Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to examine mothers' sophisticated vocabulary while reminiscing with their preschool-aged children, and its relation to children's story comprehension. The study used a cross-lagged panel design in which all assessments were collected twice, 6 months apart. We also compared two methods of examining…

Recently, early childhood programs in the United States are serving increasing numbers of dual language learners (DLLs), many of whom have disabilities or are considered at risk. Vocabulary skills in preschool and kindergarten are strong predictors of DLLs' early literacy and later reading achievement. However, DLLs might initially and temporarily…

Researchers have consistently found a link between the quality of early parent-child book-reading interactions and children's language skill. Two aspects of quality (level of abstraction and utterance function) were examined simultaneously in the current study to further refine our understanding of how parents' talk during shared reading predicts…

This study explores how children learn the meaning (semantics) and spelling patterns (orthography) of novel words encountered in story context. English-speaking children (N = 88) aged 7 to 8 years read 8 stories and each story contained 1 novel word repeated 4 times. Semantic cues were provided by the story context such that children could infer…

This study evaluated the effects of Adapted Reciprocal Teaching (ART) on the receptive and expressive flight-word vocabulary of 1st-grade students. During ART, classroom interactions produced narrative contexts within which students assumed responsibility for applying new flight words in personally meaningful ways. Students in the control group…