The more you read the more you know: The impact of oral vocabulary on early literacy skills

Abstract

Past literature demonstrates that children’s storybooks play a key role in vocabulary acquisition. In addition, there is evidence to support an association between vocabulary and general reading level. The present study explored whether adding elaborative semantic teaching to storybook readings increased vocabulary learning and whether storybook exposure helps children learn to read the words to which they are being exposed. This study directly evaluated oral vocabulary learning and initial learning to read of novel words embedded within storybook contexts. Fifty-nine kindergarten students listened to two storybooks, in which ten nonwords were embedded in each. The nonwords were presented in two conditions: dialogic reading with semantic elaboration and dialogic reading without extra semantic focus. After a delay, students were tested on their ability to recognize, identify, understand, and read the nonwords that were presented in the storybook, relative to control nonwords. Posttests included receptive and expressive measures of vocabulary breadth and depth, as well as a novel learn-to-read task involving the embedded target nonwords. The results highlight the impact of storybook reading on word learning, particularly when presented with semantics. Participants demonstrated a greater degree of knowledge for the nonwords that were presented with additional semantics. In contrast, semantics provided no benefit in the learn-to-read task. Yet children demonstrated superior performance on the learn to read task for the nonwords from both conditions that were embedded in the storybooks compared to control nonwords that were not in the storybooks.