Language, as is known, is acquired under certain conditions: rapid and sequential brain maturation and cognitive development, the need to exchange information and to control others' actions, and an exposure to appropriate speech input. This research aims at analyzing preschoolers' overgeneralizations of the object labeling process in different…

The authors assert that vocabulary development is one of the most important things teachers can promote for students--cognitively, culturally, socially, and in preparation for standardized tests. A broad-based review of the literature reveals solid reasons for using systematic vocabulary instruction, which is especially helpful with youngsters…

March is a time of such springtime exuberance that it can be hard for children to sit still for group time. This makes March the perfect month to try new ways of inviting children to show and tell--and share. Reflection is an important part of sharing. Take a moment to remember what the group was like at the beginning of the year considering its…

Three experiments investigated whether linguistic and/or attentional constraints might account for preschoolers' difficulties when learning color terms. Task structure and demands were equated across experiments, and both speed and degree of learning were compared. In Experiment 1, 3-year-olds who were matched on vocabulary score were taught new…

This author describes how her elementary students first became interested in studying ancient Egypt. Her students' interest in the ancient Egyptian studies began when a student checked out a library book on Egyptology that contained colorful images and was soon swarmed by interested classmates. Many of her students began practicing writing…

This study examined the effects of Making and Writing Words (MWW), a variation of the Making Words word study activity by Cunningham and Cunningham (1992), on second-grade students word learning. MWW was implemented daily with a group of second-grade students' over a five-month period. Results indicated that students who received the MWW treatment…

The study explored differences in story comprehension and vocabulary learning in children in native and multicultural kindergarten classrooms when listening to a story read to them by the computer or the teacher. The results showed that children (41 native and 30 immigrant) learned new words, both from listening to their teacher and from listening…

About 15,000 BC, the bison and other animals roamed the land and cave people, in their spare time, found colorful, chalky rocks with which to play. Over the course of time, they found that the chalky rocks would rub off on the cave walls, thus cave paintings and the pursuit of art was born. This article describes one fourth-grade classroom's…

A critical aspect of the assessment of children's word learning processes is the examination of word knowledge growth over time. The purpose of this study was to examine the types of partial word knowledge (PWK) growth that occurred from 1 exposure to unfamiliar words in text, taking into account the roles of part of speech and individual language…

This article brings together two independent lines of research on numerally quantified expressions, e.g. two girls. One stems from work in linguistic theory and asks what truth conditional contributions such expressions make to the utterances in which they are used--in other words, what do numerals mean? The other comes from the study of language…

Two studies are presented that adopt a novel approach to determining whether verbal short-term memory performance is causally related to vocabulary acquisition in childhood. This involves examining whether verbal short-term memory measures are more closely related to the absolute level of individuals' vocabulary, or the rate at which vocabulary…

This paper focuses on aspects of early lexical acquisition in German. There have been conflicting results in the literature concerning both the pattern of vocabulary growth and the composition of the early lexicon. Our study describes the development of various categories of words and questions the preponderance of nouns in spontaneous speech. 32…

We examined infants' recognition of functors and the accuracy of the representations that infants construct of the perceived word forms. Auditory stimuli were "Functor + Content Word" versus "Nonsense Functor + Content Word" sequences. Eight-, 11-, and 13-month-old infants heard both real functors and matched nonsense functors (prosodically…

Words and their meanings are the building blocks of literacy development. They are the key to children's comprehension of stories and information books. Just about any fun experience, from learning center activities to a field trip to sharing picture books, offers many opportunities to build children's vocabulary. In this article, the author…

When a child has an extensive knowledge of vocabulary, it is most likely from extensive reading, regardless of whether the reading is from comic books, magazines, or a recommended reading literature list. Teachers who are always trying to find the best strategies for teaching literacy skills such as reading comprehension, vocabulary development,…