learning word meanings

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Learning word meanings during reading by children with

language learning disability and typically-developing peers

SARA C. STEELE1, & RUTH V. WATKINS2

1Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO, USA, and2University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL,

USA

(Received 14 July 2009; Accepted 6 December 2009)

AbstractThis study investigated whether children with language learning disability (LLD) differed fromtypically-developing peers in their ability to learn meanings of novel words presented during reading.Fifteen 911-year-old children with LLD and 15 typically-developing peers read four passagescontaining 20 nonsense words. Word learning was assessed through oral definition and multiple-choice tasks. Variables were position of informative context, number of exposures, part of speech, andcontextual clues. The LLD group scored lower than same-aged peers on oral definition (p < .001) andmultiple-choice (p < .001) tasks. For both groups, there was no effect for position of informative context(p .867) or number of exposures (p .223). All children benefitted from contextual clues. The

findings suggested difficulty inferring and recalling word meanings during reading and pointed to theneed for vocabulary intervention in the upper elementary years for children with LLD.

Keywords: language disorders, word learning, reading, school-age children

Introduction

Studies of childrens learning of novel words have shown that typical language learners are

able to capture some aspects of word meaning from just a few exposures to new words in the

context of running dialogue (Rice and Woodsmall, 1988). Children with language impair-

ment (LI) are also able to learn words from running dialogue, though they are not always as

proficient as their typical peers (Rice, Oetting, Marquis, Bode, and Pae, 1994). Specifically,children with LI have difficulty producing new words after limited exposures (Rice et al.,

1994), identifying the correct pronunciation of new words (Alt, Plante, and Creusere, 2004),

and learning the semantic features of new words (Alt et al., 2004). Their performance on

naming, defining, and drawing tasks has suggested limited or missing representation of

semantic features (McGregor, Newman, Reilly, and Capone, 2002). Finally, children with

LI are less sensitive to syntactic cues that provide information about new word meanings

(Rice, Cleave, and Oetting, 2000). Words from certain grammatic classes, especially verbs,

have been shown to pose significant difficulty (Windfuhr, Faragher, and Conti-Ramsden,

Correspondence:Sara C. Steele, Saint Louis University,Communication Sciences and Disorders, 3750Lindell Blvd., 22 McGannon

Hall, St. Louis, MO 63108, USA. Tel: 314-977-2941. Fax: 314-977-3360. E-mail: [email protected]

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, July 2010; 24(7): 520539


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2002). Thus, problems in the phonological, semantic, and syntactic domains have been

implicated as sources of difficulty for children with LI as they attempt to learn new word

meanings that are spoken. Relevant to the current study, it is not currently known how these

sources of word learning problems operate when new words are presented in written, rather

than spoken form.

Written word learning

Consideration of word learning in the written domain is warranted, because reading is a

primary source of vocabulary development in the upper elementary years (Nagy, Herman,

and Anderson, 1985). During the elementary school years, children are exposed to words

incidentally through reading at school and at home. These incidental experiences accumulate

over time and are responsible for a significant amount of word growth for children in upper

elementary grades and above (Nagy and Herman, 1987).Studies of typically-developing children have shown that little detailed information is

gained from a childs first encounter with a word in text (Nagy et al., 1985). Children mayonly learn to recognize the new word as a real word rather than a nonsense word. In fact, after

just one reading, children may actually map some incorrect information to a word (Fukkink,

Blok, and de Glopper, 2001). Thus, subsequent encounters with the words help to refine the

mental representations of words by adding correct details and eliminating incorrect details.

Several text factors influence word learning in a positive way for typically-developing

children. Words that occur more frequently are more easily learned (Jenkins, Stein, and

Wysocki, 1984). In addition, concrete, highly imageable nouns are easier to learn (Stahl,

2003). Finally, when the immediate context provides clues to the words meanings, children

are more likely to pick up additional word knowledge (Carnine, Kameenui, and Coyle, 1984).

One study has investigated the effect of informative context on the ability to constructmeaning for unknown words for children of high and low reading comprehension abilities

(Cain, Oakhill, and Elbro, 2003). Seven-to-8-year-old children (n 30) with age-appropriate

decoding skills and either good or poor reading comprehension ability participated. For the

experimental task, the children read short passages containing nonsense words with novel

meanings. The context for the words meaning was positioned either directly adjacent to the

unknown word or later in the text. After reading the text, children were asked what they

thought the novel word meant. The two groups of children performed similarly on words in

which the informative context was directly adjacent to the target words. However, when the

context for the words meaning was presented later in the text, children with poor reading

comprehension performed more poorly than children with good comprehension. Thus, the

position of the informative contexts distinguished the two groups. The researchers offered

inference-making, working memory, and processing limitations as possible explanations for

the difference between groups.

Cain, Oakhill, and Lemmon (2004) later included a third group of children to determine

the confounding influence of vocabulary ability on novel word learning during reading. In

Study 2 of their experiment, three groups of 910-year-old children, with age-appropriate

word decoding ability, were tested. Twelve children were in each of three groups: poor

comprehenders with poor vocabulary, poor comprehenders with average vocabulary, and

good comprehenders with average vocabulary. As in Cain et al. (2003), all children were

equally able to learn new word meanings when the informative context was directly adjacent

to the target word. However, both groups of poor comprehenders were less successful atinferring the meanings of words when the informative context was farther away. On a direct

Learning word meanings during reading 521


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instruction task, in which children were directly told the meanings of the words, the children

with weaker vocabulary needed more repetitions to learn word meanings than children with

average vocabulary. In other words, the children with poor vocabulary and poor reading

comprehension were less skilled at deriving word meaning from far context and remembering

word meanings through direct instruction.

In neither of these studies, nor in the studies of typically-developing children, is childrenslanguage ability the primary variable of interest. We may assume that some of the children

with poor reading comprehension in Cain et al. (2003; 2004) also had poor language ability

(Catts, Adlof, and Ellis Weismer, 2006), but this assumption cannot be determined based on

the testing protocols used in the studies. Catts et al. (2006) reported on a group of children

they termed poor comprehenders (the same term used by Cain et al. (2003; 2004) to describe

their participants). The poor comprehenders in the Catts et al. study were characterized by

intact word recognition and underlying phonological processing skills, but poor reading

comprehension. In addition, they performed more poorly than typically-developing peerson tests of oral language, although their language deficits were often less severe and sub-

clinical in nature. The results from Cain et al. (2003; 2004) opened the door for furtherinvestigation into the role that oral language ability plays in word learning from written

contexts. Since language ability is likely an underlying factor for word learning in both spoken

and written contexts, additional research is warranted.

Literacy skills and language impairment

Compared to their non-impaired peers, children with LI have a higher probability of devel-

oping a reading disability (Menyuk, Chesnick, Liebergott, Korngold, DAgostino, R., et al.,

1991; Catts, 1993; McArthur, Hogben, Edwards, Heath, and Mengler, 2000; Catts, Fey,

Tomblin, and Zhang, 2002; Carroll and Snowling, 2004; Nathan, Stackhouse, Goulandris,and Snowling, 2004). In a study of second and fourth graders, children with LI scored

significantly lower than children with typical language on tasks of word recognition and

reading comprehension, the two main components of reading ability (Catts et al., 2002). In

second grade, nearly 53% of the children with LI had a reading impairment, and in fourth

grade more than 48% of the children with LI had a reading impairment.

More recently, Catts, Adlof, Hogan, and Ellis Weismer (2005) examined the relationship

between word recognition deficits and language impairment, and found a less robust overlap

of these two disorders. About one-third of the children with LI also had low achievement in

word recognition in second, fourth, and eighth grades. Using more stringent criteria for a

diagnosis of dyslexia that took into account intelligence and word recognition ability, the

researchers found a lower co-occurrence of, 1721%. Looking at the relationship a different

way, they also examined the percentage of children with dyslexia who met the criteria for

specific language impairment. About 19% of the children with dyslexia also had LI in second,

fourth, and eighth grades. These rates are lower than reported in other studies (e.g. McArthur

et al., 2000; Catts et al., 2002); however, are higher than the occurrence in the general

population. Regardless of exact numbers, the important consideration for the present inves-

tigation is that some children with LI will also be poor readers, which will compound their

difficulties with the task of learning new word meanings during reading.

Although differing in their conceptualization of the underlying causes of dyslexia and LI,

several models of reading and language ability (e.g. Catts and Kamhi, 1999; Bishop and

Snowling, 2004; Catts et al., 2005) consider that semantics, syntax, morphology, anddiscourse-level skills (non-phonological skills or listening comprehension) contribute to

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reading separately from print skills (phonological skills or word recognition). In addition,

these models characterize poor readers based on their relative strengths and weaknesses in the

two domains. Children with LI, who as a group experience difficulty with semantics, syntax,

morphology, and discourse processing, can be expected to have problems with reading

comprehension with or without concomitant problems in word recognition. Relevant to the

present study, problems with comprehension have been shown to create difficulty for childrenwhen they need to learn word meanings from the context of the text (Cain et al., 2003). To

our knowledge, to date the studies of word learning during reading have been conducted with

children who are typically-developing or children with primary reading problems.

Considering the word learning problems that children with LI experience in the spoken

domain, the high probability of children with LI having concomitant problems with reading,

and the importance of learning word meanings during reading, research into word learning

during reading for children with LI is necessary and past due. Much of the current research

has focused on word learning in the spoken domain; yet for older school-aged children, wordlearning is not confined to spoken language. Typical children gain understanding of new

words that are presented in written form. Although some of the same linguistic processesoccur with spoken and written word learning, different processes are also at work. The

present study seeks to begin the investigation into word learning for older children during

reading.

Objectives and questions of the study

In summary, school-aged children with LLD appear to have a multi-dimensional source of

word learning weakness. They often have poor spoken vocabulary and impaired word learn-

ing ability (Alt et al., 2004). In addition, they have weaker phonological awareness (Catts,

1993) and morphological skills (Windsor, Scott, and Street, 2000) which may negativelyimpact their reading success. With lower reading success, children with LLD may be exposed

to fewer words during reading, which would negatively affect their vocabulary through mere

lack of exposure. However, many of the same weaknesses in spoken lexical learning would be

expected to occur during reading. Even if children with LLD were exposed to the same

amount of written text, one would expect less lexical learning to occur due to deficits in

underlying word learning ability. A better understanding of the nature of word learning

deficits for this group of children, and the conditions under which their word learning

improves, will lead to more focused, effective intervention strategies.

The primary objective of this study was to examine the ability of children with Language

Learning Disability (LLD) to learn word meanings during reading.1 The hypothesis that

children with LLD will show deficits in word learning during reading was examined through

an experiment with multiple dimensions. The following primary questions were posed:

(1) Do children with LLD and same-aged peers differ in their ability to define and

identify basic word meanings encountered during reading?

(2) Do text variables (position of informative context, number of exposures to target

words, and part of speech) affect word learning of children with LLD and same-aged

peers?

(3) Do contextual clues affect childrens abilities to provide correct definitions for novel

words?

Both groups of children were expected to show improved word learning with moreexposures to target words and with defining contexts that were closer to the target words.



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Nouns were hypothesized to show higher scores than verbs, and contextual clues were

predicted to positively influence word learning. Overall, children with LLD were expected

to perform more poorly than their same-aged peers. The performance gap between children

with LLD and typical children was predicted to decrease with more exposures to target

words, with close position of informative context, and with contextual clues.

Method

Participants

In total, 33 children were initially recruited for the study. Two children with LLD were

excluded from analysis because their reading ability fell at the pre-primer level, and they were

unable to read the experimental passages. One typically-developing child was excluded from

analysis because her performance on one language measure and three reading measures fell

below the average range. Following these exclusions, 30 children completed the study and

were included in all subsequent analyses. Socioeconomic variables were collected using a

teacher questionnaire. Less than half of the questionnaires were returned, so socioeconomic

information is not reported here. Participants demographic information is summarized in

Table I.

Children with language learning disability. In the LLD group were 15 children who had a mean

age of 9;1111;5 years (M 10;7 years). These children had a current Individualized

Education Plan (IEP) for special education services for language impairment and/or

learning disability in reading comprehension. Children with a learning disability in reading

comprehension were included in the LLD group because of a criterion used in their school

district called duplication of services. This criterion is unique to the participants school

district. In their school district, in order to provide special education services in the leastrestrictive environment, children who had a language impairment but could receive adequate

services for language through their special education teachers would not receive duplicate

services from the speech-language pathologist. These children are typically dismissed from

the speech-language pathologist caseload and provided language services from their special

education teachers in a less restrictive environment (M. Henning, M. Johnson, and

T. Niccum, personal communication, 13 February 2008). So, the children in the LLD

Table I. Participant demographic characteristics.

Characteristic LLD Typical

Grade

Fourth 8 7

Fifth 7 8

Sex

Male 7 10

Female 8 5

Race

African American 7 4

Caucasian 7 10

Other * 1 1

Total number of participants 15 15

* The LLD group included one Native American the typical group included one Asian American.



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group all had language disabilities, but received services either from a speech-language

pathologist or a special education teacher, depending on their educational needs. As

individuals, the children with LLD showed a variety of language strengths and weaknesses,

and did not fall neatly into a category of semantic or syntactic deficits. The LLD group

included children with expressive-only and mixed receptiveexpressive language

impairment. Children in the LLD group had typical hearing, no frank neurologicalproblem (such as epilepsy or traumatic brain injury), and adequate speech intelligibility, as

determined through teacher report and observation.

Typically-developing peers. Fifteen typically-developing participants were matched to the LLD

group for chronological age. Same-aged peers had a mean age of 9;911;9 years (M 10;8

years), a non-significant age difference compared to the LLD group [t(28) .061, p

.577]. The typically-developing children had no history of special education services and

current functioning in the classroom was at or above grade level, per teacher report. They alsohad typical hearing, determined through teacher report. Participants were not excluded for a

history of an articulation delay or a current articulation deficit.

Materials

Standardized tests. All participants were assessed for language, reading, and non-verbal

cognitive ability. Receptive vocabulary ability was assessed using the Peabody Picture

Vocabulary Test-4 (Dunn and Dunn, 2007), and grammatic ability with the Concepts and

Directions (C & D) and Formulated Sentences (FS) sub-tests of the Clinical Evaluation of

Language Fundamentals, 4th Edition (CELF-4, Semel, Wiig, and Secord, 2003). Non-verbal

cognitive ability was screened using the Test of Non-verbal Intelligence, 3rd Edition (TONI-3,

Brown, Sherbenou, and Johnsen, 1997). To measure fluency and comprehension ofreading, the Gray Oral Reading Tests, 4th Edition (GORT-4, Wiederholt and Bryant, 2001)

were given.

Descriptive information of the participants performance on the standardized tests are

summarized in Table II. As expected, the two groups differed on all language and reading

standardized scores: PPVT-4 [t(28) 5.511, p < .001], CELF- 4 Concepts and Directions

[t(28) 5.429, p < .001], CELF-4 Formulated Sentences [t(28) 5.562, p < .001], GORT-

4 Fluency [t(28) 5.309, p < .001], GORT-4 Comprehension [t(28) 4.337, p < .001].

Although children from both groups scored within the average range on the TONI-3, a

significant group difference was found [t(28) 3.043, p .005]. To control for group

Table II. Standardized test mean scores and standard deviations.

Test LLD Typical

PPVT-4a 91.63 (9.71) 111.75 (12.55)

CELF-4, Concepts & Directionsb 4.13 (2.16) 9.50 (3.29)

CELF-4, Formulated Sentencesb 5.56 (3.41) 11.67 (2.80)

TONI-3a 91.38 (9.81) 108.19 (20.53)

GORT-4, Fluencyb 5.94 (3.26) 11.75 (3.86)

GORT-4, Comprehensionb 8.13 (2.66) 12.00 (3.14)

GORT-4, Quotienta 81.81 (15.63) 111.06 (19.65)

a Tests with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15.b Sub-tests with a mean of 10 and a standard deviation of 3.



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differences in non-verbal intelligence, TONI-3 scores were entered as a covariate in all

subsequent analyses.

Reading passages. Original reading passages were written for the present study. The readability

of the passages was measured by the Flesch-Kincaid readability formula, calculated

automatically in Microsoft Word by measuring the average number of words per sentenceand average number of syllables per word. The readability of three passages was at a first grade

level. Despite efforts to simplify the passage, readability of the fourth passage was at second

grade level. The passages were approximately one page (8.5 11) in length, double spaced,

without illustrations. The mean number of words per passage was 381, with a range of 281423.

The passages reflected themes that were expected to be familiar to most children, to control for

differences in background knowledge that may impact comprehension. The themes were: My

Family, My Pets, My School, and My Birthday. The passages were written such that the context

provided information about each target word; however, there were no devices used to drawattention to the informative context (e.g., For example or This word means . . .). Instead, the

participants were required to infer, or draw conclusions about, the meanings of the words fromthe passages. See Appendix A for an example reading passage.

Target words. Twenty nonsense target words were generated from the English Lexicon

Project (Balota, Cortese, Hutchinson, Neely, Nelson, et al., 2002). There were five target

words per reading passage, and a total of four reading passages. Ten of the target words were

nouns and 10 were verbs. Nonsense words included nouns that were singular and verbs that

had bare stems, to keep morphology consistent and to avoid morphological cues for certain

words. The target words were one syllable in length, in CVC, CVVC, CCVC, CVCC, or

CVCe word forms. The nonsense words followed the orthographic rules of the English

language, and were easily decodable for 7

8-year old readers, based on teacher report andpilot testing. The orthographic neighbourhood density rating was 10 or higher, to ensure that

the words were word like. In addition, the definitions, close synonyms, or superordinate

category of the target words were rated within the average range for imageability and

concreteness, as determined by scores within one standard deviation of the mean in the

MRC Psycholinguistic Database (1987).

The meanings of the target words were conceptualized as synonyms for concepts that were

likely to be known to the participants, similar to methodology from other word learning experi-

ments (e.g. Rice et al., 1994). Thus, children were not learning new words for new concepts, but

were learning new words for known concepts, a task that older children often face as their

vocabulary grows in depth and breadth. Although young word learners, 2-year-olds and 3-year-

olds, loathe synonyms (Pinker, 1994: 152), older children must learn that the same concept may

have different labels, dependingon formality (e.g. copandpoliceofficer), specificity (e.g. colourful

and vivid), individual preferences (e.g. papa and grandpa), or geography (e.g. hoagie and sub

sandwich), to name a few. In fact, teaching new words for known concepts (e.g. Tier 2 words;

Beck, McKeown, and Kucan, 2002) is an evidence-based strategy for vocabulary instruction in

the elementary years. Because the context of the stories in the present study was an alien world, all

words were conceptualized as known concepts with a nuanced difference in meaning. Thus, the

method of word learning used in this study related to the types of vocabulary learning common in

the upper elementary school years. See Appendix B for target word information.

Experimental word conditions. In the reading passages, words occurred in two Rate conditions(low rate, high rate) and two Position conditions (adjacent context, non-adjacent context).



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Thus, there were five words in each of the following conditions: low rate-adjacent context,

low rate-non-adjacent context, high rate-adjacent context, and high rate-non-adjacent

context. Each reading passage contained a combination of word conditions. Target words

in the low rate condition were presented twice, and in the high rate condition were presented

five times. In the adjacent context, explicit information describing the target word was

positioned in the beginning of the sentence immediately following the target word. In thenon-adjacent condition, the explicit informative context was separated from the target word

by one neutral sentence. Each target word was placed as the last word in the sentence in which

it first appeared. Explicit informative context appeared only once, after the first presentation

of each target word.

Oral definition assessment. To measure word learning at post-test, each student participated in

an oral definition task immediately following each passage. The definition task began by

showing participants the target word written on a 4 6 note card. The participants wereasked, Can you say this word? Responses were phonetically transcribed. Next the

participants were asked Can you tell me what X means? Additional prompts, adaptedfrom Nagy et al. (1985), were provided as needed. Specifically, if participants gave an

incomplete response, they were told, Thats part of it. Can you tell me something else

about X? If a vague definition was given, they were asked, Can you tell me more or give

me an example? If participants refused to answer or did not know, they were asked, Does X

remind you of anything? Credit was given for the best, most complete information that was

provided with these prompts. Responses were scored on a three-point scale. Scoring

information and examples are given in Table III.

If the participants gave an incorrect or incomplete response, they were given a contextual

clue. The examiner orally presented the sentence in which the word initially appeared in the

story and then asked,Does this make you think of anything else about the word X?

Additional information that was provided given the sentence context was scored dichoto-

mously by the examiner. Only words that were given a contextual clue were scored. If the

contextual clue resulted in a correct definition or an improved definition, a score of one was

awarded. If the contextual clue did not help the participant give a correct or improved

definition, a score of zero was given. In other words, the contextual clue either helped (1)

or did not help (0). These scores were tallied and percentages of correct/improved responses

were calculated.

The participants responses during the oral definition task were orthographically tran-

scribed in real time. The first author then scored the responses using the 03 point scale.

For reliability, a second examiner, a doctoral student who was trained in the scoring system,

scored a randomly selected 20% of the definitions (100 words). Definitions given the same

score were marked as agreements, and definitions given different scores were marked as

disagreements. Reliability was calculated by dividing total agreements by total definitions.

Reliability of 91% for use of the oral definition scoring rubric was obtained.

Table III. Oral definition scoring criteria.

Points Features Example responses for sape

0 No correct information I dont know

1 Vague response What he does

2 Incomplete responseFood

3 Complete response Eats a snack at the after school programme



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Multiple choice assessment. A written multiple choice task was given to measure syntactic and

semantic knowledge. The assessment was typed in on an 8 11 inch sheet of white paper.

The format for the multiple choice items was adapted from that used by Wagovich and Newhoff

(2004). Each target word was presented in the phrase, What is the closest meaning for the word

X? Four choices followed, including (a) correct syntactic category and correct semantic

information, (b) correct syntactic category and incorrect semantic information, (c) incorrectsyntactic category and incorrect semantic information, and (d) none of the above. All of the

options were thematically related to the topic, so participants could not exclude items based on

whether the choice had anything to do with the title of the passage. The order of the first three

choices was randomized across items. The none of the above option always appeared as choice

d. For example, the meaning for the word zear was a game similar to bowling. The options

included: (a) to bowl; (b) clean up; (c) fizzy; (d) none of the above.

Participants silently read the questions and circled their choice. The responses were scored

as follows: zero points for incorrect syntactic category and incorrect semantic information and

none of the above choices, one point for correct syntactic category and incorrect semantic

information, two points for correct syntactic category and correct semantic information.

Procedure

Participants were tested individually at their school, either during the school day at times

designated by their teachers, before school, or after school. Administration of standardized

tests was randomized across participants, so participants received the tests in different orders.

At the first two sessions, participants were given the standardized tests of language, reading,

and non-verbal ability, following standardized instructions described in the testing manuals.

At the third session, each participant read the four experimental passages and completed the

word learning assessments. There were no practice trials. Presentation of stories was rando-mized across participants, so that participants read the stories in different orders. No parti-

cipant read the same story twice. Assistance was given for decoding individual words,

including target words, if the participant asked for help. No word was defined. Instead,

the participants were told to try their best to understand what the word meant. Participants

were told:

Now you are going to read a make-believe story about a creature named Pip. You should read it

silently to yourself. You can take as long as you need to read the story. Some of the words in Pip s

world are different from ours. They sound like silly nonsense words. Just try your best to figure out

what they mean. When youve finished, I will ask you some questions.

After each story, the participants answered two general comprehension questions. Thesequestions were not scored, but were intended to encourage the participants to read for

meaning. Next, the participants were asked to provide oral definitions of the target word

meanings. Finally the participants completed the multiple-choice task. The assessments

followed each passage. The participants read a passage and completed the corresponding

assessment, read the next passage and completed the corresponding assessment, and so on.

Results

Primary analysis

A Repeated Measures MANCOVA was conducted to determine the effects of overall wordlearning, number of presentations, and position of information context. The between-subjects



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variable was Group (LLD, age-matched), and the within subjects variables were rate of

presentation, with two levels (high and low), and position of informative context, with two

levels (adjacent and non-adjacent). The covariate was non-verbal intelligence (TONI-3 scores).

The two dependent variables were points on the oral definition and multiple choice tasks.

Overall, the MANCOVA revealed a significant main effect for Group [F(2,26) 7.290,

p .003, p2 .359], but no significant effects for position of informative context [F(2, 26) .244, p .785] or number of presentations [F(2, 26) 1.589, p .223]. Additionally, two

and three way interactions among Rate, Position, and Group were not significant (p > .05 for

all interactions). These results will be described in further detail.

Overall word learning. The first question of the study asked whether children with LLD and

same-aged peers differed in their ability to map basic word meanings during a reading task.

On the oral definition task, the mean scores (with standard deviations in parentheses) were as

follows: LLD 13.20 (11.82), same-aged 32.07 (10.69). Mean scores (with standarddeviations in parentheses) for the multiple choice task were as follows: LLD 24.21 (6.77),

typical 35.33 (5.92). Using Wilks Lambda, the omnibus MANCOVA was significant forGroup [F(2,26) 7.290, p .003, p

2 .359], with the same-aged peers scoring higher than

the LLD group. A follow-up univariate analysis indicated group differences for both the oral

definition [F(1) 13.906, p .001] and multiple choice [F(1) 11.628, p .002] tasks.

The differences between the groups performance were also analysed descriptively by

conducting a frequency count of 0 (incorrect) and 3 (completely correct) scores on the oral

definition task across conditions. Seventy-four per cent of the LLD groups oral definitions

received a score of 0, and 17.7% received a score of 3. By comparison, 41% of the typical peer

responses received a score of 0, and 48.3% received a score of 3.

Position of context. Scores are shown for the oral definition task in Table IV and for themultiple choice task in Table V. The question of whether position of informative context

(adjacent or non-adjacent) affected word learning for children with LLD and same-aged

peers was answered by the within-subjects factor of Position (Adjacent, Non-adjacent) in the

Repeated Measures MANCOVA. Wilks Lambda was non-significant for Position [F(2, 26)

.244, p .785]. No Position Group interaction [F(2,26) .255, p .777] or Position

Non-verbal Intelligence interaction [F(2,26) .285, p .754] was found.

Number of presentations. The question of whether number of presentations affected word

learning for the two groups of children was answered by the within-subjects factor of Rate

(High, Low) in the Repeated Measures MANCOVA. Visual inspection of the data indicated a

trend toward higher scores with the high rate words compared to the low rate words.

However, Wilks lambda was non-significant for Rate [F(2, 26) 1.589, p .223]. No

Table IV. Mean scores and standard deviations for oral definition task.

Position Rate LLD Typical

Adjacent High 5.13 (5.34) 9.93 (3.04)

Non-adjacent High 3.40 (2.92) 9.20 (3.90)

Adjacent Low 1.67 (2.29) 6.60 (4.49)

Non-adjacent Low 3.00 (3.49) 6.47 (3.62)

Maximum points were 15. Main effects of Position and Rate were not significant (p >.05). Group differences were significant (p .001).



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Rate Group interaction [F(2,26) .091, p .913] or Rate Non-verbal Intelligence

interaction [F(2,26) 1.602, p .221] was found. Two-way and three-way interaction effects

among Rate, Position, Group, and Non-verbal Intelligence were not significant: Rate

Position [F(2, 26) 2.853, p .076]; Rate Position Group [F(2, 26) .437, p .650];

Rate Position Non-verbal Intelligence [F(2,26) 2.596, p .094].

Part of speech. Mean scores (with standard deviations in parentheses) for nouns were LLD

7.67 (5.30); typical 16.73 (5.51), and for verbs were LLD 5.53 (5.96), same-aged

15.47 (6.08). To determine whether part of speech influenced performance on the word

learning tasks, a Repeated Measures ANCOVA was conducted. The within-subjects variable

was Part of Speech (noun, verb), the between-subjects variable was Group, and the covariate

was non-verbal intelligence. The dependent variable was number of points on the oral

definition task. Although there was a trend for higher scores with nouns than verbs, the

effect for part of speech was not significant [F(1, 27) .507,p .483]. Additionally, the Part

of Speech

Group interaction [F(1, 27)

.004, p

.953] and Part of Speech

Non-verbalIntelligence interaction [F(1, 27) .193, p .664] were not significant.

Contextual clues. The final question asked whether contextual clues helped children provide

correct definitions for target words. Because the contextual clues were part of a dynamic

assessment, not every child received the same number of clues. As a group, the children with

LLD required more contextual clues, because they made more errors. To compare how

helpful contextual clues were across groups, proportions were computed. Recall that the

contextual clues were scored dichotomously, as either helpful (score of 1) or not helpful

(score of 0), depending on whether they improved the oral definition score. To create the

proportion, number of definitions receiving a score of 1 was summed, and total number of

contextual clues was summed. For the LLD group, the proportion was 78 improveddefinitions:247 contextual clues, which corresponded to a mean improved score of

31.58%. The range for the LLD group was 5.264.7% improved definitions. For the

typical group, the proportion was 83 improved definitions:157 contextual clues. For the

typical group, the percentage of improved definitions given a contextual clue was 52.87%.

The range for the typical group was 25100%. A t-test confirmed a significant difference

[t(28) 3.181, p .004]. Contextual clues helped performance for all words, although

same-aged peers benefited more than the LLD group.

Correlation analysis. A post-hoc correlation analysis was conducted to provide insight into the

relationships among standardized test and experimental variables. Because no significanteffects were found for position of informative context and number of target word

Table V. Mean scores and standard deviations for multiple choice task.

Position Rate LLD Typical

Adjacent High 7.07 (2.19) 9.13 (1.81)

Non-adjacent High 6.27 (1.67) 9.07 (1.22)

Adjacent Low 5.40 (2.82) 8.27 (1.79)Non-adjacent Low 5.93 (2.15) 8.73 (2.22)

Maximum points were 10. Main effects of Position and Rate were not significant (p >

.05). Group differences were significant (p .002).



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presentations, total scores for the multiple choice and oral definition assessments were used inthe correlation analysis. Results are summarized in Table VI for the LLD group and in Table

VII for the age matched group.

For the LLD group, receptive vocabulary, as measured by the PPVT-4, was significantly

correlated with scores on both the multiple choice (p .011) and oral definition (p .002)

assessments. Expressive grammatic ability, as measured by performance on the CELF-4;

Formulated Sentences sub-test, was also significantly correlated with both the multiple choice

(p .023) and oral definition (p < .001) scores. Oral definition and multiple choice scores were

significantly correlated with one another (p .011). For the age matched peers, a different

pattern of correlations was demonstrated. Receptive vocabulary was not correlated with either

word learning assessment; however,CELF-4; Formulated Sentences

sub-test scores were sig-nificantly correlated with both the multiple choice (p .003) and oral definition scores (p

Table VI. Correlation results for LLD group.

Test CELF; CD CELF; FS TONI GORT; RF GORT; C OD MC

PPVT .365 .734** .648** .247 .480 .724** .653*

CELF; CD .691** .394 .222 .222 .446 .263

CELF; FS .568* .046 .319 .809** .601*TONI .294 .204 .434 .353

GORT; RF .587* .188 .196

GORT; C .418 .364

OD .656*

PPVT is Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 4th Edition. CELF; CD is Concepts and Directions sub-test of the Clinical

Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4th Edition. CELF; FS, is Formulated Sentences sub-test of the Clinical

Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4th Edition. TONI is Test of Non-verbal Intelligence, 3rd Edition. GORT; RF is

reading fluency component of the Gray Oral Reading Tests, 4th Edition. GORT; C is comprehension component of the

Gray Oral Reading Tests, 4th Edition. OD is oral definition components of the word learning assessment. MC is the

multiple choice component of the word learning assessment.

* p < .05; ** p < .001.

Table VII. Correlation results for age-matched group.

Test CELF; CD CELF; FS TONI GORT; RF GORT; C OD MC

PPVT .655** .385 .272 .536* .735** .250 .097

CELF; CD .521 .377 .561* .733** .384 .275

CELF; FS .309 .542* .612* .803** .731**

TONI .325 .314 .162 .307

GORT; RF .747** .588* .309

GORT; C .539* .401

OD .839**

PPVT is Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 4th Edition. CELF; CD is Concepts and Directions sub-test of the Clinical

Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4th Edition. CELF; FS, is Formulated Sentences sub-test of the Clinical

Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, 4th Edition. TONI is Test of Non-verbal Intelligence, 3rd Edition. GORT; RF is

reading fluency component of the Gray Oral Reading Tests, 4th Edition. GORT; C is comprehension component of the

Gray Oral Reading Tests, 4th Edition. OD is oral definition components of the word learning assessment. MC is the

multiple choice component of the word learning assessment.

* p < .05; ** p < .001.



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.001), similar to the LLD group. Unlike the LLD group, results for the age matched peers

showed a significant correlation between reading fluency and oral definition scores (p .021),

and between reading comprehension and oral definition scores (p .038). For the age matched

peers, oral definition and multiple choice scores were also correlated (p < .001).

Discussion

Overview

The present study sought to determine whether word learning difficulties would be found for

words presented in writing for school-age children with LLD. Several important findings

emerged from this study. First, children with LLD performed more poorly than their same-aged peers on both oral definition and multiple choice tasks. Second, contrary to expecta-

tions, the position of informative context, number of exposures, and part of speech did not

impact word learning performance for either group. Finally, contextual clues were helpful to

all children, although typically-developing children received more of a benefit. In the follow-ing sections, these results will be discussed in greater detail.

Group differences in word learning

The result of poorer overall word learning performance for children with LLD was expected

and was in line with previous research on spoken word learning for pre-school and school-

aged children (Oetting, Rice, and Swank, 1995; Oetting, 1999). On the oral definition task,

the mean scores and standard deviations for the LLD group showed that most children were

able to express an oral definition for very few of the target words. The descriptive analysis

revealed that children with LLD showed complete learning of less than one-fifth of the words.The oral definition task was also difficult for the typical children, but they outperformed the

children with LLD and showed complete learning of about half of the words. The significant

difficulty of incidentally picking up word meanings has been shown in previous research of

younger children with LLD, as they learn novel word meanings presented auditorily. For

example, Oetting et al. (1995) found that 68-year old children with LLD performed more

poorly than their non-impaired peers with quick incidental learning of meanings for novel

object, attribute, action, and affective words presented in a video format. In a later study

(Oetting, 1999), 6-year old children were given additional exposures to novel verbs through

repeated viewings of videos. Age-matched and language-matched typical children made word

learning gains given the additional exposures; however children with LLD showed no

improvement in word learning from the repeated viewings of the videos. These two studies

highlight the significant difficulty that children with LLD experience learning spoken word

meanings. The current study extended the findings from the spoken domain to the written

domain, suggesting that the underlying process of word learning is impaired in children with

LLD, regardless of whether words are presented orally or visually.

One possible explanation for poorer performance may be that the LLD group has a

maturational delay in word learning, as a result of developmentally-delayed language and

reading ability. Previous research has shown that pre-school-aged children with LLD per-

formed similarly to younger, language compared children on spoken word learning (e.g., Rice

et al., 1994), which lends support to the delay hypothesis. Another hypothesis is that children

with LLD have language and reading deficits. Possible deficit areas include limited decodingability or poorer vocabulary knowledge, as children with LLD are expected to experience



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difficulty with both of these components (Bishop and Adams, 1992; Catts, 1993).

Additionally, the way word knowledge was assessed may have influenced the outcome.

These possible factors will be explained in more detail.

First, it may be argued that decoding deficits explain the differences in word learning

ability. This variable was controlled by writing passages at a first grade level, and including

children with LLD who had reading ability that was at least a first grade level. Additionally,the correlation analysis indicated that reading decoding and comprehension was not signifi-

cantly correlated with word learning for the LLD group. However, as a group, the children

with LLD did show lower reading fluency and reading comprehension ability, compared to

their same aged peers, as has been found elsewhere (Catts, 1993; McArthur et al., 2000).

Even if the children with LLD were able to decode the passages, they may have allocated more

cognitive resources to the decoding process (Just and Carpenter, 1992), leaving fewer

cognitive resources for comprehending the passage and interpreting word meaning. Future

work will address the additional variables that may impact word learning performance.Second, current vocabulary knowledge may have influenced childrens performance on the

word learning tasks. At the text level, children with stronger vocabulary knowledge may havebeen able to understand the other words in the passage and use that knowledge to infer the

meanings of the target words. This hypothesis is supported by previous research showing the

importance of vocabulary knowledge for reading comprehension (e.g., Stahl, 2003).

However, the results of the correlation analysis do not offer complete support of this position.

For the children with LLD, receptive vocabulary was correlated with word learning; but for

the typical children, receptive vocabulary was not correlated with word learning. Rather, for

the typical children, reading decoding and comprehension was correlated with word learning

(and with receptive vocabulary). The differences in patterns of correlation between the two

groups are provocative; however, with only 15 children in each group, strong conclusions

cannot be drawn. Additional research is needed to address the complex relationship amongword learning, vocabulary knowledge, and reading ability.

Third, children with LLD also have shown problems producing correct definitions, which

may have deflated their oral definition performance. Children with LLD lag significantly behind

their peers in their ability to provide mature definitions (Marinellie and Johnson, 2002). So,

they may have known more than they were able to produce in an expressive definition task. For

this reason, a multiple choice task was included, which may have given a more accurate

comparison of word learning ability. Children with LLD also scored lower than their typical

peers on the multiple choice task. Thus, problems producing definitions cannot completely

explain their poorer performance. Alternative methods for assessing knowledge of new words,

such as scaffolded yesno responses, may help to describe what children know about words.

In summary, the results from this study showed that, unlike their same-aged peers, children

with LLD may not be as capable of using reading as a source for incidental vocabulary

development, without significant cues or assistance. Additional research comparing children

with LLD to a younger, language-matched group over time is needed to determine whether a

delay or deficit best accounts for the difficulty of children with LLD on this task. Future

research should also more specifically address the relationship of current vocabulary knowl-

edge, reading ability, and word learning.

Context effects

Number of presentations. The second main finding was similar performance for words thatwere presented five or two times for both groups. It should be noted that null effects are



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difficult to explain. There may have been no difference between two presentations and five

presentations, or there may be a difference that was not detected due to the methodology of

the study, including a small number of participants. Regardless, the null result was

unexpected and contrary to other studies of pre-school-aged children with and without LI

in the spoken domain (Rice et al., 1994) and of fifth grade typically-developing children in the

written domain (Jenkins et al., 1984). Rice et al. (1994) compared the effects of novel wordspresented three times to words presented 10 times in a video segment. Of particular interest

here was the finding that in the 10 presentation condition, children with LI scored as well as

the children without LI had scored in the three presentation condition. In other words, more

exposures closed the learning gap. The current study did not show a closing of the gap or even

a narrowing of the gap with five presentations of target words. A possible reason for the lack of

a Group Rate interaction effect was the experimental design of two and five presentations.

More than five presentations may have been needed for the children with LLD to show similar

learning as their typical peers. Support for this idea came from the Jenkins et al. (1984) study,in which words were presented two, six, or 10 times. Detailed word knowledge was achieved

after 10 presentations, and no difference was found between words presented two or sixtimes. The hypothesis of increased number of exposures leading to a closing of the learning

gap for school-age children with LLD will need to be tested in the future.

Position of informative context. Another unexpected result from the study was the null finding

for position of informative context. Whether the informative context was positioned directly

following the target words initial occurrence or was separated from the target words initial

occurrence by one sentence did not affect performance on either the oral definition or

multiple choice task. This finding was different from previous research (Carnine et al.,

1984; Cain et al., 2003), which had indicated better word learning for words that were near

their informative context.This null finding may have been the result of the passage construction. One sentence

separation in the non-adjacent condition may not have been far enough away to see an effect.

Although Cain et al. (2003) did not indicate how far away in the text their far informative

context was from the target word, an example passage showed a separation of three filler

sentences. Similarly, in their study of typically-developing children, Carnine et al. (1984) had

a separated condition in which words were separated from informative context by three or

more sentences. Thus, in the present study, the separation of one sentence between the target

word and informative context may not have been far enough away to show position effects for

informative context. A final possibility for the null position effect was the repeated presentations

of words. Because the position condition (adjacent/non-adjacent) occurred only at the initial

presentation of the word, the subsequent word presentations may have diminished its effect.

Part of speech. Finally, the finding of similar performance for nouns and verbs was unexpected

and was different than previous research in which object words were easiest for school-aged

children to learn in the spoken domain (Oetting et al., 1995). In addition, nouns are among the

first words that young children learn to speak (Nelson, 1973), possibly because their referents are

stable. Nouns are also generally easier to define than verbs or other parts of speech for children in

the elementary grades (Johnson and Anglin, 1995). The lack of effects for part of speech may be

attributed to nonsense word construction in the present study. Unlike verbs in running dialogue,

which often contain morphological markers for tense and agreement, the verbs in this study were

bare stems. Previous research, in which part of speech effects were found, used varyingmorphological markers. For example, in the methodology used by Oetting et al. (1995), verbs



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appeared with bare stems, third person singular -s, and present progressing -ing. The hypothesis

that the null finding for part of speech was impacted by nonsense word construction will need to

be tested in the future, and additional research is needed to determine how children are able to

map meanings for additional parts of speech, such as adjectives and adverbs.

Contextual cues and oral definition performance

The oral definition task was a dynamic assessment, including contextual clues from the story

if the participant required extra assistance. The contextual clues were intended to help

children recall word meanings, but not provide enough information for children to produce

a completely correct response. The interesting finding from this analysis was the higher

percentage of typically-developing children who received better oral definition scores given

contextual clues. This result raised the possibility that the typically-developing children had

inferredthe correct word meaning during reading, but required a contextual clue to recallthemeaning during the oral definition task. If children with LLD also had more difficulty with

recalling, rather than inferring, they should have shown similar improvement given contex-tual clues. However, the contextual clues did not help children with LLD to the same degree,

which may be indicative of difficulty with inference of word meaning. At the same time,

because contextual clues were somewhat helpful for the LLD group, recall may also be a

factor in their lower overall performance. Future work will need to address the possible points

of breakdown in the word learning process.

Clinical implications

Several relevant clinical implications can be drawn from the findings of the study. At the most

basic level, children with LLD did not show the same propensity for learning the meanings ofwords from reading as did their typical peers. Previous research has shown how important

incidental learning during reading is for building vocabulary during the upper elementary

years (Nagy et al., 1985). Thus, beyond the pre-school years, the need for direct instruction in

vocabulary learning strategies is warranted. Stahl and Fairbanks (1986) meta-analysis on

vocabulary interventions identified that successful vocabulary interventions for typical

children included multiple exposures to words across multiple contexts to encourage deep

processing of word meanings. Clinicians may accommodate these needs by using classroom

vocabulary items, pre-teaching core curricular vocabulary, and collaborating with classroom

teachers to provide contextually-rich, multiple exposures to target vocabulary items.

In the current study, children with LLD showed difficulty inferring word meanings from

context, as shown by their poorer performance on the multiple choice task and more limited

benefit from contextual cues. Problems that poor readers have using context to derive word

meaning has been reported elsewhere (Goerss, Beck, and McKeown, 1999). Thus, children

with LLD may need instruction in the use of context to determine word meaning. Limited

intervention research has shown that children with poor reading ability (Goerss et al., 1999)

and low vocabulary skills (Nash and Snowling, 2006) can be taught to use context to generate

word meanings (c.f. Schatz and Baldwin, 1986). Goerss et al. (1999) used a five-step

sequence in their intervention study of five children in fifth and sixth grades. The sequence

involved introducing the context, reading and rereading the passage, focusing on contextual

word clues, and developing, revising, and summarizing their hypotheses of word meanings.

The need for dynamic assessment was indicated by the finding of higher scores withcontextual clues on the oral definition task and on the multiple choice assessment. Better



17/21

performance with cues showed that children were more proficient than was observable through

their independent efforts on the first stage of the oral definition task. A dynamic assessment,

such as graduated prompting, may reveal what children are not immediately able to express

about words. Laing and Kamhi (2003) offered a three-step process for creating a graduated

prompting assessment: (a) identify essential skills, (b) create a series of prompts from least to

most supportive, and (c) create a scoring system that reflects number of prompts given. For thegoal area of inferring novel word meanings from context, for example, after reading a passage

containing novel words, a students proficiency could be determined through a hierarchy of

tasks including: (a) oral definition without assistance, (b) oral definition with questions to

elicit more information, (c) oral definition with a contextual clue, and (d) choosing the

correct definition from a field of possibilities. Whatever system is used, clinicians are

advised to consider alternative assessments, including dynamic assessment (Gutirrez-

Clellen and Pea, 2001; Laing and Kamhi, 2003), to gain a more complete picture of

childrens abilities.

Conclusion

The present investigation sought to broaden our understanding of word learning in childrenwith LLD by expanding the investigation to the written domain. A significant finding from the

study showed that children with LLD had lower scores on word learning tasks, compared to

typical children who were similar in age. Additionally, no effects for rate of exposure, position

of informative context, or part of speech were found, potentially due to the methodology

employed in this study. It should also be noted that the present study investigated childrens

learning of novel words for known concepts. Although these types of words are an important

component of word learning in the upper elementary years and a specific target for vocabulary

intervention (e.g. Beck et al., 2002), additional research is needed into the process of learningnew labels for new concepts during reading. Also, caution should be used in generalization of

results from an artificial learning task, as was used in the current study, to learning that would

occur during exposure to novel words in childrens literature or classroom texts. The con-

textual clues in the present study were carefully crafted and controlled; however contextual

clues in childrens literature may be helpful, neutral, or even confounding (Schatz and

Baldwin, 1986), as authors word choices are made to tell a story, not to teach vocabulary.

Future studies will need to address how children with LLD learn word meanings across

different genres in unaltered, real world texts.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by Project TALK, USDE/OSEP Grant # H325D010009

(R. Watkins, PI) and Project FOCAL: Focusing on Causality and Assessment to Train Leaders

in Childrens Communication Disabilities for the 21st Century, USDE/OSEP Grant #

H325D070061 (C. Johnson, PI). We would like to thank the children, parents, and teachers

who participated in the study. We would also like to thank Kiel Christianson for his assistance

with methodology, and Cynthia J. Johnson, Laura S. DeThorne, and Monique T. Mills for

their helpful comments and suggestions.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone areresponsible for the content and writing of the paper.



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Note

1. To more broadly capture the learning problems that children with language impairment experience in the later

elementary years and to more closely align with the educational labels used in the schools, the term language

learning disability (LLD) will be used to describe the target population.

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Appendix A

My school is too far away to walk to. I get there on a marn(high, non-adjacent). I wish I

could walk to school like some kids do. In the morning, I stand and wait to be picked up. The

doors of the marn open and I get in and find a seat by my friend. Then the marn has to go

pick up other people, too. Finally, the marn drops us off at school. I go to the playground toplay with my friends. We like to play soccer and kickball. Sometimes we jine(low, adjacent).



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We line up and take off as fast as our feet can go. When we jine, I usually lose. If I keep trying, I

know I will get faster. Usually we can only play for a few minutes. Then the bell rings. Its time

to go inside.

In my classroom, my desk is in the very front, next to the window. Mrs C, my teacher, put

me in the front because I talk too much when I sit in the back. First, Mrs C takes attendance

and does the lunch count. Then we listen to announcements. Then its time for math. We arelearning how to multiply and divide. I like math because I m good at it. But my favourite is

moof(low, non-adjacent). Mr M comes three times a week to teach us. We get to paint and to

make things out of clay. When we dont have moof, we have P.E. This week, we zear(high,

adjacent). We roll the ball and try to knock down the pins. Sometimes when I zear, I only knock

down one or two. But next time we zear, I will knock them all down at once. At least I am

going to try. It gets very loud in the gym when we zear. Everyone is cheering and shouting. I

have so much fun when we zear.

After school, my brothers and sister and I go to the after-school programme. First, we sitdown and we sape. Its usually something gross. But I eat the snack anyways because Im

hungry. After we sape, we do our homework. Then, we can do lots of different things. We canread or draw or play games. We stay at the after school programme for an hour. I am so happy

when my dad picks us up! That means I dont have to take the marn home.Note: For review, the target words are in bold with informative context in italics. The word

conditions (adjacent, non-adjacent, high, low) are in parentheses following the target word.

In the participant version, this information was not included and all text was in normal font.

Appendix B: Target word characteristics

Story Word OND POS Context Rate Meaning Con Img

My school Marn 13 Noun Non-adjacent High Bus 558 593

Zear 13 Verb Adjacent High To bowl 575 579

Moof 10 Noun Non-adjacent Low Art class 440 493

Sape 14 Verb Non-adjacent Low To eat 486 563

Jine 13 Verb Adjacent Low To race 463 457

My family Slan 17 Noun Non-adjacent High Vacation 414 559

Pive 11 Noun Adjacent High Sister 575 613

Mank 15 Verb Non-adjacent Low To laugh 433 528

Casp 10 Noun Adjacent Low Boat 637 631

Tean 13 Verb Adjacent Low To fall 409 547

My birthday Lote 14 Verb Non-adjacent High To cook 502 504

Rell 13 Noun Adjacent High Cake 624 624Tark 14 Verb Adjacent High To clean 392 454

Ging 10 Noun Non-adjacent Low Friend 450 587

Stam 12 Noun Adjacent Low Soda 600 544

My pets Vone 12 Noun Non-adjacent High Dog 610 636

Tash 12 Verb Non-adjacent High To play 468 498

Jick 11 Verb Adjacent High To bark 563 539

Beal 18 Verb Non-adjacent Low To sleep 484 530

Wock 13 Noun Adjacent Low Food 597 539

OND is orthographic neighbourhood density. POS is part of speech. Con is concreteness rating. Img is imageability

rating.



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