KINDERGARTENERS' VOCABULARY ACQUISITION AS A FUNCTION OF ACTIVE VS. PASSIVE STORYBOOK READING, PRIOR VOCABULARY, AND WORKING MEMORY

Abstract

An experimental design was used to investigate the effect of active versus passive storybook reading conditions on the vocabulary acquisition of kindergarteners who differed in level of prior vocabulary and phonological working memory. Sixty-six children, pretested on the Senechal Vocabulary Test-Adapted (SVT-A) for target word knowledge, categorized as high or low vocabulary level based on Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT-R) performance, and categorized as high or low working memory level on the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep), were randomly assigned to active or passive storybook reading conditions. While listening to a single episode of storybook narrative, children: (a) actively participated by answering a what or where question immediately after each sentence containing a target word, or (b) passively participated by listening to a recast containing a familiar synonym for each target word. Factorial analyses of SVT-A posttest target-word acquisition revealed that children with higher vocabulary knowledge acquired significantly more words than lower vocabulary peers; active participants acquired significantly more words than passive participants; and children with high versus low working memory did not differ in word acquisition. Of additional interest, the strong correlation between PPVT-R and CNRep scores was found to be comparable to that of the British Picture Vocabulary Scale and the CNRep.