The role of self-teaching in learning orthographic and semantic aspects of new words

Ricketts, J., Bishop, D. V., Pimperton, H. and Nation, K. (2011) The role of self-teaching in learning orthographic and semantic aspects of new words. Scientific Studies of Reading, 15 (1). pp. 47-70. ISSN 1088-8438 doi: 10.1080/10888438.2011.536129

Abstract/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.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/27892
Identification Number/DOI	10.1080/10888438.2011.536129
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > Institute of Education No Reading authors. Back catalogue items
Uncontrolled Keywords	Vocabulary acquisition Reading Vocabulary Orthographic learning Semantic learning
Publisher	Routledge
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