Provide guidelines for (1) using storytelling to empower students; (2) drawing on students'"family storyteller"; (3) bridging the gap between today's students and teachers; (4) using the television show "Seinfeld" to enhance vocabulary development; and (5) using quizzes to teach proofreading skills. Presents a poetic response…

Younger (n=41, ages 18-27) and older (n=39, ages 55-85) adults were given rare words to define. Older adults gave more complete definitions and had higher vocabulary test scores, but lower working memory scores. For older adults existing vocabulary knowledge contributed more than working memory to the ability to derive meaning from context. (SK)

Presents a framework that takes as its starting point an analysis of test purpose, and then shows how purpose can be systematically related to test design. Argues that the way forward for vocabulary assessment is to take account of test purposes in the design and validation of tests, as well as considering an interactionalist approach to construct…

Reports on a longitudinal study that investigated the claim that phonological memory contributes to vocabulary acquisition in young children. Findings show support for the claim that the capacity component of nonword repetition contributes directly to vocabulary in young children. (Author/VWL)

Because idioms are figurative expressions that do not mean what they literally state and since they are so frequently encountered in both oral and written discourse, comprehending and producing idioms present language learners with a special vocabulary learning problem. This article summarizes research findings and presents a systematic plan for…

Three experiments document that conceptual knowledge influences lexical acquisition in infancy. A novel target object was initially labeled with a novel word. In both yes-no (Experiment 1) and forced-choice (Experiment 2) tasks, 2-year-olds' subsequent extensions were mediated by the conceptual description of the targets. When targets were…

This research aims at promoting the usage of an online children's dictionary within a context of reading comprehension and vocabulary acquisition. Inspired by document retrieval approaches developed in the area of information retrieval (IR) research, we adapt a particular IR strategy, based on fuzzy logic, to a search in the electronic dictionary.…

A lesson focusing on the names of muscles but relating them to more common words is presented, as current research suggests that the best way to teach vocabulary is to group related words. Students create visual representations of word groups and teach the words to the class.

This study investigated the effect of direct vocabulary learning using Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) on vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension, and speed of word recognition. It found that students who used Tutorial CALL to learn highly frequent vocabulary did learn a significantly larger number of words than those in a control…

Our understanding the relationship between verbal short-term memory as indexed by nonword repetition and word learning must now incorporate myriad factors that were not as apparent 17 years ago when Gathercole and Baddeley (1989) proposed that "the phonological memory skills tapped by nonword repetition play a causal role in vocabulary…

This article discusses whole language and phonics approaches to teaching L1 reading. It argues to bring these two perspectives together under an integrated approach to better teach second language reading. The article offers an integrated lesson plan with adaptable activities and techniques that show how to apply the integrated approach.

"Harvard Education Letter" is published bimonthly by the Harvard Graduate School of Education. This issue of "Harvard Education Letter" contains the following articles: (1) "Equity, Access, and Opportunity": Despite Challenges, More Districts Adopt One-to-One Laptop Programs (Colleen Gillard); (2) Small Kids, Big Words: Research-Based Strategies…

Many K-6 teachers and students still think of mathematics as a totally separate subject from literacy. Yet incorporating math content into the language arts block helps students gain skills for reading many kinds of texts. Bringing reading, writing, and talking into the math classroom supports the development of conceptual knowledge and problem…

The family unit and home domain have been and remain important in heritage language maintenance efforts. There are complex relationships between parental language attitudes, their application in everyday language management activities and the children's knowledge of home language vocabulary. The present large-scale study examined the family policy…

Studies of monolingual speakers have shown a strong association between lexical learning and short-term memory (STM) capacity, especially STM for serial order information. At the same time, studies of bilingual speakers suggest that phonological knowledge is the main factor that drives lexical learning. This study tested these two hypotheses…