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IES Grant

Title: Word Learning and Comprehension: New Laboratory Approaches and Classroom Studies
Center: NCER Year: 2002
Principal Investigator: Perfetti, Charles Awardee: University of Pittsburgh
Program: Literacy      [Program Details]
Award Period: 3 years Award Amount: $498,903
Type: Exploration Award Number: R305G020006
Description:

Co-Principal Investigator(s): Beck, Isabel; McKeown, Margaret

Purpose: In this project, the researchers explored how vocabulary-related instruction in schools might reduce the differences in reading achievement between students who enter school with large vocabularies and those who enter school with substantially smaller vocabularies.

Project Activities: The research team completed a series of laboratory experiments with college students relying on measures of brain wave activity (ERP) and eye-tracking technology in order to provide fine-grain temporally sensitive measures of word processing and comprehension. One area of particular interest was to determine if being familiar with a word (as a result of instruction) leads to the construction of a similar mental representation as knowing a word (prior to instruction). The researchers hypothesized that some types of vocabulary instruction may facilitate familiarity with spelling and pronunciation of new words, whereas others may facilitate knowledge of both form and meaning. In addition to these experimental studies, a classroom study was conducted to determine the effects of increased direct instruction on word learning outcomes for kindergarten and first grade students (see Beck & McKeown, 2007).

Key Outcomes:

  • The team identified which ERP markers are associated with which aspects of word learning, and found that ERP characteristics can predict whether a student will answer a meaning probe correctly. Thus, there appear to be consistent neurological markers of word knowledge.  (Perfetti, Wlotko, and Hart, 2005)
  • The team found that ERP indicators are able to differentiate skilled from less skilled word learners (whose reading comprehension skills are also different) (Perfetti, Wlotko, and Hart, 2005). This differentiation fits well into a reading model proposed by the two co-PIs, Reichle and Perfetti (Reichle and Perfetti, 2003), and supports their argument that word knowledge builds from specific episodes with words.  Thus, we build vocabulary knowledge by repeated exposure to the same word in different contexts.
  • The team also found that increasing instructional time for sophisticated vocabulary words in elementary classrooms increased vocabulary learning. (Beck & McKeown, 2007).

PRODUCTS AND PUBLICATIONS

ERIC Citations: Find available citations in ERIC for this award here.

Select Publications:

Beck, I.L., and McKeown, M.G. (2007). Increasing Young Low-Income Children's Oral Vocabulary Repertoires Through Rich and Focused Instruction. The Elementary School Journal, 107 (3): 251—271.

Landi, N., Perfetti, C.A., Bolger, D.J., Dunlap, S., and Foorman, B.R. (2006). The Role of Discourse Context in Developing Word Form Representations: A Paradoxical Relation Between Reading and Learning. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 94 (2): 114—133.

McKeown, M.G., and Beck, I.L. (2004). Direct and Rich Vocabulary Instruction. In J.F. Baumann, and E.J. Kame'enui (Eds.), Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice (pp. 13—27). New York: Guilford Press.

Nelson, J., Balass, M., and Perfetti, C.A. (2005). Differences Between Written and Spoken Input in Learning New Words. Written Language and Literacy, Special Issue: Literacy Processes and Literacy Development, 8 (2): 101—120.

Perfetti, C.A., Landi, N., and Oakhill, J. (2005). The Acquisition of Reading Comprehension Skill. In M.J. Snowling, and C. Hulme (Eds.), The Science of Reading: A Handbook (pp. 227—247). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Perfetti, C.A., Wlotko, E.W., and Hart, L.A. (2005). Word Learning and Individual Differences in Word Learning Reflected in Event-Related Potentials. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, 31 (6): 1281—1292.

Pollatsek, A., Juhasz, B.J., Reichle, E.D., Machacek, D., and Rayner, K. (2008). Immediate and Delayed Effects of Word Frequency and Word Length on Eye Movements in Reading: A Reversed Delayed Effect of Word Length. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34 (3): 726—750.

Pollatsek, A., Reichle, E.D., and Rayner, K. (2006). Tests of the E-Z Reader Model: Exploring the Interface Between Cognition and Eye-Movement Control. Cognitive Psychology, 52 (1): 1—56.

Pollatsek, A., Reichle, E.D., and Rayner, K. (2006). Attention to one Word at a Time in Reading is Still a Viable Hypothesis: Rejoinder to Inhoff, Radach, and Eiter (2006). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32 (6): 1496—1500.

Reichle, E.D., and Laurent, P.A. (2006). Using Reinforcement Learning to Understand the Emergence of Intelligent Eye-Movement Behavior During Reading. Psychological Review, 113 (2): 390—408.

Reichle, E.D., and Perfetti, C.A. (2003). Morphology in Word Identification: A Word-Experience Model That Accounts for Morpheme Frequency Effects. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7 (3): 219—237.

Reichle, E.D., Pollatsek, A., and Rayner, K. (2006). E-Z Reader: A Cognitive-Control, Serial-Attention Model of Eye-Movement Behavior During Reading. Cognitive Systems Research Special Issue: Cognitive Systems Research on Models of Eye-Movement Control in Reading, 7 (1): 4—22.

Yang, C.L., Perfetti, C.A., and Schmalhofer, F. (2007). Event-Related Potential Indicators of Text Integration Across Sentence Boundaries. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33 (1): 55—89.

Yang, C.Y., Perfetti, C.A., and Schmalhofer, F. (2005). Less Skilled Comprehenders' ERPs Show Sluggish Word-to-Text Integration Processes. Written Language and Literacy, Special Issue: Literacy Processes and Literacy Development, 8 (2): 233—257.


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