Nurturing a lexical legacy: reading experience is critical for the development of word reading skill

Nation, Kate

doi:10.1038/s41539-017-0004-7

Cited by 107 publications

(98 citation statements)

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“…Some studies of L2 learning have found higher levels of vocabulary acquisition from more extensive reading (M. Horst, ; Webb & Chang, ) than usually reported in studies of learning through a single text. This may be due to several contributing factors, such as increased spacing between encounters and greater contextual diversity of individual exposures (K. Nation, ). The stimuli in this study were highly contextually constrained within the stories.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, within a single text there are smaller intervals between individual exposures whereas multiple texts give more spaced encounters that may be more beneficial for learning (Webb & Chang, ). Additionally, words read in multiple texts are likely encountered in more diverse contexts (K. Nation, ), which may enable readers to build more stable representations of the meanings of words. Conversely, children learn vocabulary better from being repeatedly read the same storybook than from the same number of exposures across different storybook contexts (J. Horst, Parsons, & Bryan, ).…”

Section: Incidental L1 Vocabulary Acquisition From Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Incidental Learning and Long‐Term Retention of New Word Meanings From Stories: The Effect of Number of Exposures

2018

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This study used a Web‐based naturalistic story‐reading paradigm to investigate the impact of number of exposures on incidental acquisition and long‐term retention of new meanings for known words by native English‐speaking adults. Participants read one of four custom written stories in which they encountered novel meanings (e.g., a safe concealed within a piece of furniture) for familiar words (foam). These meanings appeared two, four, six, or eight times in the narrative. Results showed reasonably good memory of the new meanings, assessed by cued recall of novel meanings and word forms, after only two exposures, emphasizing the importance of initial encounters. Accuracy in cued recall of novel meanings showed a linear, incremental increase with more exposures. There was no significant forgetting after 1 week, regardless of the number of exposures during training, demonstrating the efficiency with which adults acquire new word meanings incidentally through reading and retain them over time. Open Practices This article has been awarded an Open Data badge. All data and analysis scripts are publicly accessible via the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/ybu6r. Learn more about the Open Practices badges from the Center for Open Science: https://osf.io/tvyxz/wiki.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Incidental L1 Vocabulary Acquisition From Readingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Incidental Learning and Long‐Term Retention of New Word Meanings From Stories: The Effect of Number of Exposures

2018

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“…The finding that reading ability is the driver of print exposure does not, of course, imply that exposure to print and thus exposure to orthographic forms is irrelevant to learning to read. To become a skilled reader, it is undoubtedly important to develop detailed lexical representations of words (Nation, 2017;Perfetti, 2007). However, while this may take as little as a single exposure in some readers (Tamura, Castles, & Nation, 2017), in poor readers, it takes much longer to consolidate new learning (Share & Shalev, 2004).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do children read more? The influence of reading ability on voluntary reading practices

Bergen

Snowling

Zeeuw

et al. 2018

Child Psychology Psychiatry

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Background: This study investigates the causal relationships between reading and print exposure and investigates whether the amount children read outside school determines how well they read, or vice versa. Previous findings from behavioural studies suggest that reading predicts print exposure. Here, we use twin-data and apply the behaviourgenetic approach of direction of causality modelling, suggested by Heath et al. (1993), to investigate the causal relationships between these two traits. Method: Partial data were available for a large sample of twin children (N = 11,559) and 262 siblings, all enrolled in the Netherlands Twin Register. Children were assessed around 7.5 years of age. Mothers completed questionnaires reporting children's time spent on reading activities and reading ability. Additional information on reading ability was available through teacher ratings and performance on national reading tests. For siblings reading test, results were available. Results: The reading ability of the twins was comparable to that of the siblings and national norms, showing that twin findings can be generalized to the population. A measurement model was specified with two latent variables, Reading Ability and Print Exposure, which correlated .41. Heritability analyses showed that Reading Ability was highly heritable, while genetic and environmental influences were equally important for Print Exposure. We exploited the fact that the two constructs differ in genetic architecture and fitted direction of causality models. The results supported a causal relationship running from Reading Ability to Print Exposure. Conclusions: How much and how well children read are moderately correlated. Individual differences in print exposure are less heritable than individual differences in reading ability. Importantly, the present results suggest that it is the children's reading ability that determines how much they choose to read, rather than vice versa.

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“…Stanovich proposed that this broadening skill gap is perpetuated by differences in literacy exposure: children with good language skills enjoy reading more, engage in more literacy activities and encounter more new words in doing so. Indeed, comprehension skill and reading experience have been shown to predict vocabulary growth (Cain & Oakhill, ), and are argued to be fundamental to literacy development (Nation, ). From this perspective, accelerated rates in vocabulary acquisition for children with good vocabulary skills are due to their increasing engagement with texts.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Offline consolidation supersedes prior knowledge benefits in children's (but not adults’) word learning

James

Gaskell

Henderson

2019

Developmental Science

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Prior linguistic knowledge is proposed to support the acquisition and consolidation of new words. Adults typically have larger vocabularies to support word learning than children, but the developing brain shows enhanced neural processes that are associated with offline memory consolidation. This study investigated contributions of prior knowledge to initial word acquisition and consolidation at different points in development, by teaching children and adults novel words (e.g., ballow) that varied in the number of English word‐form “neighbours” (e.g., wallow, bellow). Memory for the novel word‐forms was tested immediately after training, the next day and 1 week later, to assess the time‐course of prior knowledge contributions. Children aged 7–9 years (Experiments 1, 3) and adults (Experiment 2) recalled words with neighbours better than words without neighbours when tested immediately after training. However, a period of offline consolidation improved overall recall and reduced the influence of word‐form neighbours on longer term memory. These offline consolidation benefits were larger in children than adults, supporting theories that children have a greater propensity for consolidating phonologically distinctive language information. Local knowledge of just a single word‐form neighbour was enough to enhance learning, and this led to the individual differences in word recall that were related to adults’ global vocabulary ability. The results support the proposal that the relative contributions of different learning mechanisms change across the lifespan, and highlight the importance of testing theoretical models of word learning in the context of development.

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Nurturing a lexical legacy: reading experience is critical for the development of word reading skill

Cited by 107 publications

References 50 publications

Incidental Learning and Long‐Term Retention of New Word Meanings From Stories: The Effect of Number of Exposures

Incidental Learning and Long‐Term Retention of New Word Meanings From Stories: The Effect of Number of Exposures

Why do children read more? The influence of reading ability on voluntary reading practices

Offline consolidation supersedes prior knowledge benefits in children's (but not adults’) word learning

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