Word lists present an essential tool in vocabulary teaching. Compilation of specific word lists for various fields is one of the most prominent branches of research in this field at the moment. New methodological changes in word list formation have been proposed because of the appearance of the New-GSL (Brezina & Gablasova, 2013) and AVL…

Analyzes a large sample of spelling errors taken from free writing to assess how great a challenge such errors present for automatic checking and correction. Analysis of results reveals a high proportion of errors that match dictionary works, necessitating the use of the word in context to detect errors. (Author/LRW)

Utilizes a survey of authors of psychology textbooks to compile a list of the terms and concepts in psychology's 10 subfields that should be general knowledge to psychology students. Reports the "Top 100" concepts and ranks lists of the 100 highest-rated terms for each of the 10 subfields. (FMW)

Vocabulary systems for individuals using communication aids can be broken down into two major types: coverage vocabularies and acceleration vocabularies. Acceleration vocabularies or word sets assume the individual is able to spell and words are chosen which speed up the rate of communication. Acceleration techniques may include sets of most…

Four vocabulary lists were used to generate a basic spelling list for students with learning disabilities and other poor spellers. Each word was assigned a grade placement (one through three) based on pattern of occurrence in children's writing and placement on current vocabulary lists and spelling materials. The resulting spelling list of 335…

Reported an experiment on the effects of taxonomic organization on 7- and 11-year-olds' free and cued recall of two- and four-category lists. Analysis used a stages-of-learning model that simultaneously delivered estimates of the impact of these manipulations on storage and retrieval components of recall. (Author/CB)

Reports on two experiments that investigated sex differences in the use of organization strategies in free recall with categorizable and unrelated word lists across age in elementary school. Shows sex differences were pronounced across the ages tested and consistent with principles of strategy development, with males showing a developmental lag in…

This study found that the scores of younger normal subjects (n=60) on tasks involving the sequential recall of words from five categories were equal to scores of older children (n=34) with language and speech impairments. Word category scores predicted language and speech scores, but prediction was stronger in children having impaired language or…

Intended for elementary school teachers, researchers, and materials developers, this book presents a cluster approach to vocabulary instruction, in which words are taught in semantically related groups. Over 7,000 words from elementary school textbooks have been organized into 61 instructional clusters, each containing two levels of subclusters…

Examines the hypothesis that poor readers will have much greater difficulty in recalling abstract words than will normal readers but will closely approximate normal readers in recalling concrete words. The hypothesis was confirmed at the second-grade level but not at the sixth-grade level. (Author/CB)

Analysis of the Bracken Basic Concept Scale (BBCS) indicated that all subtests except two (Quantity and Time) showed statistically significant correlations between item difficulty and frequency of concept words. Administration of the BBCS to 36 first graders revealed that most concept words showed expected item discrimination indices. (Author/JDD)

Research has suggested that behavioral differences may account for the effects of caffeine on information processing. To investigate the effects of caffeine on memory for supraspan word lists, 107 college students (47 males, 60 females), divided into 12 groups by high and low impulsivity scores on the Eysenck Personality Inventory, participated in…

Second-graders, fifth-graders, and adults participated in an experiment of cued recall for cue-target picture and word pairs. Results suggested that differences in the encoding of both specific and categorical attribute information contribute to developmental recall differences independently of encoding intent and stimulus modality. (Author/CB)

This bibliography provides citations to studies of word/letter frequencies and vocabulary applications based on issues of word frequency. While the original intent was to gather information pertinent to developing communication board vocabularies for argumentative communication systems, these resources should be useful for a variety of word…

This article argues for the adoption of a 2-step procedure in diagnosing dyslexia: first, identify students with word list reading standard scores below 90, and then identify students with a reading score at least 10 points lower than expected from the full scale intelligence quotient. (JDD)