Besides explicit inference of word meanings, associating words with diverse contexts may be a key mechanism underlying vocabulary learning through reading. Drawing from distributional semantic theory, we developed a text modification method called reflash to facilitate both word-context association and explicit inference. Using a set of left and…

More than half the global population is estimated to be multilingual, yet research on autistic children who grow up in multilingual environments remains scant. We conducted a systematic review of peer-reviewed studies on multilingualism in autistic children and its impact on children's language and communication skills. Following Preferred…

We report on a meta-analysis designed to test the theory that instruction that involves direct teaching of academic vocabulary and teaching strategies to determine the meaning of unknown words develops students' abilities to infer new words' meanings and builds students' overall vocabulary knowledge. We meta-analyzed 39 experimental and…

Poverty of the stimulus has been at the heart of ferocious and tear-filled debates at the nexus of psychology, linguistics, and philosophy for decades. This review is intended as a guide for readers without a formal linguistics or philosophy background, focusing on what poverty of the stimulus is and how it's been interpreted, which is…

This review examines and integrates studies of second language (L2) vocabulary instruction with adult learners in a laboratory setting, using a framework provided by a modified version of the Revised Hierarchical Model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994), the Revised Hierarchical Model-Repetition Elaboration Retrieval. By examining how various training…

Current events influence public interest and drive Internet word searches. For over a decade, linguists and dictionary publishers have analyzed big data from Internet word searches to designate "Words of the Year" (WsOY). In this study, we examine how WsOY can foster critical digital literacy and illuminate essential aspects of inquiry…

Background: Language disorder and associated vocabulary difficulties can persist into adolescence, and can impact on long-term life outcomes. Previous reviews have shown that a variety of intervention techniques can successfully enhance students' vocabulary skills; however, none has investigated vocabulary intervention specifically for adolescents…

Although numerous studies have identified a correlational relationship between vocabulary and comprehension, we know less about vocabulary interventions that impact reading comprehension. Therefore, this study is a systematic review of vocabulary interventions with comprehension outcomes. Analyses of 36 studies that met criteria are organized…

The aim of this article is to shift the notion of 'sites' as places of work peculiar to continuous professional development (CPD) to a theoretical level, independent of, yet intimately connected to, their physical meanings, for example universities and schools. Most CPD initiatives have to contend with at least one of these two sites, in which…

The purpose of this meta-analysis was to examine the comprehension problems of children who have a specific reading comprehension deficit (SCD), which is characterized by poor reading comprehension despite adequate decoding. The meta-analysis included 86 studies of children with SCD who were assessed in reading comprehension and oral language…

Although vocabulary instruction is a pressing need for postsecondary reading instructors, a minimal amount of current postsecondary scholarship addresses this need, and almost no current scholarship addresses the textbook tradition of morphemic analysis (MA). The present article reviews the literature on MA instruction and argues for teaching MA…

Arguing that the failure of instructional materials is frequently due to misconceptions held by their developers concerning the nature of comprehension, this chapter examines the factors involved in comprehension and relates them to the design of instructional materials. Three types of errors in comprehension are discussed, and ways to avoid them…

An approach to intelligence which emphasizes domain-specific constraints on knowledge structures is compared to information processing approaches. The evaluation of any cognitive ability as being intelligent crucially depends on prior specification of the formal constraints on the domains of knowledge from which that ability originates. (Author/RD)

Explores factors affecting the ease or difficulty with which new words are learned in a second language, focusing on such intralexical factors as pronuncability, length, parts of speech, inflexional complexity, derivational complexity, semantic features, abstractedness, specificity, idomaticity, register restrictions, and multiple meaning. (52…

Examines the lexical errors made by students learning French as a foreign language, and proposes a new method for teaching vocabulary based on a lexical disambiguation model. (15 references) (JL)