Background: Prominent theories of reading make the prediction that individual differences in children's word learning capacity determine the pace of their acquisition of reading skill. Despite the developmental nature of some of these theories, most empirical research to date has explored the relation between word learning capacity and reading at…

This study aimed to investigate the following questions: Does the use of thinking maps and semantic mapping during explicit vocabulary instruction affect content specific science vocabulary knowledge and comprehension in fourth grade students? and What are student perceptions of using thinking maps and semantic maps to learn new vocabulary? To…

The number of learners seeking to acquire an L2 by means of apps is ever-increasing. This study examined the effectiveness of using the app "Mondly" for the acquisition of L2 English vocabulary while accounting for differences in the acquisition of receptive and productive aspects of word knowledge. Twelve Danish young learners (aged…

Building vocabulary knowledge, especially breadth and depth of word meanings, is a crucial step in assisting students to read and comprehend print independently. A large body of research has documented the low reading achievement levels of a number of Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) students. The goal of the present study was to examine the effects…

The achievement gap is ever growing in the United States educational system. Low socioeconomic students is one demographic group who is targeted for educators to evaluate teaching and learning. Academic vocabulary is a targeted piece of language that is integrated into all content areas in school that makes content comprehensible. Low…

This study investigated how word and child characteristics affect children's ability to learn the meanings of novel words. Participants were fourth- and fifth-graders representing native English speakers (NE) and bilingual learners with fluent English proficiency (FEP) and designated English Learners (EL). Students were taught the meanings of a…

Research has investigated how lexical-semantic and participant factors impact word learning in young children and adults. However, limited information pertaining to expressive vocabulary development exists for school-aged bilinguals--particularly those with developmental language disorder (DLD). Cross-linguistic differences in the semantic…

In this study, we investigated if children build a print-to-meaning connection via the semantic radical -- a mechanism we call "semantic decoding" -- and its interaction with phonological decoding in orthographic learning of Chinese compound characters. Ninety-two Grade 4 children were taught the pronunciations and meanings of 16…

The purpose of this study is to share the design, implementation, and evaluation processes regarding an activity implemented for improving the vocabulary of 4th grade students, and to determine the opinions of the students about the activity. The activity serves to the purpose of learning the new words and phrases meaningfully through active…

This two-year longitudinal study examined the role of linguistic interdependence between Spanish and English among a group of first, second, and third generation immigrant Spanish-English bilingual children. Starting from a theoretical perspective on linguistic interdependence that takes into account linguistic constructs and their measurement,…

The two studies reported on in this paper examine the features of words that distinguish students' performances on vocabulary assessments as a means of understanding what contributes to the ease or difficulty of vocabulary knowledge. The two studies differ in the type of assessment, the types of words that were studied, and the grade levels and…

Purpose: This research investigated children's ability to acquire semantic and syntactic knowledge of derived nominals and derived adjectives in the context of short passages. The study also investigated the relation of morphological awareness and the ability to acquire knowledge of derived words in context. Method: A total of 106 children in…

Word learning can build the high-quality word representations that support skilled reading and language comprehension. According to the partial knowledge hypothesis, words that are partially known, a.k.a. "frontier words" (Durso & Shore, 1991), may be good targets for instruction precisely because they are already familiar. However,…

This study examines, within the domain of science, the characteristics of words that predict word knowledge and word learning. The authors identified a set of word characteristics--length, part of speech, polysemy, frequency, morphological frequency, domain specificity, and concreteness--that, based on earlier research, were prime candidates to…

The typical approach to teaching vocabulary in English/Language Arts programs has been to focus on six to eight words per text. Even though these words may add meaning to a particular story, the target words are often rare and their generalizability is limited. The Vocabulary Megaclusters provides a framework for selecting and teaching words…