently show that high Spanishvocabulary knowledge, as measured by the WLPB-R/PV, was help-ful in predicting high vocabulary scores on the CAT’s cognate items,but high English knowledge was not. On the other hand, high Englishvocabulary knowledge, as measured by the WLPB-R/PV, was a goodpredictor of high vocabulary scores on noncognate items, whereashigh Spanish vocabulary knowledge was not. These findings providesupport for the claim that cognate items on the CAT appear to tapinto some level of cognate awareness for students with high Spanishvocabulary knowledge. Lastly, children with high scores on both theSpanish and English WLPB-R/PV consistently performed at the high-est levels on both cognates and noncognates, providing support for theCAT as a vocabulary measure.

IV Study 2: Operational version of the CAT, year 2

Because the larger transfer study was longitudinal, we were able toinvestigate the stability of the CAT across two testing occasions. Oneyear after the first administration of the operational CAT, we admin-istered it again to the same cohort of children, now in fifth grade.Due to attrition, only 155 children participated. The second sectionof Table 4 provides background information on these children. InStudy 2, we used the same measures (CAT and WLPB-R/PV) andconducted the same analyses as in Study 1.

1 Results

a Scalability: Twelve items (seven cognates and five noncognates)showed noticeable displacement when their difficulty values wereanchored to the item difficulty values from the first calibration. Theremaining 32 items did not show any major displacements.

The second section of Table 5 shows the means, standard devi-ations and ranges of the fifth graders’ scaled scores for cognates,noncognates and the entire test. Table 5 clearly indicates that thechildren’s knowledge of English vocabulary had increased, particu-larly their cognate scores (from 93.89 as fourth graders to 102.09 asfifth graders).


More Able Children Hard Items LOGITS

+ |

X | | |

XX T| anterior–C wily–NC fiend–NC XXX | malevolent–C

| curative–C X | jest–NC

XX | epoch–C undermine–NC |

XXX | pun–NC allot–NC XXXXXX +S leery–NC

XXXXXX | jocose–C maladroit–NC XXX S| valor–C XXX |

XXXXXXXXX | XXXX | hoist–NC terminus–C

XXXXXXX | impede–C initiate–C edifice–C XXXXXX |

XXXXXXX | brittle–NC feasibility–NC pallid–C XXXXXXXXX | strife–NC

| haul–NC gritty–NC snug–NC adorn–C XXXXXXXX M| drought–NC pensive–C

XXXXXXX +M profundity–C clutch–NC XXXXXXXXX | flee–NC

XXXXXXXXXX | odious–C XXX | castigate–C

XXXXXXXX | tattered–NC XXXX | obligated–C

| rehearse–NC permit–U XXX |

XXXXXX | tranquil–C XXXXX S| converse–C

XX | production–U | imitate–C XX +S

XX | X |

XXXX | drowsy–NC XXXX | modern–U matrimonial–C literature–U

| trustworthy–NC T| X | X | X | poet–U | accompany–C | construction–U

+ idea–U

+

XX |T | simple–U

Each ‘X’ is one person.

| | | | | | | | |

2

1

0

!1

!2

!3Less Able Children Easy Items

Figure 4 Rasch map for Study 2 (operational version with fifth graders)


b Map of children and items: Figure 4 shows the Rasch map forthe CAT administered to the fifth graders. Unlike Study 1, in which themean difficulty of the items was higher than the mean ability of the chil-dren, in this study the mean examinee ability was slightly above themean item difficulty. Likewise, the range of 3.75 logits for the abilityscores is about the same as the range of 3.60 logits for the item dif-ficulty scores. This finding indicates that the items in the operationalversion of the CAT are also appropriate for these fifth graders. It like-wise indicates that the average vocabulary ability of the children hasimproved from fourth to fifth grade.

c Reliability: The reliability estimates improved noticeably fromthe pilot and Year 1 studies, to .80 for the measure based on all 52items, .70 based on the cognates, and .62 based on the noncognates.Since reliability is a function of the heterogeneity of the sampletested, this increase is not surprising, as the spread of student abilitywas wider among the children as fifth graders (3.75 on the logitscale) than as fourth graders (2.98 on the logit scale). Overall, thesefindings indicate that the CAT is appropriate for children with abil-ities at the fifth-grade level. Likewise, the CAT’s moderate to highinternal reliabilities on two different testing occasions provide someindication of its stability.

d Analysis of fit to model: In the total test calibration, 90.4% of theitems fit the Rasch model; five out of 52 (jest, malevolent, undermine,curative, and fiend) were misfitting. For the cognate calibration, threewords were misfitting (anterior, curative, and malevolent), and for thenoncognate calibration, three words were also misfitting (jest, under-mine, and pun). Further analysis showed that, as in Study 1, the mis-fitting items were among the most difficult words on the test. Overall,all three calibrations showed an acceptable fit to the Rasch model.

e Construct validity: As in Study 1, we divided the children into fourgroups according to their scores on the WLPB-R/PV: LSLE, LSHE,HSLE, and HSHE. This time the cut-off score used was 85. Table 8shows the means and standard deviations of each subgroup’s scoreson cognates and noncognates.

As in Study 1, high Spanish vocabulary knowledge was related tohigh scores on the CAT cognates, but not on the noncognates. HighEnglish vocabulary knowledge was related to stronger performanceon the noncognates.

The overall Kruskal Wallis chi square for CAT cognate scoresremained significant (!2 (3) " 21.37, p # .01). Moreover, as the


upper portion of Table 9 shows, when measured by the cognates, thesubgroups with high Spanish tended to outscore the subgroups withlow Spanish, whereas subgroups with high English did not performsignificantly better than subgroups with low English.

The overall Kruskal Wallis chi square for noncognate CAT scoreswas also significant (!2 (3) " 9.13, p # .01). The lower section ofTable 9 shows that the subgroups with high English consistentlyoutscored the subgroups with low English on noncognates, whereasgroups with high Spanish did not always perform significantly bet-ter than subgroups with low Spanish on these words.

As in Study 1, the high Spanish and high English subgroup con-sistently performed better than the other subgroups, although thisdifference was not always statistically significant.

Finally, as in Study 1, the correlation between CAT cognatevocabulary and the Spanish WLPB-R/PV was moderate (r " .38,N " 132, p # .01). Again, there was no correlation between CATcognate vocabulary knowledge and English WLPB-R/PV (r" $.01,N " 132, p # .01). However, English vocabulary knowledge asmeasured by the English WLPB-R/PV was moderately related to CATnoncognate vocabulary (r" .37, N " 132, p # .01), while Spanish

Table 8 Means and standard deviations of subgroups of fifth graders on cognatesand noncognates (Study 2)

Means and standard deviations of fifth graders’ scaled scores on cognates

Low Spanish High Spanish(Picture vocabulary (Picture vocabulary #85) %85)

High English M " 90.48 (N " 24) M " 115.42 (N " 28)(Picture Vocabulary %85) SD " 13.98 SD " 17.50

Low English M " 98.99 (N " 26) M " 105.77 (N " 54)(Picture Vocabulary #85) SD " 17.71 SD " 24.36

Means and standard deviations of fifth graders’ scaled scores on noncognates

Low Spanish High Spanish(Picture vocabulary (Picture vocabulary #85) %85)

High English M " 99.47 (N " 24) M " 103.90 (N " 28)(Picture Vocabulary %85) SD " 18.86 SD " 14.45

Low English M " 93.38 (N " 26) M " 93.17 (N " 54)(Picture Vocabulary #85) SD " 19.50 SD " 13.25


vocabulary as measured by the Spanish WLPB-R/PV was not(r ! ".05, N ! 132, p # .01).

V Discussion

The purpose of this study was to provide empirical evidence (Messick,1989) for the claim that scores on the cognate subtest of the CAT aresensitive to awareness of cognates in Spanish-speaking ELL childrenand that scores on the test as a whole are related to first and secondvocabulary knowledge. Our findings apparently demonstrate this.The reliability of both the cognate subtest and the entire test improvedfrom the pilot to the operational version, and the internal reliabilitiesof the cognate subtest and the entire test were consistent on two test-ing occasions. The internal reliability of the noncognate subtest alsoimproved from one testing occasion to the next.

In comparing the children’s scores on the cognate and noncognatesubtests, we found that the CAT cognate items appear to tap into aconstruct of cognate awareness. Higher scores on the cognate items

Table 9 Means and Kruskal Wallis chi-square for paired subgroups (Study 2, fifthgraders)

Paired Subgroups (N) Mean Ranks Kruskal Wallis chi-square

CognatesHigh Spanish vs. Low Spanish subgroupsHSHE (28) vs. LSHE (24) 35.55 15.94 $2 (1) ! 21.74, p % .01HSHE (28) vs. LSLE (26) 33.88 20.63 $2 (1) ! 9.62, p % .01HSLE (54) vs. LSHE (24) 43.87 29.67 $2 (1) ! 6.56, p % .01HSLE (54) vs. LSLE (26) 42.28 36.81 $2 (1) ! .98, NS

High Spanish vs. High Spanish subgroupHSHE (28) vs. HSLE (54) 49.71 37.24 $2 (1) ! 5.07, NS

Low Spanish vs. Low Spanish subgroupLSHE (24)vs. LSLE (26) 21.77 28.94 $2 (1) ! 3.06, NS

NoncognatesHigh English vs. Low English subgroupsHSHE (28) vs. LSLE (26) 31.27 23.44 $2 (1) ! 3.36, NSLSHE (24) vs. HSLE (54) 44.58 37.24 $2 (1) ! 1.76, NSHSHE (28) vs. HSLE (54) 52.50 35.80 $2 (1) ! 9.13, p % .01LSHE (24) vs. LSLE (26) 26.63 24.46 $2 (1) ! .28, NS

High English vs. High English subgroupHSHE (28) vs. LSHE (24) 28.23 24.48 $2 (1) ! .80, NS

Low English vs. Low English subgroupHSLE (54) vs. LSLE (26) 38.66 44.33 $2 (1) ! 1.05, NS


were consistently related to higher scores on the Spanish WLPB-R/PV but not to higher scores on the English WLPB-R/PV, whereashigher scores on the noncognate items were consistently related tohigher scores on the English WLPB-R/PV but not to higher scoreson the Spanish WLPB-R/PV. Also, the results indicate that, asidefrom the two distinct subtests, there appears to be a general vocabu-lary knowledge involved in doing well on the CAT, because childrenwho had the highest scores on both the English and Spanish WLPB-R/PV performed best on both CAT subtests.

Although the CAT appears to be sensitive to the ability of Spanish-speaking children to use knowledge of Spanish words to discern themeaning of their English cognates, researchers and educators need tobe cognizant of its limitations. Because we used word frequenciesfor adults rather than children, other researchers may want todevelop the CAT further by using frequencies for children (e.g.,Zeno, Ivens, Millard & Duvvuri, 1995, for English). Perhaps whenword frequencies for children are used, the correlations between theCAT and the WLPB-R/PV, currently only moderate, may increase.

At any rate, our results have important theoretical, research, andpedagogical implications. Theoretically, our findings provide somesupport for positive cross-linguistic transfer of cognate knowledgefor Spanish-speaking ELLs with sufficient L1 vocabulary know-ledge, but not necessarily for those with insufficient L1 vocabularyknowledge. This finding is consistent with Cummins’ (1979) theorythat ELL children first need to reach a threshold or minimum profi-ciency in their L1 for it to transfer to their L2.

Research-wise, the CAT is potentially useful for investigation of thedevelopment of cognate knowledge in ELLs. Future studies mightinvestigate exactly what levels of Spanish vocabulary knowledge chil-dren need before that knowledge can help them with English wordmeanings, and whether children trained on one set of cognates couldgeneralize to unlearned ones. Likewise, research could determinewhether certain kinds of words are more susceptible to transfer, possi-bly by developing a scale of the distance between English and Spanishwords based on orthography, morphology, and semantics. Finally,using think-alouds (as in the work of Jiménez et al., 1996) with theCAT would help elucidate how high scorers on the cognate items deter-mine whether a word is a cognate. The think-aloud could query stu-dents on what aspects (phonological, orthographic, morphological,semantic, or a combination of these) they think they focus on to deci-pher a new English word; and the roles they think L1 and L2 profi-ciency play in their ability to use cognate knowledge.

Pedagogically, the CAT could be useful for assessing the effecti-veness of interventions designed to build Spanish-speakingchildren’s English vocabulary. Because English and Spanish sharesuch a large number of cognates, interventions that build cognateawareness may be promising for this purpose. However, because ofthe CAT’s limitations mentioned above, its lower reliability whencompared to standardized tests, and its primary goal of assessingcognate awareness rather than depth of vocabulary knowledge, edu-cators should use the CAT concurrently with other vocabulary meas-ures to provide a more accurate picture of improvements in theirstudents’ overall vocabulary knowledge. The use of reliable andvalid assessments will be crucial to assess the effectiveness of suchinterventions. The CAT takes the first step in providing such anassessment.

Acknowledgements

The Transfer of reading skills in bilingual children study was fundedby Grant No. 5-P01-HD39530 from the National Institute for ChildHealth and Human Development and the Institute of EducationSciences of the US Department of Education to the Center for AppliedLinguistics (CAL). We thank the CAL staff and the Language Testingreviewers for their helpful comments.

VI ReferencesAnderson, R.C., & Freebody, P. (1983). Reading comprehension and the

assessment and acquisition of word knowledge. In B. Hudson (Ed.),Advances in reading/language research (pp. 231–256). Greenwich, CT:JAI Press.

Anthony, E. (1954). The teaching of cognates. Language Learning, 79–82.August, D., Carlo, M., & Calderón, M. (2005). Development of literacy in

Spanish-speaking English-language learners: Findings from longitudinalstudy of elementary school children. Perspectives, 31(2), 17–19.

August, D., Carlo, M., Dressler, C., & Snow, C. (2005). The critical role ofvocabulary development for English language learners. LearningDisabilities Research & Practice, 20(1), 50–57.

August, D., & Hakuta, K. (1997). Improving schooling for language-minoritychildren: A research agenda. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

August, D., & Shanahan, T. (Eds.). (2006). Developing literacy in second-language learners. Report of the National Literacy Panel on Language-Minority Children and Youth. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.


Batalova, J. (2006). Spotlight on limited English proficient students in theUnited States. Washington, DC: Migration Policy Institute: Also availableat http://www.migrationinformation.org/USfocus/print.cfm?ID!373

Biemiller, A., & Slonim, N. (2001). Estimating root word vocabulary growthin normative and advantaged populations: Evidence for a commonsequence of vocabulary acquisition. Journal of Educational Psychology,93(3), 498–520.

Carlisle, J. F., Beeman, M., Davis, L. H.,& Spharim, G. (1999). Relationshipof metalinguistic capabilities and reading achievement for children whoare becoming bilingual. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20(4), 459–478.

Carlisle, J. F., Beeman, M., & Shah, P. P. (1996). The metalinguistic capabil-ities and English literacy of Hispanic high school students: Anexploratory study. In D. J. Leu, C. K. Kinzer & K. A. Hinchman (Eds.),Literacies for the 21st century: Research and practice (pp. 306–316).Chicago, IL: National Reading Conference.

Cunningham, T. H., & Graham, C. R. (2000). Increasing native Englishvocabulary recognition through Spanish: Cognate transfer from foreignto first language. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 37–49.

Cummins, J. (1979). Linguistic interdependence and the educational develop-ment of bilingual children. Review of Educational Research, 49, 222–251.

Davies, M. (2005). Corpus del Español. Retrieved 3 March 2005, fromhttp://www.corpusdelespanol.org/

Dressler, C., & Kamil, M. L. (2006). First- and second-language literacy. InD. August & T. Shanahan (Eds.), Developing literacy in second-languagelearners. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Dufva, M., & Voeten, M. J. M. (1999). Native language literacy and phono-logical memory as prerequisites for learning English as a foreign lan-guage. Applied Psycholinguistics, 20(3), 329–348.

Francis, W. N., & Kucera, H. (1982). Frequency analysis of English usage.Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Garcia, G. E. (1991). Factors influencing the English reading test performanceof Spanish-speaking Hispanic children. Reading Research Quarterly,26(4), 371–392.

Jiménez, R. T., Garcia, G. E., & Pearson, P. D. (1996). The reading strategiesof bilingual Latina/o students who are successful English readers:Opportunities and obstacles. Reading Research Quarterly, 31, 283–301.

Kucera, H., & Francis, W. N. (2005). Kucera and Francis Word Pool. Retrieved3 March 2005, from http://memory.psych.upenn.edu/wordpools.php

Lalor, E., & Kirsner, K. (2000). Cross-lingual transfer effects betweenEnglish and Italian cognates and noncognates. The International Journalof Bilingualism, 4, 385–398.

Linacre, J. M. (2007). Person and item statistics in misfit order. Retrieved 16 January 2007, from http://www.winsteps.com/winman/table6_1.htm

Linacre, J. M., & Wright, B. D. (2000). Winsteps. Chicago, IL: MESA Press.McNamara, T. F. (1996). Measuring second language performance. New York:

Longman.Messick, S. (1989). Validity. In R. L. Linn (Ed.), Educational measurement

(3rd ed., pp. 13–103). New York: American Council on Education.



Nagy, W., Garcia, G. E., Durgonoglu, A. Y., & Hancin-Bhatt, B. (1993).Spanish-English bilingual students’ use of cognates in English reading.Journal of Reading Behavior, 25, 241–259.

Nash, R. (1997). Dictionary of Spanish cognates. Chicago, IL: NTC Publishing.Schelletter, C. (2002). The effect of form similarity on bilingual children’s lex-

ical development. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 5, 93–107.Snow, C. (2006). Cross-cutting themes and future research directions. In

D. August & T. Shanahan (Eds.), Developing literacy in second-languagelearners. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Snow, C. E., Burns, S., & Griffin, P. (Eds). (1998). Preventing reading diffi-culties in young children. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Snow, C., Cancini, H., Gonzalez, P., & Shriberg, E. (1989). Giving formaldefinitions: An oral language correlate of school literacy. In D. Bloome(Ed.), Classrooms and literacy (pp. 233–249). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.

Whitley, M. S. (2002). Spanish/English contrasts: A course in Spanish linguis-tics. (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Woodcock, R. W. (1991a). Woodcock language proficiency battery-revised,English and Spanish forms: Examiner’s manual. Itasca, IL: Riverside.

Woodcock, R. W. (1991b). Woodcock language proficiency battery-revised,English form: Test book. Itasca, IL: Riverside.

Woodcock, R. W., & Muñoz-Sandoval, A. F. (1995). Woodcock language pro-ficiency battery-revised, Spanish form: Test Book. Itasca, IL: Riverside.

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

Documents

Developing Cognate Awareness