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Individual Differences in 4-Year-Old Children's Acquisition of Vocabulary During Storybook Reading

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Two experiments were conducted to assess how children who differ in vocabulary knowledge learn new vocabulary incidentally from listening to stories read aloud. In both experiments, 4-yr-old children were classified as having either high or low word knowledge on the basis of a median split of their Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test—Revised (PPVT—R) standard scores. In Exp 1, children either listened passively or labeled pictures using novel words during the book readings. We found that children with larger vocabularies produced more novel words than did children with smaller vocabularies, and children who answered questions during the book readings comprehended and produced more words than did children who passively listened to the story. In Exp 2, children either listened to readings of a book, pointed to pictures during the readings, or labeled pictures during the readings. Children with larger vocabularies comprehended more novel words than did children with smaller vocabularies. Children who actively participated by labeling or pointing learned more words than did children who listened passively to book readings. Findings clarify the role of active responding by demonstrating that verbal and nonverbal responding are effective means of enhancing vocabulary acquisition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
... Research has also shown that interactive reading activities, when managed consciously by adults, have a positive impact on children's language development (Robbins & Ehri, 1994; Senechal & Cornell, 1993; Senechal, Lefevre, & Daley, 1998). It has been found that children who respond to and comment on words during reading activities have richer vocabularies compared to those who memorize words(Senechal, 1997;Senechal, Thomas, & Monker, 1995). Based on these findings, it can be concluded that children's active involvement in reading activities is an important element that positively stimulates learning(Ergül, Dolunay Sarıca, ve Akoğlu, 2016). ...
... Além disso, por meio do contato com a modalidade escrita, presente nos livros, as crianças também têm a oportunidade de desenvolver novos conceitos e habilidades considerados preditores da aprendizagem formal da leitura (alfabetização), de modo natural. Quando comparada com outros contextos de conversas entre adultos e crianças, a leitura de livros oferece às crianças uma dosagem maior de exposição ao vocabulário, visto que os livros contêm mais palavras raras do que outros tipos de interação (SÉNÉCHAL et al., 1995). Por isso, os livros são considerados uma fonte particularmente importante de input de linguagem porque colocam em evidência uma linguagem mais complexa e mais palavras por minuto em comparação com outros contextos, como durante as refeições e brincadeiras (DEMIR-LIRA et al., 2019 (Whitehurst et al.,1994). ...
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O objetivo do presente artigo é diferenciar/conceituar as práticas de leitura compartilhada (LC), leitura dialogada (LD) e contação de histórias (CH) - sem a presença física do livro -, por meio de embasamento teórico e pesquisas que evidenciem os efeitos de cada uma dessas práticas como apoio para o desenvolvimento linguístico das crianças, especificamente durante a primeira infância. Trata-se de uma revisão bibliográfica em bases de dados como Google Acadêmico e Scielo, elencando estudos brasileiros e estrangeiros. Os resultados mostram que há diferenças entre as práticas no que se refere aos tipos de habilidades linguísticas que as crianças têm a oportunidade de desenvolver; além disso, ressaltam a importância do leitor adulto como sujeito que conduz a leitura, bem como o planejamento da leitura do livro associada à intencionalidade pedagógica. De qualquer forma, consideramos que todas as abordagens citadas são importantes para o desenvolvimento integral das crianças, dado que as envolvem num contexto de interação com outros sujeitos.
... De modo geral, a eficácia de intervenções com narrações de histórias para a aprendizagem do vocabulário de crianças pré-escolares é medida por meio de tarefas de reconhecimento, que avaliam se a criança relaciona determinada palavra ditada a uma, dentre um conjunto de figuras apresentadas (Sénéchal et al., 1995). Essas tarefas são desenhadas para medir se a criança passa a relacionar a palavra ouvida durante a narração da história a um referente visual específico. ...
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Considerando que crianças pré-escolares têm acesso à tecnologia cada vez mais cedo, é fundamental compreender como as histórias digitais podem auxiliar no aprendizado de vocabulário. O objetivo deste estudo foi comparar os efeitos de duas intervenções na aprendizagem de palavras por crianças pré-escolares: "Leitura Sem Perguntas" (LSP), em que histórias pré-gravadas eram apresentadas por um notebook, sem interação adicional, e "Leitura Com Perguntas" (LCP), que incluía um diálogo pós-leitura com perguntas pré-definidas feitas pelo pesquisador. Participaram 12 crianças (37-59 meses, oito meninas). Utilizamos um delineamento quase-experimental de tratamentos alternados adaptado. Cada participante foi exposto a dois livros digitais (um para cada condição, quatro sessões de leitura para cada livro), contendo seis palavras-alvo não familiares, em sessões individuais. Cada palavra-alvo era apresentada duas vezes em cada livro. A aprendizagem das palavras-alvo foi medida em tarefas de nomeação, emparelhamento ao modelo e recontagem de histórias. A maioria dos participantes mostrou melhora no desempenho em todas as tarefas, em ambas as condições, mas nenhuma condição foi superior à outra, sugerindo que a mediação de um adulto fazendo perguntas genéricas sobre a história não potencializou a aprendizagem de novas palavras na situação estudada. Sugere-se que a apresentação de histórias digitais, com arranjos específicos na apresentação do vocabulário novo, pode ser eficaz para o ensino de palavras, independentemente da mediação de um adulto.
... Samuelson and Smith (2005) found that young children tend to naturally associate novel objects with familiar nouns, especially if these objects bear perceptual resemblances to familiar items. In fact, children with larger vocabularies learn novel labels for known referents more efficiently than their peers with smaller vocabularies (Sénéchal et al., 1995). In this case, the familiar referent may activate rich, connected word knowledge and provide additional cues during the learning of a novel label. ...
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This paper introduces A Library for Innovative Category Exemplars (ALICE) database, a resource that enhances research efficiency in cognitive and developmental studies by providing printable 3D objects representing 30 novel categories. Our research consists of three experiments to validate the novelty and complexity of the objects in ALICE. Experiment 1 assessed the novelty of objects through adult participants’ subjective familiarity ratings and agreement on object naming and descriptions. The results confirm the general novelty of the objects. Experiment 2 employed multidimensional scaling (MDS) to analyze perceived similarities between objects, revealing a three-dimensional structure based solely on shape, indicative of their complexity. Experiment 3 used two clustering techniques to categorize objects: k-means clustering for creating nonoverlapping global categories, and hierarchical clustering for allowing global categories that overlap and have a hierarchical structure. Through stability tests, we verified the robustness of each clustering method and observed a moderate to good consensus between them, affirming the strength of our dual approach in effectively and accurately delineating meaningful object categories. By offering easy access to customizable novel stimuli, ALICE provides a practical solution to the challenges of creating novel physical objects for experimental purposes.
... The type of interaction during reading activities might help children to learn about story structure, to understand causal relations, or characters' mental states, and, indeed, the use of questions promotes the coherence of narrative productions in beginner readers . It seems likely that narrative development benefits from scaffolded interactions, in the same way that vocabulary does (Sénéchal et al., 1995), but research with more sensitive measures of the content and quality of literacy interactions is needed to test this point. ...
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The development of 4- to 6-year-olds’ narrative skills was investigated in relation to their receptive vocabulary, grammar, and home literacy environment. At Time One, 82 children aged 4 to 6 years completed standardised assessments of cognitive ability, vocabulary, and grammar. Narrative production and comprehension were assessed by the narration of a wordless picture book and questions about the book’s content, respectively. Parents completed a questionnaire about home literacy practices. Concurrently, vocabulary explained unique variance in narrative comprehension, but not narrative production. In addition, the teaching of literacy-related skills in the home was negatively related to both narrative comprehension and production, and the frequency with which parents and children engaged in interactive reading was positively related to narrative production. One year later, one aspect of the home literacy environment (print exposure) explained unique variance in later narrative comprehension, after controlling for earlier narrative skills. These data show that vocabulary and grammar skills and home literacy practices are related to different types of narrative skills and suggest that literacy experiences in the home make a unique contribution to the development of narrative comprehension and production.
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The selection and application of learning strategies for college students is a hot topic in the field of education. However, there is no consensus on a universal learning strategy for most learners. The methods for discovering such a strategy are also unclear. This lack of agreement is largely due to the absence of unified measurement criteria and the difficulty of comprehensively comparing multiple strategies in experiments. Moreover, the interactions between different combinations of strategies remain unclear. To establish a unified measurement standard and identify effective learning strategies, this study uses a quantitative approach. It introduces the Asymptotic Retention Rate (ARR), based on the forgetting curve, as a metric for evaluating vocabulary learning outcomes. ARR does not focus solely on learners’ memory performance at a specific time point but instead quantifies the persistence of memory over a broader time range. A mathematical model was used to rank 12 common strategies among East Asian college students. Results show that the digital flashcard strategy is the most effective when used alone, followed by the paper flashcards and partner interaction game. Further analysis finds that the combination of three strategies (electronic dictionary, contextual guessing, and task-based reading) led to the optimal learning outcomes. These findings provide practical guidance for improving learning strategies and efficiency.
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O presente artigo visa demonstrar os benefícios da leitura compartilhada (LC) de livros para o desenvolvimento linguístico-cognitivo de crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista (TEA) durante a primeira infância. Para isso, se apoia no conceito de leitura compartilhada (LC), proposto por Gabriele Morais (2017) e explica e caracteriza o TEA, com base em Liberalesso (2020) e Stravogiannis (2023). Trata-se de um pesquisa documental em duas bases de dados eletrônicas: SciELO e Portal de Periódicos Capes, a partir dos DECs: “leitura compartilhada”; “desenvolvimento linguístico-cognitivo”; “Transtorno do Espectro Autista”; em português, inglês e espanhol, com combinação do operador booleano “AND”. Foram considerados aptos à análise estudos publicados no período de 2013 a 2024, com o foco em participantes de 0 a 6 anos. Os resultados revelaram que, no Brasil, não há pesquisas sobre o tema envolvendo, especificamente, crianças autistas, e o número de estudos realizados com crianças típicas é escasso, considerando-se as bases de dados selecionadas. Por outro lado, em outros países, esse tema é bastante explorado, apresentando uma variedade de pesquisas com crianças neurotípicas e, especialmente, com crianças TEA. Portanto, foi necessário recorrer a outras fontes de pesquisa para obter dados sólidos que confirmam a eficácia da prática de LC para o desenvolvimento linguístico-cognitivo de crianças autistas, fato que abre possibilidades para futuras investigações, especialmente no âmbito nacional.
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Understanding how children learn requires three levels of evidence: observations, correlations and experiments. Observations are necessary to allow one to describe patterns of behaviours, while correlational research is necessary to establish that the observed patterns are not due to chance and therefore suggests that they may also exist in the population. A critical integration of the accumulated evidence is necessary to establish testable models of how children learn. Then, interventions, using experimental paradigms, are necessary to assess whether the models established from the two previous steps actually account for child learning. Herein, I described the research that my colleagues and I conducted on reading books to young children — research that addressed the three levels of evidence described above. I also reviewed findings on how digital books can potentially be used to promote language and comprehension skills. Prior to doing so, however, I described the path that led me to study how children learn language from shared reading experiences. The conclusion provides avenues for future research.
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É recente o crescimento da oferta de educação bilíngue desde a Educação Infantil. No Brasil, tal fato é evidenciado pela busca pelo ensino de Língua Inglesa (LI) como segunda língua (L2) tanto na Educação Infantil quanto nos anos iniciais. Pesquisas atuais observam que a leitura compartilhada (LC) de livros nessas etapas do desenvolvimento contribui para o desenvolvimento linguístico e cognitivo das crianças, permitindo que se preparem para a aprendizagem da leitura na primeira língua (L1). No presente trabalho, perguntamo-nos se a LC poderia contribuir também para o desenvolvimento linguístico - oral e escrito - em L2, investigando seu uso como estratégia no ensino bilíngue em escolas de Educação Infantil e séries iniciais do Ensino Fundamental. A partir da busca e da análise dos principais achados sobre o tema, é possível afirmar que a LC abre janelas de oportunidades para: ampliar o conhecimento de palavras e de seus contextos de uso; as habilidades de compreensão auditiva; o conhecimento de mundo; a compreensão da estrutura da história; aumentar a consciência linguística e o conhecimento da escrita, familiarizando a criança com as letras e seus respectivos sons (DESHMUKH et al., 2019; GABRIEL; MORAIS, 2017). Diante do cenário apresentado, considerando que o ensino bilíngue requer o desenvolvimento de conhecimentos utilizando a L2, e que a leitura, enquanto experiência, é constituída por processos de significação através de diferentes contextos, podemos afirmar que a combinação da LC com o ensino bilíngue é potencialmente eficiente.
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This study was designed to assess whether preschool children learn new vocabulary from a single reading of a storybook and whether certain conversational devices used by parents during joint book reading facilitate vocabulary growth. Eighty 4- and eighty 5-year-old children listened to a story. The narrative was constructed to introduce 10 target words not typically known to young children. Children were pretested for their knowledge of the vocabulary words, were posttested immediately after the reading, and were posttested again one week later. Dependent measures included tests of expressive and receptive vocabulary. The two age groups were able to recognize approximately the same number of words on the immediate posttest. After one week, however, 5-year-old children remembered more words than 4-year-old children. Although receptive vocabulary learning was robust, there was no evidence of differential learning of vocabulary under different conditions, including active participation. A single reading of the storybook was not sufficient to enhance children's expressive vocabulary. /// [French] Cette étude a été réalisée pour savoir si des enfants d'âge préscolaire peuvent apprendre un vocabulaire nouveau dans une seule séance de lecture d'un livre et si certains dispositifs conversationnels mis en oeuvre par les parents au cours de la lecture conjointe d'un livre facilitent le développement du vocabulaire. Quatre vingt enfants de 4 ans et quatre vingt enfants de 5 ans ont écouté une histoire. La narration a été construite de façon à introduire dix mots cibles caractéristiques des mots que de jeunes enfants ne connaissent pas. On a fait un prétest des enfants pour évaluer leur connaissance de ce vocabulaire, un posttest juste après la lecture, et un nouveau prétest une semaine après. Les variables dépendants comportaient des tests de vocabulaire actif et passif. Les deux groupes d'âge ont réussi à reconnaître à peuprès le même nombre de mots au posttest immédiat. Toutefois, après une semaine, les enfants de 5 ans se sont souvenus de plus de mots que les enfants de 4 ans. Si l'apprentissage du vocabulaire passif s'est révélé robuste, on n'a pas trouvé de preuves d'un apprentissage différentiel du vocabulaire dans les différentes conditions, participation active inclus. Une lecture unique de l'histoire du livre n'a pas été suffisante pour augmenter le vocabulaire actif des enfants. /// [Spanish] Este estudio fue diseñado para evaluar si los niños de preescolar aprenden vocabulario nuevo a partir de una única lectura de un libro de cuentos y si ciertos recursos conversacionales usados por los padres durante la lectura conjunta facilitan el crecimiento del vocabulario. Ochenta niños de 4 años y ochenta de 5 años escucharon un cuento. La narrativa fue construída para introducir diez palabras clave típicamente desconocidas por niños pequeños. Se administró a los niños una prueba previa de conocimiento de las palabras del vocabulario; los niños fueron evaluados inmediatamente después de la lectura y una semana más tarde. Las medidas dependientes incluyeron pruebas de vocabulario expresivo y receptivo. Los dos grupos fueron capaces de reconocer aproximadamente el mismo número de palabras en la evaluación inmediata. Después de una semana, sin embargo, los niños de 5 años recordaban más palabras que los de 4. Si bien el aprendizaje de vocabulario receptivo fue fuerte, no hubo evidencia de un aprendizaje de vocabulario diferenciado según las distintas condiciones, incluyendo participación activa. Una única lectura del libro de cuentos no fue suficiente para mejorar el vocabulario expresivo de los niños. /// [German] Die studie will eine Einschätzung ermöglichen, ob Vorschulkinder neues Vokabular durch einmaliges Lesen eines Buches mit Geschichten lernen oder ob bestimmte Konversationstaktiken der Eltern während dem gemeinsamen Lesen den Vokabelschatz erweitern. 80 Vierjährige und 80 Fünfjährige sollten einer Geschichte zuhören. Die Erzählung war darauf angelegt, zehn Zielwörter einzuführen, die üblicherweise kleinen Kindern nicht bekannt sind. Das Vokabelwissen der Kinder wurde vorab getestet, unmittelbar nach dem Test wieder gemessen und eine Woche danach erneut getestet. Die bedingten Messungen bezogen sich auf aktives wie auch passives Vokabular. Beide Altersgruppen waren imstande, etwa dieselbe Anzahl von Wörtern im unmittelbaren Nachtest wiederzuerkennen. Nach einer Woche allerdings erinnerten die fünfjährigen Kinder mehr Wörter als die vierjährigen. Obwohl das passive Vokabular stark war, ergab dies keinen Beweis eines anderen Vokabellernergebnisses unter verschiedenen Bedingungen, eingeschlossen aktiver Leseerfahrungen. Einmaliges Lesen eines Geschichtenbuches reicht nicht aus, den aktiven Vokabelschatz der Kinder zu erweitern.
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G. J. Whitehurst et al (see record 1989-02401-001) taught mothers specific interactive techniques to use when reading picture books with their preschool-age children. This intervention program, called dialogic reading, produced substantial effects on preschool children's language development. However, the costs of one-on-one training limit the widespread use of dialogic reading techniques. In this study the authors aimed to replicate and extend the results of the original study of dialogic reading by developing and evaluating an inexpensive videotape training package for teaching dialogic reading techniques. Mothers were randomly assigned to receive no training, traditional direct training, or videotape training. Results supported the conclusions of Whitehurst et al: Dialogic reading had powerful effects on children's language skills and indicated that videotape training provided a cost-effective, standardized means of implementing the program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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We experimentally assessed a 1-month, home-based intervention, designed to optimize parental reading of picture books to young children. Parents in the experimental group received instructions to increase their rates of open-ended questions, function/attribute questions, and expansions; to respond appropriately to children's attempts to answer these questions; and to decrease their frequency of straight reading and questions that could be answered by pointing. Control-group parents were instructed to read in their customary fashion. All families audiotaped their reading sessions at home. Analysis of these tapes demonstrated that the experimental group scored significantly higher than children in the control group on standardized posttests of expressive language ability. On the basis of analysis of audiotapes, children in the experimental group also had a higher mean length of utterance (MLU), a higher frequency of phrases, and a lower frequency of single words. Follow-up 9 months after the completion of treatment disclosed continued, although statistically diminished, differences between the two groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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Previous research demonstrates linguistic advances in middle-class 2-year-olds in the United States resulting from training parents to read with their children following a particular style. This style, called dialogic reading, encourages children to talk about picture books and gives them models and feedback for progressively more sophisticated language use. This research extends these procedures to a day-care setting using 20 Mexican 2-year-olds from low-income backgrounds. Children in the intervention group were read to individually by a teacher using dialogic reading techniques. The control group children were given individual arts and crafts instruction by the same teacher. Effects of the intervention were assessed through standardized language tests and by comparing the children's spontaneous language while they shared a picture book with an adult who was unaware of their group assignment. Differences favoring the intervention group were found on all standardized language posttests and on some measures of language production.
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Two experiments were conducted examining the effects of partial picture adjuncts on young children's coding of information that was implied in sentences. In the two most critical conditions of these studies, subjects were presented sentences specifying a subject, an action, and a direct object with the instrument used to carry out the action not specified in the sentence (e.g., The workman dug a hole in the ground). Implicit-sentence-only subjects received only the sentences, whereas the implicit sentence + partial picture subjects also viewed a partial picture depicting the action in the sentence minus the implied instrument. The main hypothesis was that subsequent recall of the sentences given the implied instrument as a cue would be facilitated by the partial pictures provided at study, since they would lead the children to infer the instrument. That occurred with 6- to 7-year-old children, but not with preschool children. Consistent with the conclusion that the partial pictures prompted 6- to 7-year-olds to infer the instruments, implicit sentence + partial picture subjects recalled as much as subjects in two other conditions, one in which subjects were explicitly told the instruments at study and one in which subjects saw the instruments depicted in pictures at study. In contrast, preschool subjects who heard explicit sentences containing the instruments outperformed subjects who heard implicit sentences even when the implicit sentences were accompanied by pictures depicting the instruments. This failure of complete pictures to facilitate preschoolers' recall of information implied in sentences contrasts with the many demonstrations of prose learning facilitation when picture and sentence contents explicitly and completely overlap. In summary, there were developmental differences in whether (a) partial pictures significantly facilitated inferencing (and subsequent cued recall) and (b) complete pictures containing information not explicitly stated in sentences promoted cued recall of the sentences.
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This study investigated incidental learning of word meanings from context during normal reading. A total of 352 students in third, fifth, and seventh grades read either expository or narrative passages selected from grade-level textbooks, and after six days were tested on their knowledge of difficult words from the passages. Small but reliable gains in knowledge of words from the passages read were found at all grade and ability levels. Effects of word and text properties on learning from context were examined in some detail. Word properties investigated included length, morphological complexity, and part of speech. Text properties included the strength of contextual support for each word, readability as measured by standard formulas, and several measures of density of difficult words. Among the word properties, only conceptual difficulty was significantly related to learning from context. Among the text properties, learning from context was most strongly influenced by the proportion of unfamiliar words that were conceptually difficult and by the average length of unfamiliar words.
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Past research has demonstrated that recasts can facilitate young children's language development, even when embedded into stories. A recast occurs when one sentence is immediately followed by another sentence which reiterates the meaning of the first, but changes one or more of its syntactical components. Twenty 3- and 4-year-old Head Start children participated in this study. Ten children were read a story which incorporated recasts into its 20-page text. Ten different children were read a story similar in every aspect to the recast story (length, pictures, vocabulary, and syntactical complexity) except that this story modelled forms rather than recasting them. Modelling differs from recasting in that there is no paired presentation of sentences. Elicitation tasks measured both groups' syntactic and lexical abilities before and after the story readings. Analyses of covariance, using pre-test scores as covariates, indicated no significant differences between the recasting and modelling groups. Both groups made equal language gains. A key factor in these results may be the shared meaning between com municators allowed by both recasts and models. These data suggest further research regarding educational and clinical applications of both recasting and modelling.
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In two experiments, classroom teachers in New Zealand read stories aloud to elementary school children, and administered pretests and posttests to measure the extent of the new vocabulary the children acquired from the reading. Results showed that oral story reading constitutes a significant source of vocabulary acquisition, whether or not the reading is accompanied by teacher explanation of word meanings. In the first study, seven classes of 7-year-olds showed vocabulary gains of 15 percent from one story, without any teacher explanation. In the second study, after hearing one story, three classes of 8-year-olds who received no teacher explanation showed gains of 15 percent, and three classes that did receive explanation showed gains of 40 percent. By contrast, the same groups produced gains of less than half these figures on a second story with different characteristics. Follow-up tests showed that this incidental vocabulary learning was relatively permanent, and that low-scoring children gained as much as high-scoring children. In addition, the features that best predicted whether a particular word would be learned were frequency of the word in the text, depiction of the word in illustrations, and the amount of redundancy in the surrounding context. The author recommends future studies to investigate further the benefits from stories read aloud, and to clarify the factors that yield differences in children's interest in stories. /// [French] Les deux expériences rapportées se sont déroulées en Nouvelle-Zélande. Les professeurs ont lu à voix haute des histoires à des élèves du primaire. Un pré-test et un post-test ont permis d'évaluer le vocabulaire acquis à la suite des lectures. Les résultats confirmèrent que la lecture d'histoires contribue de façon significative à accroître le vocabulaire des enfants, que la lecture soit ou non complétée par des explications. Dans la première étude, sept classes de deuxième année primaire montrèrent des gains de 15% suite à l'écoute d'une des histoires et ce, sans explication supplémentaire. Dans une seconde étude, après écoute d'une histoire, sans explication, trois classes de troisième année affichèrent une augmentation du vocabulaire de 15%, alors que trois autres classes qui avaient reçu des explications complémentaires montrèrent une amélioration de 40%. Par contre, les mêmes groupes obtinrent des résultats 50% inférieurs à la lecture d'une seconde histoire présentant des caractéristiques différentes. Des post-tests passés plus tard, ont permis de vérifier la stabilité des résultats dans le temps et de montrer que les gains des enfants faibles ont été aussi importants que ceux des enfants forts. De plus, certains facteurs d'apprentissage ont pu être isolés tel la fréquence d'apparition du mot dans le texte, la représentation du mot par l'image, et la redondance du contexte environnant. Les auteurs recommendent que des recherches complémentaires soient menées pour approfondir l'effet de la lecture à voix haute sur l'acquisition de vocabulaire et pour cerner les facteurs responsables de cet apprentissage. /// [Spanish] En dos experimentos llevados a cabo por maestras de primaria en Nueva Zelandia se leyeron historias en voz alta a niños de escuela elemental. Se administraron pruebas de pretest y postest para medir la extensión del nuevo vocabulario que los niños adquirieron de la lectura. Los resultados mostraron que la lectura en voz alta de las historias constituye una fuente significativa de adquisición de vocabulario, ya sea que la lectura vaya acompañada o no de explicaciones por parte de la maestra. En el primer estudio, siete maestras leyeron una historia en voz alta a sus clases de niños de 7 años, sin dar explicación ninguna, y los niños mostraron ganancias del vocabulario de 15%. En el segundo estudio, después de escuchar un cuento, tres clases de niños de 8 años que no recibieron explicación de la maestra, mostraron ganancias de 15%, y tres clases que recibieron explicación mostraron ganancias del 40%. En contraste, los mismos grupos tuvieron aumentos de menos de la mitad de estos números en una segunda historia con características diferentes. Una prueba de seguimiento demostró que este aprendizaje incidental de vocabulario fue relativamente permanente, y que los niños con bajo rendimiento tuvieron un aumento tan grande como el de los niños de alto rendimiento. Además, las características que predijeron mejor si una palabra en particular sería aprendida o no fueron: la frecuencia de la palabra en el texto, la frecuencia de la representación de la palabra en las ilustraciones, y la cantidad de redundancia en el texto circundante. El autor recomienda estudios futuros para investigar con más detalle los beneficios obtenidos de historias leídas en voz alta, y para hacer más claros los factores que rinden diferencias en el interés de los niños por las historias. /// [German] In zwei experimenten lasen Klassenlehrer aus Neuseeland Vorschulkindern Geschichten vor und führten vorher und nachher Teste durch, um den Umfang des Wortschatzes zu messen, den die Kinder sich anhand des Vorlesens angeeignet hatten. Die Resultate zeigten, daß das Vorlesen von Geschichten einen beträchtlichen Anteil am Wortschatzerwerb ausmachte -- ungeachtet dessen, ob während des Vorlesens seitens der Lehrer Erklärungen gegeben wurden oder nicht. In der ersten Studie zeigten sieben Unterrichtsklassen mit Kindern im Alter von sieben Jahren nach dem Vorlesen einer Geschichte einen Wortschatzzuwachs von 15%, ohne daß Erklärungen seitens der Lehrer erfolgten. In der zweiten Studie wurde gleichfalls eine Geschichte vorgelesen. Drei Klassen Achtjähriger, denen keine Erklärungen gegeben wurden, zeigten einen Zuwachs von 15%, und drei Klassen, denen Erklärungen gegeben wurden, zeigten einen Zuwachs von 40%. Im Vergleich dazu zeigten dieselben Gruppen einen Zuwachs von weniger als 50% dieser Werte beim Vorlesen einer zweiten Geschichte, die unterschiedliche Eigenschaften basaß. Eine nachfolgende Untersuchung zeigte, daß dieses einmalige Vokabellernen von relativer Beständigkeit war, und daß Kinder mit niedrigen Ergebnissen genauso viel lernten wie Kinder mit hohen Ergebnissen. Des weiteren waren die Eigenschaften, die am besten vorhersagten, ob ein bestimmtes Wort erlernt würde, folgende: Häufigkeit des Wortes in der Geschichte, Darstellung des Wortes in Bildern und die Höhe der Redundanz im wortumgebenden Kontext. Der Verfasser schlägt vor, daß zusätzliche Studien durchgeführt werden, um die Vorteile des Geschichtenlesens weiter zu untersuchen und um die Faktoren, die bei den Kindern ein unterschiedlich starkes Interesse für verschiedenartige Geschichten hervorrufen, klar herauszustellen.
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