Low-income immigrant pupils learning vocabulary through digital picture storybooks.

Abstract

Children from immigrant, low-income families in the Netherlands start school with a limited vocabulary in the language of instruction, thus place them at risk for developing reading difficulties. Exposure to books is assumed to reduce their L2 vocabulary disadvantage. In this experiment, we examined the effects of video storybooks on the receptive and expressive language of 5-year-old children. Children (N = 92) were exposed repeatedly to the digital storybook. The story was presented with either static or video images. Children in the control condition played with a nonverbal computer game. Children's receptive and expressive book-based vocabularies were assessed. Results revealed that children learned words receptively and expressively, however, seldom the same words both ways. Both treatments benefited receptive and expressive vocabulary, however, readings with the addition of video were found to be especially effective for expressive L2 vocabulary acquisition. This chapter will be published as: Verhallen, M. J. A. J., & Bus, A. G. (in press). Lowincome immigrant pupils learning vocabulary through digital picture storybooks.

Interactive electronic storybooks for kindergartners to promote vocabulary growth

“…3 displays the percentages of novel words that were learned receptively only, expressively only, and both ways (receptively and expressively) for instructed and uninstructed words separately. In line with the prior finding that receptive word knowledge precedes expressive word learning (Verhallen & Bus, 2010), a very small percentage of words was learned expressively only. The majority of words were learned receptively only, with higher gains for instructed words (48%) than for uninstructed words (40%) (z = À2.25, p = .02, d = 1.15).…”

“…When children first become familiar with a word, they may only be able to select its depiction among alternatives, but when the understanding of the word is fine-tuned, they may actively use that word in an appropriate context. In this perspective, it seems plausible to assume that receptive vocabulary knowledge (identifying a word's visual referent among alternatives) may be the forerunner of expressive vocabulary knowledge (retrieving a word from memory and using it in an appropriate context) (Chan, Cheung, Sze, Leung, & Cheung, 2008;Laufer & Paribakht, 1998;Stahl & Stahl, 2004;Verhallen & Bus, 2010). Examining word learning in the perspective of prior knowledge as we did in the current experiments may enlarge our understanding of vocabulary development.…”

Affordances and limitations of electronic storybooks for young children's emergent literacy

“…Most experiments focused on children aged 5 and 6 years with a limited Dutch or English background for whom the scenes were complex and the narrations included difficult language (Kamil, Intrator, & Kim, 2000). From these randomized controlled trials it appeared that electronic multimedia books were more appropriately tailored to meet the needs of these children than still versions of the same books that contained only static images Verhallen & Bus, 2010;Verhallen et al, 2006). For instance, after 20 minutes, the time it takes to hear the computer voice read the story about Winnie the Witch four times, second language learners' vocabulary gained six out of the 42 words selected from the focal story (Verhallen et al, 2006).…”

An interactive E-book with an educational game for children with developmental disorders: A pilot user study

“…Numbers of LUs to criterion were calculated as well, to tell us on average how many LUs children needed to master the game. Comprehension and vocabulary were only post-tested, to prevent that a repeated exposure to target words in tests could explain the outcomes, to avoid practice effect [41], [42], [36]. During the generalization probes, a total of 25 vocabulary questions were tested.…”