Learning vocabulary in preschool: Social and discourse contexts affecting vocabulary growth
✍ Scribed by David K. Dickinson; Linda Cote; Miriam W. Smith
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1993
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 991 KB
- Volume
- 1993
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1520-3247
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In this chapter, we discuss social factors that have an impact on children's acquisition of vocabulary in early childhood settings. First, we consider why vocabulary is of great interest to educators. Next, we present a sociaily contextualized model of word learning. Finally, drawing on data from a longitudinal study of language and literacy development of low-income children, we discuss early childhood classrooms as lexical environments.
Vocabulary Size, Reading Comprehension, and World Knowledge If one were to select a single variable to measure aspects of children's cognitive functioning related to school success, vocabulary would be a likely candidate because it is closely linked to academic achievement in general and reading comprehension in particular. Data from fifteen countries at three ages (ten, fourteen, and seventeen) reveal correlations between reading comprehension and vocabulary averaging between .66 and .71 . The importance of having a large vocabulary is ~ghlighted
The work reported in this chapter is currently supported by Project Head Start and the Spencer Foundation. Previous support was provided by the Ford Foundation. We gratefully acknowledge their support and the efforts of Petra Nicholson, tireless collector of data, and Sarah Gay, transcriber and general helper.