This study investigated a child's development of the concept that a word is a unit used to express meaning. Thirty children, selected at random from grades one through six, were chosen from a school where no exclusive method of teaching reading was used. Each child participated in two tasks. First, a list of nouns was presented in written form and…

Children improve at word learning during the 2nd year of life--sometimes dramatically. This fact has suggested a change in mechanism, from associative learning to a more referential form of learning. This article presents an associative exemplar-based model that accounts for the improvement without a change in mechanism. It provides a unified…

Summarizes and updates original study done on reading and writing development of a preschool child. (SRT)