The Role of Vocabulary in Reading

Ouellette, G. P. (2006). What’s Meaning Got to Do with It: The Role of Vocabulary in Word Reading and Reading Comprehension.Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(3), 554-566. doi:10.1037/0022.0663.98.3.554

Background

The author acknowledged that, at the time of this study, there was no clear consensus regarding the nature of the relations between oral and specific literacy skills. This research distinguished between vocabulary breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge to explain the role of oral vocabulary in various reading skills.

Aims

This study explored the relevance of vocabulary breadth to decoding and the relevance of vocabulary depth to visual word recognition and reading comprehension.

Sample

The participants were 60 children between the ages of 9 years 5 months and 10 years 5 months.

Method

The complete Test of Non-Verbal Intelligence – Third Edition was administered to all the students. Four subtests of the Test of Word Knowledge (Receptive Vocabulary, Expressive Vocabulary, Word Definitions and Synonyms) were administered. Decoding ability was assessed with the Word Attack subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests – Revised version. A visual word recognition test was also administered where participants were required to read aloud from an experimental word list. Finally, the Passage Comprehension subtest of the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests (Revised) was also administered.

Findings

The results showed a significant positive impact of the role of receptive vocabulary on decoding performance, indicating that decoding is predicted by breadth of receptive vocabulary. The visual word recognition test results demonstrated that oral vocabulary appeared to play a role beyond decoding, and significantly, expressive vocabulary levels were relevant. Expressive vocabulary breadth showed a positive impact on visual word recognition. Depth of vocabulary knowledge showed that visual word recognition does appear related to both vocabulary breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge. The reading comprehension test results showed that depth of vocabulary knowledge played a significant role in reading comprehension.

Implications

As reading involves decoding, visual word recognition, and comprehension, and oral vocabulary includes breadth and depth of knowledge, this study suggests that reading instruction must consider the acquisition of these distinct reading skills and the importance of increasing both the number of words in a student’s vocabulary and the extent of word knowledge of these words. The study also suggests that comprehension may benefit from teaching that is focused on depth of word knowledge and semantic organisation. For at risk students, intervention studies incorporating exercises to increase vocabulary size as well as depth of semantic knowledge would prove to be useful.

Original article retrieved from Google Scholar.