An Analysis of the Features of Words That Influence Vocabulary Difficulty

Abstract

The two studies reported on in this paper examine the features of words that distinguish students’ performances on vocabulary assessments as a means of understanding what contributes to the ease or difficulty of vocabulary knowledge. The two studies differ in the type of assessment, the types of words that were studied, and the grade levels and population considered. In the first study, an assessment of words that can be expected to appear with at least moderate frequency at particular levels of text was administered to students in grades 2 through 12. The second study considered the responses of fourth- and fifth-grade students, including English learners, to words that teachers had identified as challenging for those grade levels. The effects of the same set of word features on students’ vocabulary knowledge were examined in both studies: predicted appearances of a word and its immediate morphological family members, number of letters and syllables, dispersion across content areas, polysemy, part of speech, age of acquisition, and concreteness. The data consisted of the proportion of students who answered an item correctly. In the first study, frequency of a word’s appearance in written English and age of acquisition predicted students’ performances. In the second study, age of acquisition was again critical but so too were word length, number of syllables, and concreteness. Word location (which was confounded by word frequency) also proved to be a predictor of performance. Findings are discussed in relation to how they can inform curriculum, instruction, and research.

How many words do we read per minute? A review and meta-analysis of reading rate

“…It should not be too difficult to make two texts that are matched on average word length but vary considerably on reading rate. Similarly, one would expect it is possible to make two texts differing in average word length but read equally fast (for variables involved in text and word difficulty, see Chen & Meurers, 2016;Crossley, Skalicky, Dascalu, McNamara, & Kyle, 2017;Hiebert, Scott, Castaneda, & Spichtig, 2019;Vajjala, & Meurers, 2014). Rather, what happens is that in spontaneous language use word length is correlated with a range of variables that also make texts easy or difficult.…”

Interpretación edumétrica de los resultados de EVOC en estudiantes chilenos

“…También se ha afi rmado que el vocabulario es un constructo multidimensional, por cuanto lo que se defi ne como "conocer una palabra" puede variar mucho según si se incluyen, por ejemplo, connotaciones, derivaciones, colocaciones, etc. (Hiebert et al, 2019;Schmitt, 2014). Por lo tanto, la estimación del vocabulario de una persona depende de defi niciones respecto a las unidades que se contabilizan.…”

“…De hecho, se estima que alrededor del 75% de las palabras nuevas que incorporamos a nuestro léxico provienen de lo que leemos. Tanto desde la investigación como desde la práctica pedagógica, el vocabulario y su enseñanza son aspectos centrales en la enseñanza, especialmente si se trata de mejorar la comprensión lectora de los estudiantes (Hiebert, Scott, Castaneda y Spichtig, 2019).…”

Greining á orðanotkun í lesskilningsog náttúruvísindahlutum PISA 2018: Samanburður á íslensku þýðingunni og enska textanum

“…Orðum er raðað eftir því hve oft þau koma fyrir í málheildinni, það algengasta er númer eitt og svo koll af kolli. Slíkar upplýsingar eru einkar mikilvaegar til að finna orð sem mikilvaegt er að nemendur þekki (Cobb, 2007;Dale og O'Rourke, 1981;Hiebert, Scott, Castaneda og Spichtig, 2019). Orðtíðnilistar hafa þó þaer takmarkanir að þar er að finna einstök orð en ekki orðasambönd og ekki er tekið tillit til margvíslegrar merkingar sem sama orð í sama orðf lokki getur haft.…”