Reading storybooks to kindergartners helps them learn new vocabulary words.

In sessions conducted individually, 45 kindergartners who were nonreaders listened to an adult read the same storybook twice, 2–4 days apart, and then completed a posttest measuring their knowledge of the meanings of 22 unfamiliar words, half of which had appeared in the story. Some target words occurred twice in the story and some only once, so children heard some words 4 times and some words twice. Children recognized the meanings of significantly more words from the story than words not in the story, indicating that storybook reading was effective for building vocabulary. Gains were greater among children with larger entering vocabularies. Four exposures to words appeared to be necessary but not sufficient for higher rates of word learning. Findings confirm that story listening contributes modestly to young children's vocabulary growth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in 4-year-old children's acquisition of vocabulary during storybook reading.

Two experiments were conducted to assess how children who differ in vocabulary knowledge learn new vocabulary incidentally from listening to stories read aloud. In both experiments, 4-yr-old children were classified as having either high or low word knowledge on the basis of a median split of their Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised (PPVT—R) standard scores. In Exp 1, children either listened passively or labeled pictures using novel words during the book readings. We found that children with larger vocabularies produced more novel words than did children with smaller vocabularies, and children who answered questions during the book readings comprehended and produced more words than did children who passively listened to the story. In Exp 2, children either listened to readings of a book, pointed to pictures during the readings, or labeled pictures during the readings. Children with larger vocabularies comprehended more novel words than did children with smaller vocabularies. Children who actively participated by labeling or pointing learned more words than did children who listened passively to book readings. Findings clarify the role of active responding by demonstrating that verbal and nonverbal responding are effective means of enhancing vocabulary acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of book-reading matters for emergent readers: An experiment with the same book in a regular or electronic format.

An adult read to 12 children from a regular paper book. Twenty-four children explored an electronic book similar in illustrations and story content (also called CD-ROM storybook, talking book, interactive book, or computer book). For half of this group the electronic book was available with and for half without restrictions concerning the games. Twelve control children were only pre- and posttested. After 6 sessions the examiner elicited an emergent reading of text and separate words to test to what extent children had internalized story meaning, phrasing, and features of written text. During the book-reading sessions children's attention to text and iconic modes differed as a function of book format and children's level of emergent literacy. The regular book format was more supportive of learning about story content and phrasing; both formats supported internalization of features of written words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Baby's first 10 words.

Although there has been much debate over the content of children's first words, few large sample studies address this question for children at the very earliest stages of word learning. The authors report data from comparable samples of 265 English-, 336 Putonghua- (Mandarin), and 369 Cantonese-speaking 8- to 16-month-old infants whose caregivers completed MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories and reported them to produce between 1 and 10 words. Analyses of individual words indicated striking commonalities in the first words that children learn. However, substantive cross-linguistic differences appeared in the relative prevalence of common nouns, people terms, and verbs as well as in the probability that children produced even one of these word types when they had a total of 1-3, 4-6, or 7-10 words in their vocabularies. These data document cross-linguistic differences in the types of words produced even at the earliest stages of vocabulary learning and underscore the importance of parental input and cross-linguistic/cross-cultural variations in children's early word-learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical acquisition in elementary science classes.

The purpose of this study was to further researchers' understanding of lexical acquisition in the beginning primary schoolchild by investigating word learning in small-group elementary science classes. Two experiments were conducted to examine the role of semantic scaffolding (e.g., use of synonymous terms) and physical scaffolding (e.g., pointing to referents) in children's acquisition of novel property terms. Children's lexical knowledge was assessed using multiple tasks (naming, comprehension, and definitional). Children struggled to acquire meanings of adjectives without semantic or physical scaffolding (Experiment 1), but they were successful in acquiring extensive lexical knowledge when offered semantic scaffolding (Experiment 2). Experiment 2 also shows that semantic scaffolding used in combination with physical scaffolding helped children acquire novel adjectives and that children who correctly named pictures of adjectives had acquired definitions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Growth of reading vocabulary in diverse elementary schools: Decoding and word meaning.

The authors charted growth of reading vocabulary for first- through fourth-grade students at three dissimilar elementary schools: School A, a suburban school enrolling White students who spoke standard English; School B, an inner-city school enrolling Black, dialect-speaking students; and School C, a semirural school enrolling economically disadvantaged, dialect-speaking Asian/Pacific students. Multiple-choice and interview tests showed rapid growth of reading vocabulary to an impressive size for all students. However, mainstream (School A) students had larger reading vocabularies, decoded more words, and knew more word meanings than the disadvantaged students at Schools B and C. The gap between mainstream and disadvantaged students was largest for infrequent words. The data suggest that direct instruction in decoding and/or individual word meanings could play a limited role in assisting minority students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vocabulary acquisition from teacher explanation and repeated listening to stories: Do they overcome the Matthew effect?

The authors evaluated the effect of listening to stories on children's vocabulary growth. Forty-seven children listened to 2 stories read to them in a small-group setting on 3 occasions, each 1 week apart. Target vocabulary items and items assessing generalization to nontarget words were selected, and pre- and posttest multiple-choice vocabulary measures were designed to measure vocabulary gains. In addition, a reading-retelling task was used to measure the subjects' knowledge of target and generalization words. For 1 story, children listened to the reading and were given explanations of target word meanings: for the other, children were not given explanations. The children acquired new vocabulary from listening to stories, with both frequency of exposure and teacher explanation of the target words enhancing vocabulary learning. However, the interventions were not sufficient to overcome the Matthew effect, as the higher ability children made greater vocabulary gains than lower ability children across all conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The spelling for writing list

Four different vocabulary lists based on the study of children's writing were used to generate a basic spelling list for students with learning disabilities and other poor spellers. For each vocabulary list, the smallest number of different words that accounted for 80% of the words children used in their writing were identified. Words that were common to only one or two of the lists or not normally used by children until fourth grade or later were eliminated. Each word was assigned a grade placement based on difficulty, pattern of occurrence in children's writing, and placement on current vocabulary lists and spelling materials. The resulting spelling list of 335 words is provided.     

Why children learn color and size words so differently: Evidence from adults' learning of artificial terms.

An adult simulation study examined why children's learning of color and size terms follow different developmental patterns, one in which word comprehension precedes success in nonlinguistic matching tasks versus one in which matching precedes word comprehension. In 4 experiments, adults learned artificial labels for values on novel dimensions. Training mimicked that characteristic for children learning either color words or size words. The results suggest that the learning trajectories arise from the different frames in which different dimensions are trained: Using a comparison (size-like) training regimen helps learners pick out the relevant dimension, and using a categorization (color-like) training regimen helps the learner correctly comprehend and produce dimension terms. The results indicate that the training regimen, not the meanings of the terms or the specific dimensions, determines the pattern of learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Multiple Labels for Objects in Conversations With Young Children: Parents' Language and Children's Developing Expectations About Word Meanings.

Children sometimes seem to expect words to have mutually exclusive meanings in certain contexts of early word learning. In 2 studies, 12- to 24-month-old children and their parents were videotaped as they engaged in conversations while playing with sets of toys (sea creatures, vehicles, doll clothing) in free-play, storytelling, and categorization contexts. In both studies, parents demonstrated a reliable preference to provide just 1 label for a given object. Importantly, parents' violations of this preference were usually accompanied by clarifying (or "bridging") information that either indicated the relation between the 2 labels or suggested that 1 of the labels was appropriate. Further, in some contexts, parents' tendency to use multiple labels and to provide bridging information for multiple labels was correlated with children's productive vocabulary. It is argued that these findings support a socio-pragmatic hypothesis about the origins of children's early beliefs about word meanings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nouns are not always learned before verbs: Evidence from Mandarin speakers' early vocabularies.

This article examines D. Gentner's (1982) claim that nouns are universally predominant in children's early vocabularies. When a conservative method of counting nouns was used, 9 out of 10 22-month-old monolingual Mandarin-speaking children produced more verbs or action words than nouns or object labels in their naturalistic speech. When a more liberal definition of nouns was used, neither a noun nor a verb bias was found. Importantly, there was no difference in the type-token ratios of the children's use of nouns and verbs. Thus, a sampling bias type of explanation cannot explain the prevalence of verbs in these data. Instead, these data suggest the importance of a variety of linguistic and sociocultural input factors in early word learning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on lexical access and reading comprehension.

To examine the relationship between knowledge of word meanings and semantic processes, 27 4th-grade children were taught 104 words over a 5-mo period. Following instruction, Ss performed tasks designed to require semantic processes ranging from single word semantic decisions to simple sentence verification and memory for connected text. On all these tasks, instructed Ss performed at a significantly higher level than controls matched on pre-instruction vocabulary knowledge and comprehension. Thus, instructed Ss gave evidence both of learning word meanings taught by the program and of being able to process instructed words more efficiently in tasks more reflective of comprehension. Implications for vocabulary instruction and the role of individual word meanings in comprehension are discussed. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades.

Teaching vocabulary to primary grade children is essential. Previous studies of teaching vocabulary (word meanings) using story books in the primary grades reported gains of 20%-25% of word meanings taught. The present studies concern possible influences on word meaning acquisition during instruction (Study 1) and increasing the percentage and number of word meanings acquired (Study 2). Both studies were conducted in a working-class school with approximately 50% English-language learners. The regular classroom teachers worked with their whole classes in these studies. In Study 1, average gains of 12% of word meanings were obtained using repeated reading. Adding word explanations added a 10% gain for a total gain of 22%. Pretesting had no effect on gains. In Study 2, results showed learning of 41% of word meanings taught. At this rate of learning word meanings taught, it would be possible for children to learn 400 word meanings a year if 1,000 word meanings were taught. The feasibility of teaching vocabulary to primary grade children is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond the pages of a book: Interactive book reading and language development in preschool classrooms.

The effects of a book reading technique called interactive book reading on the language and literacy development of 4 yr olds from low-income families were evaluated. Teachers read books to children and reinforced the vocabulary in the books by presenting concrete objects that represented the words and by providing children with multiple opportunities to use the book-related words. The teachers also were trained to ask open-ended questions and to engage children in conversations about the book and activities. This provided children with opportunities to use language and learn vocabulary in a meaningful context. Children who were in the interactive book reading intervention group scored significantly better than children in the comparison group on Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—III and other measures of receptive and expressive language. Book reading and related activities can promote the development of language and literacy skills in young children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spoken word recognition in reading disabled children.

This study compared spoken word recognition in 39 reading disabled and 61 normally achieving children on a speech gating task and examined the relationships among speech recognition, phonemic awareness, and reading. Children listened to increasingly longer segments of the speech input from word onset and guessed the identity of the target word. Words were either high or low frequency arid had few or many similarly sounding word neighbors in the listener's lexicon. Reading disabled children needed more of the speech input than normally achieving peers to identify target words with few similarly sounding neighbors. The amount of speech input for recognition predicted the youngest children's reading performance, after variance due to measures of phonemic awareness and receptive vocabulary were accounted for. The argument is developed that spoken word recognition may be developmentally delayed in those with reading disabilities and may play a causal role in these children's failure to acquire adequate alphabetic knowledge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Unlocking the door: Is parents' reading to children the key to early literacy development?

Parents are encouraged to read to their children, and they frequently engage in shared book reading on the belief that the experience will foster their children's literacy development. In this article, the authors draw on a body of published studies to argue that shared book reading often does not lead to the benefits expected of it. The studies show that during parent-child shared reading, the adults typically do not draw the children's attention to features of the print and the children most often will attend to the illustrations and not to the print. As a consequence, shared book reading often does not advance children's early literacy development. However, the authors point to research showing that when shared book reading is enriched with explicit attention to the development of children's reading skills and strategies, then shared book reading is an effective vehicle for promoting the early literacy ability even of disadvantaged children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The arbitrariness of the sign: Learning advantages from the structure of the vocabulary.

Recent research has demonstrated that systematic mappings between phonological word forms and their meanings can facilitate language learning (e.g., in the form of sound symbolism or cues to grammatical categories). Yet, paradoxically from a learning viewpoint, most words have an arbitrary form-meaning mapping. We hypothesized that this paradox may reflect a division of labor between 2 different language learning functions: arbitrariness facilitates learning specific word meanings and systematicity facilitates learning to group words into categories. In a series of computational investigations and artificial language learning studies, we varied the extent to which the language was arbitrary or systematic. For both the simulations and the behavioral studies, we found that the optimal structure of the vocabulary for learning incorporated this division of labor. Corpus analyses of English and French indicate that these predicted patterns are also found in natural languages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's interpretations of homonyms: a developmental study

The effect of homonymity on children's use of semantic context to derive word meaning was examined in two studies. Participants were presented with stories that included three types of key words: nonsense words, familiar words used accurately, and homonymous words. Thirty-two preschoolers aged 3;7 to 5;4, 32 second graders aged 7;1 to 8;8, and 16 college students in Study 1 indicated the keys words' meaning by selecting one of six possible illustrations per key word. In Study 2, 16 toddlers aged 2;9 to 3;3, 32 preschoolers aged 4;0 to 4;11, 32 second graders aged 7;0 to 8;11, and 32 fifth graders aged 10;1 to 11;8 indicated key word meanings either by enacting each story with paper dolls or by selecting one of six possible illustrations. Word type and age, but not response mode, affected children's interpretations. Children from all four age groups made fewer contextually based interpretations of homonymous words than of nonsense words. Fifth graders and adults made more contextually based (rather than literal) interpretations of homonymous words than did younger children. The results suggest that homonymity is a powerful inhibitor of children's tendency to derive a meaning for a new word from context.     

Word Learning and Individual Differences in Word Learning Reflected in Event-Related Potentials.

Adults learned the meanings of rare words (e.g., gloaming) and then made meaning judgments on pairs of words. The 1st word was a trained rare word, an untrained rare word, or an untrained familiar word. Event-related potentials distinguished trained rare words from both untrained rare and familiar words, first at 140 ms and again at 400-600 ms after onset of the 1st word. These results may point to an episodic memory effect. The 2nd word produced an N400 that distinguished trained and familiar word pairs that were related in meaning from unrelated word pairs. Skilled comprehenders learned more words than less skilled comprehenders and showed a stronger episodic memory effect at 400-600 ms on the 1st word and a stronger N400 effect on the 2nd word. These results suggest that superior word learning among skilled comprehenders may arise from a stronger episodic trace that includes orthographic and meaning information and illustrate, how an episodic theory of word identification can explain reading skill. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dialogic reading and morphology training in Chinese children: Effects on language and literacy.

This study investigates the effects of parent-child shared book reading and metalinguistic training on the language and literacy skills of 148 kindergartners in Hong Kong. Children were pretested on Chinese character recognition, vocabulary, morphological awareness, and reading interest and then assigned randomly to 1 of 4 conditions: the dialogic reading with morphology training (DR + MT), dialogic reading (DR), typical reading, or control condition. After a 12-week intervention period, the DR intervention yielded greater gains in vocabulary, and the DR + MT intervention yielded greater improvement in character recognition and morphological awareness. Both interventions enhanced children's reading interest. Results confirm that different home literacy approaches influence children's oral and written language skills differently: Shared book reading promotes language development, whereas parents' explicit metalinguistic training within a shared book reading context better prepares children for learning to read. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)