At what rate do learners learn and retain new vocabulary from reading a graded reader?

Simple item page
dc.contributor.authorWaring, Rob
dc.contributor.authorTakaki, Misako
dc.date.accessioned2020-05-22T01:58:55Z
dc.date.available2020-05-22T01:58:55Z
dc.date.issued2003-10
dc.description.abstractThis study examined the rate at which vocabulary was learned from reading the 400 headword graded reader A Little Princess. To ascertain whether words of different frequency of occurrence rates were more likely to be learned and retained or forgotten, 25 words within five bands of differing frequency of occurrence (15 to 18 times to those appearing only once) were selected. The spelling of each word was changed to ensure that each test item was unknown to the 15 intermediate level (or above) female Japanese subjects. Three tests (word-form recognition, prompted meaning recognition and unprompted meaning recognition) were administered immediately after reading, after one week and after a three month delay. The results show that words can be learned incidentally but that most of the words were not learned. More frequent words were more likely to be learned and were more resistant to decay. The data suggest that, on average, the meaning of only one of the 25 items will be remembered after three months, and the meaning of none of the items that were met fewer than eight times will be remembered three months later. The data thus suggest that very little new vocabulary is retained from reading one graded reader, and that a massive amount of graded reading is needed to build new vocabulary. It is suggested that the benefits of reading a graded reader should not only be assessed by researching vocabulary gains and retention, but by looking at how graded readers help develop and enrich already known vocabulary.
dc.identifier.doi10125/66776
dc.identifier.issn1539-0578
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10125/66776
dc.publisherUniversity of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center
dc.publisherCenter for Language & Technology
dc.subjectguessing vocabulary from context
dc.subjectvocabulary acquisition
dc.subjectgraded readers
dc.subjectoccurrence rate
dc.subjectvocabulary decay
dc.subjectvocabulary attrition
dc.subjectextensive reading
dc.titleAt what rate do learners learn and retain new vocabulary from reading a graded reader?
dc.typeArticle
dc.type.dcmiText
local.rfl.topicLexis
prism.endingpage163
prism.number2
prism.startingpage130
prism.volume15

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
15_2_10125_66776_waring.pdf
Size:
394.29 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download

Collections

Volume 15, No. 2