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Purpose: Incidental reading provides a powerful opportunity for partial word knowledge growth in the school-age years. The extent to which children of differing language abilities can use reading experiences to glean partial knowledge of words is not well understood. The purpose of this study was to compare semantic-syntactic partial word knowledge growth of children with higher language skills (HL group; overall language standard scores of 85 or higher) to that of children with relatively lower language skills (LL group; overall receptive or expressive standard score below 85).
Method: Thirty-two children, 16 per group, silently read stories containing unfamiliar nouns and verbs 3 times over a 1 -week period. Semantic-syntactic partial word knowledge growth was assessed after each reading and 2-3 days later to assess retention.
Results: Over time, both groups showed significant partial word knowledge growth, with the HL group showing significantly more growth. In addition, both groups retained knowledge several days later.
Conclusion: Regardless of language skill level, children benefit from multiple exposures to unfamiliar words in reading in their development and retention of semantic-syntactic partial word knowledge growth.
During the school-age years, children acquire new vocabulary with impressive speed and magnitude. It has been estimated that between the third and the ninth grade, the typically developing (TD) child learns about 3,000 words per year (Nagy & Anderson, 1984; Nagy & Herman, 1987). Anglin (1993) estimated that by 10 years of age, children know close to 40,000 words. Although some of this learning stems from formal instructional activities explicitly designed to build vocabulary (e.g., Gipe & Arnold, 1979; Pany & Jenkins, 1978; Pany, Jenkins, & Schreck, 1982; Stahl, Burdge, Machuga, & Stecyk, 1992; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986), the sheer extent of lexical acquisition has led to the widespread conclusion that most word learning occurs through incidental exposure (e.g., see Nagy & Herman, 1987, for a discussion). Children are exposed to new words through a variety of oral and written language experiences throughout their school years, perhaps most importantly through reading.
Vocabulary Growth Through Incidental Exposure in Reading
The means by which incidental exposure leads to word learning are not well understood. Carey (1978) has proposed two distinct processes: "fast mapping," which is the knowledge a child gains from a single exposure, and "full...