Before they even talk, infants become sensitive to the speech sounds of their native language and recognize the auditory form of an increasing number of words. Traditionally, these early perceptual changes are attributed to an emerging knowledge of linguistic categories such as phonemes or words. However, there is growing skepticism surrounding…

Children can acquire novel word meanings by using pragmatic cues. However, previous literature has frequently focused on in-the-moment word-to-meaning mappings, not delayed retention of novel vocabulary. Here, we examine how children use pragmatics as they learn and retain novel words. Thirty-three younger children (mean age: 5.0, range: 4.0-6.0,…

Purpose: Vocabulary skills in children are typically measured with norm-referenced assessments of receptive and expressive vocabulary. Language sample analysis is an alternative method of examining vocabulary actually produced in communicative events and may be better suited to exposing subtle vocabulary weaknesses. Here, we examine the…

This study aims to assess the overall impact of vocabulary development interventions on cognitive vocabulary outcomes. To achieve this, 43 theses on vocabulary teaching, each involving a specific intervention, were analyzed using meta-analysis. The findings from the meta-analysis, based on the random effects model, indicated that the average…

Core vocabulary lists and vocabulary inventories vary according to language. Lists from one language cannot and should not be assumed to be translatable, as words represent language-specific concepts and grammar. In this manuscript, we (a) present the results of a vocabulary overlap analysis between different published core vocabulary lists in…

Purpose: This study investigated the effects of early shared reading and access to books on reading vocabulary in middle childhood and the pathways associated with later reading success. Method: Path analysis of data from four waves of a national longitudinal study of children (N = 7,751) was used to investigate direct and indirect effects of…

Background: Variability in the vocabulary outcomes of children with cochlear implants (CIs) is partially explained by child-directed speech (CDS) characteristics. Yet, relatively little is known about whether and how mothers adapt their lexical and prosodic characteristics to the child's hearing status (before and after implantation, and compared…

Typically, vocabulary instruction is associated as part of reading instruction. However, vocabulary instruction is also a necessary component of mathematics instruction. In fact, state and national standards (e.g., Common Core State Standards) require elementary students to communicate about mathematics to provide clear explanations, construct…

Strategy interventions have been found to support students' text comprehension, but little is known about the sustainability of these effects. This study examined short- and long-term effects of a strategy intervention on students' vocabulary and text comprehension at the literal, inferential and evaluative levels. A pretest, posttest, and…

Vocabulary knowledge plays an important role in language learning and language proficiency, but it is difficult to know how much of a role it plays without appropriate vocabulary measures. In this article, we first discuss learner vocabulary in our research on Korean as a second/foreign language. Unable to find appropriate measures for receptive…

Background: The language that children are exposed to in their early years is enhanced by children's picture books. It is important to better characterise this input, and recent research has begun to explore corpora of narrative picture books. However, previous research has been restricted by methodological limitations that make it difficult to…

Second language (L2) learning research suggests that virtual reality (VR) has the potential to enhance the development of language skills due to its immersive nature and its situated learning opportunities. This quantitative, between-subjects study compared the effectiveness of three learning conditions. University students (N = 63) studied…

This article highlights how Wolfgang Herrndorf's bestselling novel "Tschick" (2010) is particularly well suited for advanced courses focused on cultural and linguistic enrichment. Herrndorf's "Tschick," I argue, facilitates interaction, engagement, and individual interpretation; is linguistically accessible because of its use…

Due to globalization, English as a medium of instruction (EMI) has gained popularity in higher education. While EMI is mostly adopted in content courses, content instructors may explicitly or implicitly attend to language to help students comprehend course content. However, little research has explored how content instructors provide language…

Children's early language development is under the influence of several positive and negative factors including television as an input source and family's socio-economic status. Considering that, this study investigated the effects of these variables on children's vocabulary development using a quasi-experimental design. To this end, 60 Iranian…