Etymology of Modern English Vocabulary. Content Introduction

2. A case study on vocabulary learning through reading
picture books

One of the aims of the second study was to gain more information on the textual

and psychological conditions in quite different circumstances. It consisted of a long-term rather loosely organised case study with three Dutch children learning English (and some French and German) by reading and listening. The greater part of the data was collected in a period of two months in which two of the children (a 13-year old girl and a 10-year old boy) read some thirty English books: picture books, early readers written for young (native) children who are learning to read, non-fiction books and graded readers especially written for foreign language learners. A follow-up study over two years involved a third child starting with English, whereas the two older children started with French and some German. The following procedure concerning the selection of the books and the new vocabulary was used. The children could each time choose a book which they would like to read from some 5 to 10 books (from a large and varied stock). [4]
They could inspect the books at leisure and ask questions about them; they were also encouraged to put the books in order of interest and to comment on this grading. In most cases the books were read aloud to the children. In some cases no notice was taken of unfamiliar words (if possible); in other cases attention was paid to these words in a variety of ways, such as translating the words, helping the children in guessing their meaning from the context and the word form or helping the children to memorize the words (by quickly going through them once or twice after reading - when necessary showing the context - or by using vocabulary cards).
The results of this study will now be discussed in so far as they throw new light on the embedding of the words in meaningful memory systems and on the textual and psychological conditions for vocabulary learning through reading. As the results of the follow-up study did not add new results with regard to the theme of this paper, I will focus here on the results of the first part of the study. Although this study centred on the textual and psychological conditions some information on the embedding of the words in memory was gained as well. In a number of cases the children appeared to remember words through recalling the situation described in the text. Often recollections of an illustration mediated recall. Again recollections of their own emotions or experiences which the words, the text or the actions of the children had evoked, influenced recognition of words. In this study, in particular, the emotions connected with funny, surprising or exciting illustrations and texts exerted an important influence on recognizing words. To
illustrate this with an example: the word "handsome" was first seen in the ironic "Jake beckoned to the rest of his ugly crew. "Right, me handsomes (...)" ⁴which was said to a funnily drawn couple of nasty scoundrels. Although "handsome" had been seen only once, it proved to be remembered when it turned up in a totally different context two weeks later (limitations of space prevent me from including illustrations and more examples; they may be found in Dutch publications.
As to the "textual conditions" the results of the first experiment were confirmed,
but also extended, because in this study some insight - at least for this age group – was gained into the significance of text genres for vocabulary acquisition. In particular, reading picture books and to some degree reading early readers and non-fiction books appeared to have a number of advantages compared with reading foreign language readers. The children, for instance, liked to experience that they could read the same books which are read by children from countries where the target language is used, at a rather early stage. They even proved to be able to read some German picture books without any help, before their first lesson in German.
More generally speaking, I found the following favourable features which some of
the picture books do possess and which some of the foreign language readers do not or only to a smaller degree. Early readers and non-fiction books mostly occupy an intermediate position.
1. Authenticity. The language is more lively, more natural, because it is not hamperedby limits of vocabulary and structure.
2. Redundancy. Some readers for foreign language learners suffer from lack of
redundancy, especially concerning the structure of the text, when compared with
authentic texts. This means that an apparently easy, adapted text may be more
difficult to understand than its authentic counterpart.
3. Mutual support of illustrations and text. In picture books and in some of the early readers and non-fiction books close cooperation between author and illustrator is usual (sometimes it is even the same person).
4. Artistic value. Picture books possess an obviously artistic value. This is probably precisely what makes them attractive for different age groups (they have to be attractive for adults - parents - as well as for children).[7]
These factors proved to contribute to a better comprehension and retention of
the text and the new words, partly because they brought about a greater emotional
involvement in the children.
As to the psychological conditions more information was gained about some of
the characteristics of guessing and analyzing the word form, which proved to be important for comprehension and retention. Earlier research which focused on the guessing skill, revealed some of the characteristics of guessing and analysing. In this study a great variety of illustrated texts was used.
Guessing the meaning of unknown words appeared to occur very often and mostly
Successfully, especially in the picture books, where, as I pointed out before, text and illustration are closely connected. Even rather difficult words like "except" and
"Suddenly" were guessed (and remembered) easily in this way.
One of the other strategies (also found in the earlier studies) which at this stage
often led to success, consisted in making use of one's knowledge of the world. However, more often than in the case of guessing the meaning of a new word from pictures the children needed some help in the form of questions like: "What would you do in such a situation?" or "How would you feel in such a situation?"
A third strategy which in this study led to good results, consisted in translating
the sentence while leaving out the unknown word. This strategy is probably especially relevant for this category of young foreign-language learners, because it helps them to grasp the structure of the sentence as well as the position of the unknown word in it. Other strategies such as using context clues like synonyms, antonyms and descriptions, which are often mentioned in the literature, were used as well, but only rarely, probably mainly because of the nature of the texts used in
this study.[15]
The strategy of analyzing the word form led sometimes to correct guesses, but
more often to failures. Analyzing the word form after the meaning of a new word had been given, did, however, have a positive effect on retention of the word. In particular, systematically pointing out the most frequent "sound correspondences" between in this case English and Dutch proved to be very effective (e.g. th-d: thing=ding, thief=dief, sh-sch: ship=schip, sharp=scherp, ch-k: church=kerk, chance=kans).[11]
Finally, the case study suggested an additional psychological condition for learning words through reading: the importance of a wide and free choice of books. The procedure of choosing and "grading" books mentioned before contributed considerably to the motivation of the children to read the selected book and probably as well to their retention of the content (cf. Ausubel, 1968, who found already that orienting before reading leads to an enhanced retention of the text). The case study indicated that this also brought about a good retention of a number of words occurring in important passages of the books. Finally, it was remarkable that the amount of interest in the subject appeared to prevail over the degree of difficulty of the language. This phenomenon and the importance of a free and wide choice was also found in a study concerning the relations between leisure reading in the mother tongue and reading French books by Toussaint-Dekker.