NVESTIGATING LEXICAL ACQUISITION PATTERNS: CONTEXT AND COGNITION

items-ten from each book- were selected based on three criteria: (a) the words were those
they judged to be unfamiliar to most young children; (b) words were selected to contribute
significantly to the message of the text; (c ) the selected words were used frequently
enough in the children’s readings so that growth could be documented.

Prereading kindergarten children were read two illustrated storybooks by an adult on three
separate occasions (per book). Then they were invited to take a turn at reading it
themselves. As the children were all nonreaders, it was suggested that they read in their
own way, in other words “pretend reading”. Using an ordinal category system developed
for the study, three analyses of the three “readings” of each book were made which
identified patterns of vocabulary growth.

The system consisted of five general categories organised along an ordinal continuum.

(1) No/Faulty knowledge'Jndicates no knowledge or a faulty knowledge of the words’
meaning; (2) Developing knowledge-. Indicates developing knowledge of semantic and
syntactic features of the word, but knowledge still seems incomplete or faulty; (3)
Synonym Indicates that the child has obtained semantic and syntactic information about
the word from the context, but is still using a more familiar word to impart his/her
message; (4) Accurate knowledge'. Indicates not only an acquisition of accurate semantic
information about the word, but also that this information may be internalised so that the
target word is now used appropriately within the given eordesd.',(S)Generalised knowledge'.
Indicates that generalization may have occurred in that the word was used accurately in
both given and other contexts within the text;

According to the researchers of the above study, children were not simply repeating the
words, but using them in increasingly complex structures indicating acquisition of
syntactic and semantic information from listening to the readings. According to them, the
difference from the first to the later sessions supports the notion that incidental vocabulary
learning is a gradual process.

However, the study has many limitations. After the children had listened to the same
stories several times, each child was asked to read the story aloud. Because the children
were nonreaders, they “pretend read” the stories by turning the pages and recalling the

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