had the same level of conceptual difficulty and grammatical case (they were concrete words-
nouns-so that comparison with other studies could be established). Furthermore, the target
words had the same word length (two syllables). The particular choice was based on previous
findings from the pilot study that words with one or two syllables are learned more easily
than polysyllabic words. Last, both target words were characterised by morphological
transparency (both of them were unanalysable - so that comparison could be established
with other studies).
The stories
To allow for controlled manipulation of linguistic conditions eight original stories were
designed specifically for the Experiment 1 (two for each of the linguistic conditions,
Inference, Analogy, Lexical contrast, Definition). The structure of the information given in
each linguistic context is presented in Appendix 5.2.
Each story book contained one unfamiliar object-word per story. The stories were designed
according to the following guidelines which were consistent across all four linguistic
conditions: (a)The target word appeared twice in the texts as well as twice in the
illustrations; (b) The length of each sentence and the story length was the same for all the
stories. Each story was about 7-9 sentences long; (c) All the definitions used in the definition
condition were taken from the Collins Dictionary.
British Picture Vocabulary Scale
The Long Form of the British Picture Vocabulary Scale (BPVS) (Dunn & Dunn, 1982) was
used. This is a test of hearing vocabulary for standard English. It is also an achievement test
in that it makes an assessment of the extent of vocabulary acquisition. It was chosen because
it measures the level of vocabulary acquisition and it is appropriate for pre-school children.
The Long Form of the BPVS consists of 150 items and additional practice trials. An example
of the BPVS form is given in the Appendix 5.3.
Test of Non-word Repetition: A test of phonological working memory
The children’s Test of Non-word Repetition (Gathercole and Baddeley, 1996) was initially
developed to provide a simple test of immediate memory skills. It is suitable for use with
children aged between four and eight years who are attending mainstream schools. The aim
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