The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the home literacy environment of a nationally representative sample of preschoolers with disabilities and their subsequent receptive vocabulary and reading comprehension skills using data from the Pre-Elementary Education Longitudinal Study. Results from linear regressions indicated…

We examine the effect of direct and indirect teaching of vocabulary and word reading on pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children following use of an electronic storybook (e-book). The children in each age group were randomly assigned to an intervention group which read the e-book or to a control group which was afforded the regular school…

This study focused on the potential for building 25 high-school students' word knowledge by using a mobile learning device and gaming app. Using a game as an instructional tool is a portable way for students to engage with content. The amount of vocabulary mastered after using the app on the mobile device was examined in relation to a pre-test and…

Teaching and learning English in the US are complex processes that are not explained by language theories or methods alone. Concepts such as the relationship between language majority groups and language minority groups, language status, immigration, economics, language planning, and policies add to the complexity of language-learning situations.…

For the large population of school-age English language learners in California and the United States, the challenge of learning a second language while learning academic content is formidable. Learning to read English skillfully is key to their success. Reading instruction focused on development of oral text-reading fluency has shown strong…

Middle grades teachers should create meaningful learning activities involving stimulating literature and interesting composition prompts. This article describes a unit in which eighth graders read short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. Using multiple learning and teaching approaches, they expanded their vocabularies, responded artistically to "The…

Five experiments examined whether overt repetition (i.e., saying a word aloud) during exposure is critical to the expressive learning of new words. When participants did not engage in overt repetition during exposure, they nevertheless exhibited clear expressive learning, both with and without an accompanying semantics, indicating that overt…

The purpose of this paper is to propose an applied model for the assessment of bilingual children's language abilities with standardised tests. We discuss the purposes of such tests, especially in relation to vocabulary knowledge, and potential applications of test results for each of those purposes. The specific case to be examined here is that…

CALL evaluation is important because it is the most efficient means to prove CALL effectiveness. While both learning process and learning outcome should be investigated in empirical evaluation, the precise relationship between the two needs to be examined closely. Only by doing so can we identify useful CALL design features that facilitate…

In the author's piece "Computing the Demands of Vocabulary Acquisition from Reading" ("Language Learning & Technology," October, 2007), he argued that building an adequate functional L2 lexicon for reading from reading alone cannot be done by the majority of learners in the normal time frame of instructed L2 learning. An…

Second language (L2) learners must often learn to perceive and produce novel L2 phoneme contrasts. Although both research and intuition suggest that these difficulties can be overcome to some extent with exposure to the L2, it is not known what consequences this kind of learning has for the phonological structure of the L2 lexicon. We present an…

Teachers in Expeditionary Learning schools have discovered that finding an authentic audience for a genuine product is the key to getting students to take responsibility for their own work. The author, a school designer for Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound, describes three examples of projects in which students worked on curriculum…

Introducing students to correct dictionary usage. (CK)

Learning in context is an important component of second language (L2) vocabulary teaching and learning. However, young children may encounter some difficulties in dealing with the context. Hence learning support should be included to facilitate learning. The present study examined the effects of two types of learning support on Chinese children's…