The Role of Self-Teaching in Learning Orthographic and Semantic Aspects of New Words

This study explores how children learn the meaning (semantics) and spelling patterns (orthography) of novel words encountered in story context. English-speaking children (N = 88) aged 7 to 8 years read 8 stories and each story contained 1 novel word repeated 4 times. Semantic cues were provided by t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific studies of reading 2011-01, Vol.15 (1), p.47-70
Main Authors: Ricketts, Jessie, Bishop, Dorothy V. M., Pimperton, Hannah, Nation, Kate
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Children
Children & youth
Cues
Decoding (Reading)
Grade 3
Independent Study
Learning
Orthography
Pattern Recognition
Phonetics
Predictor Variables
Reading
Semantics
Spelling
Story Reading
Studies
Vocabulary Development
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Summary:This study explores how children learn the meaning (semantics) and spelling patterns (orthography) of novel words encountered in story context. English-speaking children (N = 88) aged 7 to 8 years read 8 stories and each story contained 1 novel word repeated 4 times. Semantic cues were provided by the story context such that children could infer the meaning of the word (specific context) or the category that the word belonged to (general context). Following story reading, posttests indicated that children showed reliable semantic and orthographic learning. Decoding was the strongest predictor of orthographic learning, indicating that self-teaching via phonological recoding was important for this aspect of word learning. In contrast, oral vocabulary emerged as the strongest predictor of semantic learning.
ISSN:1088-8438
1532-799X
DOI:10.1080/10888438.2011.536129