Some Effects of the Nature and Frequency of Vocabulary Instruction on the Knowledge and Use of Words

TLDR

The study investigates how the nature and frequency of vocabulary instruction influence fourth‑grade students’ verbal processing skills and discusses the instructional implications. Participants received traditional, rich, or extended/rich instruction, with each word presented either 12 or 4 times, and outcomes were assessed on definition knowledge, fluency, context interpretation, and story comprehension. Higher frequency led to better performance on all measures, extended/rich instruction improved fluency and story comprehension over rich, and rich instruction outperformed traditional in context interpretation and story comprehension.

Abstract

TWO COMPONENTS of a successful vocabulary program, the nature of the instruction and the frequency of instructional encounters, were examined to determine their relative contribution in improving verbal processing skill. Fourth-grade children received one of three types of instruction: traditional instruction requiring only associations between words and definitions, rich instruction presenting elaborated word meanings and diverse contexts, or extended/rich instruction which added activities to extend use of learned words beyond the classroom. Frequency was manipulated by providing either 12 or 4 encounters with each word. Outcomes were measured on tasks of definition knowledge, fluency of access to word meanings, context interpretation, and story comprehension. High frequency yielded better results on all measures. As to type of instruction, extended/rich showed an advantage over rich in fluency of access and story comprehension, while rich showed an advantage over traditional in context interpretation and story comprehension. The interpretation of this pattern and its instructional implications are discussed.