This study examined the effects of a classroom-focused intervention on early literacy. The intervention consisted of interactive e-book reading via a SMART board combined with a print referencing...Show moreThis study examined the effects of a classroom-focused intervention on early literacy. The intervention consisted of interactive e-book reading via a SMART board combined with a print referencing technique via a program called e-Prent&ABC. The goal of the study was to examine whether focusing on print referencing during storytelling improves the book-bound vocabulary and printing knowledge of kindergarteners and to examine whether this relationship between storytelling and acquiring knowledge is different for children with a relatively low inhibition capacity compared to children with a relatively high inhibition capacity. Results indicated significantly larger gains with high effect sizes in book bound vocabulary (ηp2 = .614) and printing knowledge (ηp2 = .433) after participating in the intervention. The print referencing technique was found to be significantly effective with a high effect size for growth in printing knowledge (ηp2 = .450). The growth in vocabulary was not attributable to the print referencing technique, however this technique did not hinder children’s learning of new words. No significant differences were found after participating in the intervention for children with a relatively low inhibition capacity when compared to children with a relatively high inhibition capacity. The findings indicated that shared e-book reading combined with a print referencing technique is an effective method for stimulating and enhancing early literacy skills of kindergarteners such as printing knowledge and vocabulary.Show less
Leisure time reading is often stimulated in primary and secondary school, because of its expected benefits in language and reading development. In this thesis, a meta-analysis was performed to...Show moreLeisure time reading is often stimulated in primary and secondary school, because of its expected benefits in language and reading development. In this thesis, a meta-analysis was performed to examine the relationship between reading behaviour and receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, combined vocabulary and reading comprehension in primary and secondary school students. A total number of 30 studies (4.769 students) were included. As expected, a medium to large effect was found for all four outcome measures. This is in line with results from previous research. Since girls happen to read more and more often than boys, it was expected that gender would be a significant predictor of the effects. This hypothesis was not confirmed in this meta-analysis. This may be explained by the fact that the reported gender percentages in the respective studies were not similar to the actual gender distribution in the final analyses. Researchers sometimes reported that participants were excluded in the analysis of our variables of interest, without stating the exact number of boys and girls. Overall, this study confirms that reading plays a positive role in acquiring vocabulary and reading comprehension.Show less
This research examines the joint effect of interactive reading through the didactic vocabulary model Viertakt and electronic storybooks on vocabulary development. In addition, possibilities for...Show moreThis research examines the joint effect of interactive reading through the didactic vocabulary model Viertakt and electronic storybooks on vocabulary development. In addition, possibilities for differentiation in word learning education are investigated. The goal of this research was to maximize word development of preschool children and to reduce differences in vocabulary. The study involved 52 Dutch preschool children (50% girl, 50% boy) aged 48-71 months and consisted of a classroom reading intervention and an individual differentiation reading intervention. The participants were divided into four subgroups. Throughout the classroom reading intervention, a within-subject design exposed all participants to the following four conditions: without Viertakt, with Viertakt and phonological consolidation, with Viertakt and phonological and semantic consolidation, and the control condition. The individual differentiation reading intervention consisted of a between-subjects design. Half of the participants who benefited the least from the classroom reading intervention, were assigned to two conditions: differentiation whilst actively answering questions and differentiation without answering questions. The findings indicated that preschool children achieve a significantly bigger vocabulary from the classroom reading intervention with Viertakt compared to the classroom reading without Viertakt. Their vocabulary grew equally in both forms of consolidation. The preschool children possessed a bigger vocabulary after the individual differentiation reading intervention, however it is not certain whether the growth in vocabulary was due to the differentiation or also as a result of consolidation over time. Actively questioning helped the preschool children to improve their vocabulary. Altogether, the classroom reading intervention leads to a greater vocabulary and the individual differentiation reading intervention diminishes the pre-existing differences between children. Further research, including a control group for the differentiation, is needed to investigate the effect of the differentiation on vocabulary development.Show less
This research paper evaluates the phonological properties of South African English (SAE) through the analysis of the major contact languages that have influenced it in order to establish how it...Show moreThis research paper evaluates the phonological properties of South African English (SAE) through the analysis of the major contact languages that have influenced it in order to establish how it differs from Standard British English, also known as Received Pronunciation (RP). The aspects of the language variety that are investigated include the accent and its fragmentation and dialectology across various groups. The paper will analyse several vowels and how these are articulated in SAE as well as their evolution in the main regional settings of the country. The main English dialects of the Western Cape, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Gauteng have been assessed to determine how SAE is employed in various contexts. The paper also goes into detail about the origins of the language variety and determines the structure of its vocabulary, which has undergone the most significant changes over time. This section delves into uniquely South African lexical items and words. It also looks at the topic areas where one can clearly see substratum influences or borrowing from the landscape, culinary influences, politically engineered language as well as ethnic and cultural remnants which have made their way into SAE’s idiosyncratic vocabulary. The research would not be complete without touching on the evolving linguistic attitudes towards English during an important transitional phase for the citizens of this country in which language plays a pivotal role. There is much debate at present about the role of English in the modern South Africa and the extent to which it should dictate the course of education in the country.Show less
Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)
open access
Aspects of the acquisition of one or more languages are influenced by many variables, e.g. age of acquisition, quality and quantity of input, social economic status, and the presence of older...Show moreAspects of the acquisition of one or more languages are influenced by many variables, e.g. age of acquisition, quality and quantity of input, social economic status, and the presence of older siblings. The influence of these factors has been investigated in monolingual learners, adult second language learners, less in child second language learners, and not at all in young bidialectal speakers. This study investigated how various factors influenced vocabulary scores of bidialectal children from Limburg, the Netherlands. Results show that input quantity and age of acquisition are significant predictors of vocabulary scores, but in a different manner than in traditional bilinguals. Other significant predictors are mother fluency and socioeconomic status. The specific situation of bidialectal speakers in the Netherlands might be of influence on their language acquisition, making it different from traditional bilingual language acquisition.Show less
Abstract A world-wide problem has been found with children in the fourth grade learning from expository text. Little is known about the effects of different text types and individual differences on...Show moreAbstract A world-wide problem has been found with children in the fourth grade learning from expository text. Little is known about the effects of different text types and individual differences on reading process and reading comprehension. In this study the effects of vocabulary and working memory capacity on expository and narrative texts is measured and the differences in reading processes and reading comprehension between groups of readers at the age of 7 is investigated. The results show that expository text are more difficult for young readers than narrative texts, while there are longer fixations in expository texts and readers find it difficult to answer questions of the these texts. Readers with a low vocabulary show longer fixations the readers with a high vocabulary and the have more difficulties in giving the right answers on the inference questions. No effect is found of working memory capacity on reading process, but there is an effect of working memory capacity on inference questions. Readers with a low working memory capacity find it harder to answer the inference questions than readers with a high working memory capacity. Readers with a low working memory capacity have little “room” in their heads to remember information of the texts. A second comparison has been made between weak and strong comprehenders. Weak comprehenders made more errors on the inference questions than strong comprehenders. With a regression analysis the effects of vocabulary seems to partly explain the differences between weak and strong comprehenders.Show less
The inference making ability of good and poor comprehenders were assessed by means of a think-aloud procedure. Inference making is the online process of connecting different parts of a text and the...Show moreThe inference making ability of good and poor comprehenders were assessed by means of a think-aloud procedure. Inference making is the online process of connecting different parts of a text and the connection of parts of the texts with background knowledge. Special interest of the current research was the role of vocabulary and working memory in inference making ability. The results indicated that good and poor comprehenders differ in their inference making ability. Poor comprehenders make more text repetitions while good comprehenders make more elaborative inferences. This seems to be influenced by vocabulary and working memory. Good comprehenders have a greater vocabulary knowledge and a greater working memory capacity and this stimulates elaborative inferencing. Poor comprehenders have less vocabulary knowledge and working memory capacity and this limitates their ability to make elaborative inferences. Vocabulary knowledge and working memory capacity affects the inference making ability and thereby affects the construction of a coherent mental representation of the text.Show less
This study examined the role of home language and vocabulary in explaining school performances of adolescents who were making the transition from primary to secondary school. Fifty-four children of...Show moreThis study examined the role of home language and vocabulary in explaining school performances of adolescents who were making the transition from primary to secondary school. Fifty-four children of Turkish background in the Netherlands from the second or third immigrant generation and their mothers participated in the study. The main question of this study was if there was a relation between the home language (Dutch or Turkish) of children with Turkish backgrounds and their school performances, and if this relation was mediated by vocabulary. Data on usage of the Dutch and Turkish language in the home situation were collected via mother and child questionnaires. Dutch vocabulary was measured using the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT; Brownell, 2000) and Turkish vocabulary was measured using a Turkish version (Glück, 2009) of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-4 (PPVT-4; Dunn 2007). Cito-scores were used to determine school success. Using the four step approach of Baron & Kenny (1986) in which several regression analyses are conducted to test for mediation, the findings of this study show that children perform better at school when they speak more Dutch and less Turkish in the home situation. Also the findings show that children have a better Dutch vocabulary when they speak more Dutch and less Turkish in the home situation. Thirdly it was found that Dutch vocabulary fully mediates the relationship between home language and school performance. No relation was found between home language and Turkish vocabulary or between Turkish and Dutch vocabulary.Show less
