Lexical Richness in Maternal Input and Vocabulary Development of Turkish Preschoolers in the Netherlands

Demir-Vegter, Serpil; Aarts, Rian; Kurvers, Jeanne

doi:10.1007/s10936-013-9245-7

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…Traditionally, in child language research, lexical diversity has been measured using a type-token ratio (TTR). However, because TTR seems to be dependent on the total number of tokens produced (Rietveld & van Hout, 1993;van Hout & Vermeer, 1988), other means of measuring lexical diversity were designed, including Guiraud's index (Guiraud, 1954) and the D index (Demir-Vegter, Aarts, & Kurvers, 2014;Malvern & Richards, 2002). As objections have been raised against all the available measures, we used the most straightforward measure for lexical diversity-the number of word types used in a standardized time frame (see also Huttenlocher et al, 2010;Rowe, 2012).…”

Section: Lexical Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Language in Shared Book Reading: Parent and Teacher Input to Mono‐ and Bilingual Preschoolers

et al. 2015

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The current study examined academic language (AL) input of mothers and teachers to 15 monolingual Dutch and 15 bilingual Turkish-Dutch 4-to 6-year-old children and its relationships with the children's language development. At two times, shared book reading was videotaped and analyzed for academic features: lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and abstractness. The AL features in the input of mothers varied considerably among individuals, were strongly intercorrelated and stable over time, and were positively related to children's language skills. For Turkish children, input in Turkish was related to vocabulary in Dutch as well. Compared to mothers, teachers provided input that was more academic. The teachers of the Turkish group used more abstract language but relatively less lexically diverse and syntactically complex talk than the teachers of the Dutch group. By simplifying their language lexically and syntactically, teachers might provide impoverished input to children learning Dutch as a second language.Keywords academic language; shared reading; bilingual development; caretakers' input The research reported here is part of the Development of Academic Language in School and at Home (DASH) project, a joint research project of the Universities of Utrecht, Amsterdam, and Tilburg. The project was coordinated by Paul Leseman (Utrecht University) and funded by the Programme for Educational Research of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (dossier number 411-03-060). We are grateful to the teachers, parents, and children who participated in this research and to our coworkers in the project: Paul Leseman, Ton Vallen, Rob Schoonen, Aziza Mayo, Anna Scheele, and Mohammadi Laghzaoui.Correspondence IntroductionWhen children enter primary school (kindergarten) at the age of 4 (as is the case in the Netherlands), they have to get acquainted with a new language register: academic language (AL), that is, the language register that is highly valued in school contexts and that shares many linguistic features with the language in instruction situations and textbooks in education (Aarts, Demir, & Vallen, 2011;Cummins, 1984;Schleppegrell, 2004; Snow & Uccelli, 2009). Though AL is a register specific to school contexts, early traces or precursors of the academic register can be found in preschool caregiver-child interaction. The emergence of AL can be seen as a mediating link between home language and literacy practices and (later) school achievement (Leseman, Scheele, Mayo, & Messer, 2007). Children from immigrant minority groups, like Turkish children in the Netherlands, are facing a double challenge here. First, they need to learn the specific AL register and, second, they are expected to do so in a language that is not their native one. Thus, one of the explanations for the problems children frequently encounter in school can be found in a lack of experience with the language register that is needed for school success (Aarts et al., 2011;Bernstein, 1971;Cummins, 1991;Heath, 1983;Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991;Lacroi...

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Section: Lexical Diversitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Academic Language in Shared Book Reading: Parent and Teacher Input to Mono‐ and Bilingual Preschoolers

et al. 2015

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“…However, the metric that is used most often, and which produces the most consistent effects, is lexical diversity, operationalized as the number of different word types produced by the caregiver during a set timeframe (e.g. Bornstein et al, 1998;Demir-Vegter, Aarts, & Kurvers, 2014;Hoff & Naigles, 2002;Huttenlocher et al, 2010;Pan, Rowe, Singer, & Snow, 2005;Rowe, 2012; see also Hsu, Hadley, & Rispoli, 2015, for results for verb lexical diversity). For example, Bornstein et al (1998) found that both maternal lexical diversity and maternal MLU were significant predictors of child vocabulary at 18 months in a structural equation model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity not quantity in caregiver speech: Using computational modeling to isolate the effects of the quantity and the diversity of the input on vocabulary growth

Jones¹,

Rowland²

2017

Preprint

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Children who hear large amounts of diverse speech learn language more quickly than children who do not. However, high correlations between the amount and the diversity of the input in speech samples makes it difficult to isolate the influence of each. We overcame this problem by controlling the input to a computational model so that amount of exposure to linguistic input (quantity) and the quality of that input (lexical diversity) were independently manipulated. Sublexical, lexical, and multi-word knowledge were charted across development (Study 1), showing that while input quantity may be important early in learning, lexical diversity is ultimately more crucial, a prediction confirmed against children’s data (Study 2). The model trained on a lexically diverse input also performed better on nonword repetition and sentence recall tests (Study 3) and was quicker to learn new words over time (Study 4). A language input that is rich in lexical diversity outperforms equivalent richness in quantity for learned sublexical and lexical knowledge, for well-established language tests, and for acquiring words that have never been encountered before.

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“…A key message in UK preschool educational settings is to maximise the exposure that children have to language (Bercow, 2008;Social Mobility Commission, 2017), and numerous studies have shown that quantity of children's oral language exposure (the sheer amount of language input) relates to their vocabulary size (Bornstein, Haynes, & Painter, 1998;Bornstein & Tamis-LeMonda, 1995;Cartmill et al, 2013;Hart & Risley, 1992Hoff & Naigles, 2002;Hurtado, Marchman, & Fernald, 2008;Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer, & Lyons, 1991;Huttenlocher, Waterfall, Vasilyeva, Vevea, & Hedges, 2010;Kamil & Hiebert, 2005;Pearson, Fernandez, Lewede, & Oller, 1997;Rowe, 2012). The lexical diversity, or the range of vocabulary, of speech to children has also been assessed against children's language development (Bornstein et al, 1998;Demir-Vegter, Aarts, & Kurvers, 2014;Hoff & Naigles, 2002;Huttenlocher et al, 2010;Pan, Rowe, Singer, & Snow, 2005;Rowe, 2012).…”

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confidence: 99%

Quantity and Diversity of Preliteracy Language Exposure Both Affect Literacy Development: Evidence from a Computational Model of Reading

Chang

Monaghan

2018

Scientific Studies of Reading

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Diversity of vocabulary knowledge and quantity of language exposure prior to literacy are key predictors of reading development. However, diversity and quantity of exposure are difficult to distinguish in behavioural studies, and so the causal relations with literacy are not well known. We tested these relations by training a connectionist triangle model of reading that learned to map between semantic; phonological; and, later, orthographic forms of words. The model first learned to map between phonology and semantics, where we manipulated the quantity and diversity of this preliterate language experience. Then the model learned to read. Both diversity and quantity of exposure had unique effects on reading performance, with larger effects for written word comprehension than for reading fluency. The results further showed that quantity of preliteracy language exposure was beneficial only when this was to a varied vocabulary and could be an impediment when exposed to a limited vocabulary.

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Lexical Richness in Maternal Input and Vocabulary Development of Turkish Preschoolers in the Netherlands

Cited by 17 publications

References 35 publications

Academic Language in Shared Book Reading: Parent and Teacher Input to Mono‐ and Bilingual Preschoolers

Academic Language in Shared Book Reading: Parent and Teacher Input to Mono‐ and Bilingual Preschoolers

Diversity not quantity in caregiver speech: Using computational modeling to isolate the effects of the quantity and the diversity of the input on vocabulary growth

Quantity and Diversity of Preliteracy Language Exposure Both Affect Literacy Development: Evidence from a Computational Model of Reading

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