Cyberreading Workstations: The Pandora’s Vocabulary Teaching Strategy for Elementary Mexican-American Students in South Texas

Concepcion Reyna, Yu-Lin Feng, Valentin Ekiaka Nzai 
(Department of Teacher &Bilingual Education, Texas A&M University, USA)

Abstract: Children who enter school with limited vocabulary find reading, difficult, resist reading, learn fewer words, and consequently fall further behind. Historically, Mexican-American students have experienced the lack of vocabulary in English in elementary years. Using Ekiaka & Feng (2011) experimental cyberlearning workstations frame, an experimental study was conducted to examine if vocabulary acquisition through systematic cyberreading instruction is more effective for 48 digital native Mexican-American elementary students in South Texas. Despite limitations, data analysis suggested that teaching English vocabulary through implementation of cyberreading workstations approach had significant impact on participants’ vocabulary acquisition processes in comparison to the traditional teaching strategies.

Key words: cyberlearning workstations model, cyberreading workstations, digital natives