Academic vocabulary and reading comprehension: exploring the relationships across measures of vocabulary knowledge

Reading and Writing - This study examined the relationship between knowledge of academic vocabulary and reading comprehension in data contributed by 5855 middle school students. Each student...     

Examiner scoring of ambiguous WISC-R responses

Fabricated test protocols were used to study how effectively examiners agree in scoring ambiguous WISC-R responses. Clinical and school psychologists (N = 62) and graduate students (N = 48) scored WISC-R Similarities, Comprehension, and Vocabulary responses obtained in a group administration procedure. From over 15,000 responses obtained, only unusual, atypical, or ambiguous responses were selected; 726 responses were scored, with 11 groups of 10 raters each scoring 66 responses. Considerable scoring disagreement occurred. Unanimous agreement (within each group of 10 raters) was found on only 13% of the responses, while 80% of the raters agreed on 44% of the responses. Rates of scoring agreement were not related to level of rater experience, but were related to specific subtests. Higher rates of agreement were found on the Similarities and Comprehension subtests than on the Vocabulary subtest for both experienced and inexperienced raters. The results suggest that even with the improved WISC-R manual, scoring remains a difficult and challenging task.     

Relationships of general vocabulary, science vocabulary, and student questioning with science comprehension in students with varying levels of English proficiency

This study investigated the influence of general vocabulary knowledge, science vocabulary knowledge, and text based questioning on the science reading comprehension of three types of students who varied in their English language proficiency. Specifically, grade 5 English-Only speakers, English Language Learners in the United States, and students learning English as a Foreign Language in a Spanish-speaking country were compared across the aforementioned variables to examine their relationship to reading comprehension. Findings indicated that general vocabulary, science vocabulary, and questioning contributed significant variance to the explanation of science reading comprehension. However, no particular variable was found to interact with language proficiency in their contribution to science reading comprehension. Findings are discussed in terms of the roles that each variable could play in content area comprehension. Implications for content-area literacy instruction of second-language students are considered.     

Development of decoding,reading comprehension,vocabulary and spelling during the elementary school years

The goal of this study was (1) to investigate the development of decoding(efficiency), reading comprehension, vocabulary and spelling during theelementary school years and (2) to determine the differences between poor,average and good performers with regard to the development of theseskills. Twice each year two standardized tests for each skill wereadministered. For two successive periods, one of the tests for each skill wasthe same. To describe the development in terms of a latent variable evolvingacross grades, the structured-means version of the structural equationmodel was used. The growth was expressed in terms of effect size. Withrespect to the first question, clear seasonal effects were found for readingcomprehension, vocabulary and spelling, while the seasonal effect fordecoding efficiency was restricted to the early grades. Progress tended tobe greater from fall to spring than from spring to fall. For decodingefficiency, and to a lesser degree for vocabulary and spelling, growthshowed a declining trend across grades. For reading comprehension, theprogress in grade 2 was lower than the progress in grade 3, but progresswas declining across higher grades. With respect to the second question,it appeared that initially low performers on reading comprehension,vocabulary and spelling tended to show a greater progress, especially inperiods where the largest amount of instruction was given. Although it wasfound that the low, medium and high ability groups remain in the sameorder, as far as their means are concerned, these findings do not confirmthe existence of a Matthew effect for reading comprehension, vocabularyand spelling. For decoding efficiency no clear differential effect could befound: the gap between the poor and good performers did not widen overtime for this skill.     

Revisiting print exposure: exploring differential links to vocabulary,comprehension and reading rate

Undergraduates (N=171) completed a revised version of the Author Recognition Test ( Stanovich & West, 1989 ). The resulting print exposure scores were divided into two dimensions: personal reading experience (primary print knowledge – PPK) and secondary print knowledge (SPK). Both PPK and SPK were correlated with print exposure, but not with each other. PPK correlated more strongly with reading‐related variables (vocabulary, comprehension and reading rate) than did SPK. Of particular importance, PPK accounted for variance in all three criterion variables after the effects of SPK had been factored out. Thus, these data support the notion that it is the act of reading over and above memory for reading‐related information that furthers the development of linguistic skill.     

论中日汉字词汇的异同

汉字传入日本后,日本人就使用汉字来记载日语。因此,在日语中有着大量的汉字词汇,并且这些汉字词汇大多与现代汉语的词汇字形相同。对于这些汉语和日语中所共有的汉字词汇,从字形和词义两方面统合来分析的话,可以把其分为同形同义词、同形异义词、同形义岐词以及日本人独创的汉字这样几类。本文试从汉日语言对比的角度,从词汇的意义方面,分析探讨日语汉字词汇中的同形异义词和同形义岐词。     

Examining vocabulary,reading comprehension,and content knowledge instruction during fourth grade social studies teaching

Reading and Writing - Teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension during social studies instruction is critical for reading development and the acquisition of content knowledge. This study...     

In search of the keyword method/vocabulary comprehension link

Previous research has indicated that the keyword method of vocabulary learning facilitates students' performance not just on simple tests of definition recall, but on comprehension-demanding tasks as well. The present study was conducted to determine whether the “comprehension” finding could be accounted for by keyword subjects' superior definition recall per se. The results generally supported that conclusion: When conditions and subjects within conditions were equated with respect to their initial levels of definition recall, the comprehension advantage of keyword subjects disappeared.     

Effects of a read aloud intervention on first grade student vocabulary,listening comprehension,and language proficiency

Reading and Writing - We examine the effects of a read aloud replication intervention designed to improve the vocabulary, comprehension, and expository and narrative language outcomes of first...     

Effects of removing morphemic information and adding interword spacing on reading in Chinese experienced and inexperienced readers

Two experiments tested the role of morphemic information and interword spacing in reading in experienced and inexperienced Chinese readers. Chinese is normally written in hanzi, or characters, which mostly represent monosyllabic morphemes, but it can also be written in pinyin, or romanised Chinese, which represents phonemes and is word-spaced. While previous research has shown that Chinese readers are slower with pinyin than hanzi materials, this has mostly been explained in terms of lack of proficiency in pinyin reading. The present study aimed at testing whether pinyin reading may be slow because morphemic information is needed for fluent Chinese reading, and phonemic information alone is not sufficient; for this purpose, the study included not only adults but also primary school students, who are experienced pinyin readers and unproficient hanzi readers. Participants performed a sentence-picture verification task. Sentences were written with morphemic or phonemic information (in hanzi or pinyin, respectively), and with interword or inter-morpheme spacing. Removing morphemic information had strong negative effects on all readers, including children. Adding interword spacing had no facilitative effects, and had some negative effects, especially with children. Results reveal the important role of morphemic information in Chinese reading, and fail to support the universality of the facilitative effects of interword spacing.     

Reading development in European Portuguese: relationships between oral reading fluency,vocabulary and reading comprehension

This study investigated direct and indirect effects between oral reading fluency, vocabulary and reading comprehension across reading development in European Portuguese. Participants were 329 children attending basic education, from grade 1 to grade 6. The results of path analyses showed that text reading fluency is much more dependent on the foundational skills of word recognition than reading comprehension, and the later, in turn, depends crucially on the specific constituent skill of text reading fluency. Text reading fluency has a significant influence on vocabulary from the beginning, but vocabulary contributed to reading comprehension only in more advanced grades. These results, obtained with an orthography of intermediate depth, are in line with the Simple View of Reading (SVR). However, they also highlight the importance of textual cues—besides the pivotal role of decoding—from the beginning of learning to read, which must be taken into account in the SVR.     

Bottom‐up processing and reading comprehension in experienced adult readers

Previous research has indicated a weak to moderate role for word recognition skill in contributing to reading comprehension efficiency in highly experienced adult readers. The goal of this study was to re‐evaluate the strength of this association, including assessment of the contribution of skill in discriminating unfamiliar shapes and identifying letters. Unexpectedly, the results revealed a very strong association between efficiency in reading connected text and word recognition skill, as measured by efficiency of access to the orthographic lexicon. Ability to identify letters rapidly and accurately also contributed to orthographic access skill. These associations were only minimally reduced by controlling for skill in discriminating unfamiliar shapes. The results were interpreted in terms of the verbal‐efficiency theory, according to which rapid and accurate lower‐level processing liberates resources for equally crucial higher‐level comprehension processing, ultimately resulting in more efficient text comprehension.     

Teaching abstract vocabulary with the keyword method: effects on recall and comprehension

Twenty-five adolescents with learning disabilities were randomly assigned to either a keyword mnemonic condition or an experimenter-directed rehearsal condition and were individually taught 16 difficult vocabulary words, including 8 concrete and 8 abstract words. After an instructional period, students were given a test of literal recall as well as a comprehension test of their ability to apply newly acquired vocabulary words in a different context. Results indicated that mnemonically trained students outperformed control students on both abstract and concrete words, and on recall tests as well as on comprehension tests. Implications for vocabulary instruction as well as theories of learning disabilities are discussed.     

L1 and L2 vocabulary glosses in L2 reading passages: Their effectiveness for increasing comprehension and vocabulary knowledge

This study investigated the effect of vocabulary glossing on recall and vocabulary learning, as well as learners’ preferences as to glossing. Eighty-five native speakers of English studying Spanish at the university level participated. Participants read a Spanish text under one of three treatment conditions: no gloss, English glosses, or Spanish glosses. They then were asked to write what they recalled of the passage, translate a list of the glossed vocabulary, and complete a questionnaire. The translation task was repeated four weeks later. Results showed that glossing did not significantly affect recall for the participants overall, but that those with higher than average proficiency recalled more if they had read a glossed version of the text. Those who had glosses outperformed their peers on the translation task administered immediately after they had read the text. However, this difference disappeared on the retest. Participants expressed preference for glosses, wished that they be located in the margin, and favoured Spanish glosses if they were comprehensible.     

产出性和接受性词汇知识对阅读理解影响的相关研究

词汇是语言的基本组成要素之一,对语言学习十分重要。鉴于词汇知识对语言学习的重要性,国内外存在较多关于词汇知识和听说读写等语言技能学习之间关系的研究,但研究结果呈现多样化。本研究针对低能力水平英语学习者,从接受性和产出性的词汇知识角度,探讨词汇知识与阅读理解之间的关系。     

Early action and gesture "vocabulary" and its relation with word comprehension and production

Data from 492 Italian infants (8-18 months) were collected with the parental questionnaire MacArthur Bates Communicative Development Inventories to describe early actions and gestures (A-G) "vocabulary" and its relation with spoken vocabulary in both comprehension and production. A-G were more strongly correlated with word comprehension than word production. A clear developmental pattern for the different types of A-G was found. These findings are similar to those of different Western languages, indicating a common biological and cultural basis. The analysis of individual A-G and their relations with early words with a related meaning showed interesting similarities between the production of A-G with and without object manipulation and the comprehension and production of corresponding words. Results indicate that the transition from A-G to spoken language is mediated by word comprehension.     

Matthew effects in young readers: reading comprehension and reading experience aid vocabulary development

The authors report data from a longitudinal study of the reading development of children who were assessed in the years of their 8th, 11th, 14th, and 16th birthdays. They examine the evidence for Matthew effects in reading and vocabulary between ages 8 and 11 in groups of children identified with good and poor reading comprehension at 8 years. They also investigate evidence for Matthew effects in reading and vocabulary between 8 and 16 years, in the larger sample. The poor comprehenders showed reduced growth in vocabulary compared to the good comprehenders, but not in word reading or reading comprehension ability. They also obtained lower scores on measures of out-of-school literacy. Analyses of the whole sample revealed that initial levels of reading experience and reading comprehension predicted vocabulary at ages 11, 14, and 16 after controlling for general ability and vocabulary skills when aged 8. The authors discuss these findings in relation to the influence of reading on vocabulary development.     

Individual differences in reading comprehension gains from assisted reading practice: pre existing conditions, vocabulary acquisition, and amounts of practice

We conducted a study of the effects of assisted reading practice (Shany & Biemiller, 1995). In this paper we examined the original data to find factors affecting gains in reading comprehension. We contrasted 14 children who had below median gains in reading comprehension and 15 who had above median gains. There were no significant correlations between pre-program language and reading measures and reading comprehension gains. High comprehension gainers made significantly larger gains in vocabulary. In the previous report on this research, we found that reading practice had large beneficial impact on reading comprehension. In this study we also found that children who gained significantly more vocabulary had also significantly higher gains in reading comprehension. Implications are discussed.     

Lexical inference in L2: predictive roles of vocabulary knowledge and reading skill beyond reading comprehension

The current study examined the predictive roles of L2 vocabulary knowledge and L2 word reading skills in explaining individual differences in lexical inferencing in the L2. Participants were 53 Israeli high school students who emigrated from the former Soviet Union, and spoke Russian as an L1 and Hebrew as an L2. L2 vocabulary knowledge and decoding accuracy predicted L2 reading comprehension, which in turn was strongly related to lexical inferencing abilities in the L2. In addition, decoding accuracy predicted additional variance in lexical inferencing, beyond the role of reading comprehension. These findings support the idea that beginning L2 readers with more precise and efficient lexical representations demonstrate better lexical inferencing abilities, most likely due to the increased automatization of word reading, which frees up resources for higher level processing. These results suggest that lexical inferencing from text in the L2 might be limited not only by vocabulary knowledge and higher order comprehension processes, but also by basic decoding skills.