Previous work has shown that children can learn new words from storybooks, and the current results confirm these findings. Children in low-income preschool classrooms who heard new vocab-ulary words presented in books and reinforced through play sessions learned these words over the course of a two-week intervention, and their comprehension learning was equivalent across the Real-istic and Fantastical themes. More impressively, children learned the Target words well enough not only to identify them in a test of their comprehension, where guessing was possible, but also to report onaspectsofthewords’meaningsinatestoftheirproductiveknowledge.Thesefindingsdemonstrate that small-group bookreading activities paired with follow-up play activities, regardless of content, can be highly effective for vocabulary learning. This approach differs somewhat from the kind of large-group bookreading and free play activities that are typically found in preschool classrooms. But elements of the current approach (e.g., the use of story-related replica objects) could easily be incorporated into a classroom, and these elements may encourage greater learning.
While children learned the new words in both theme conditions, we found that children in the Fantastical theme condition showed significantly more gains in their productive knowledge of the new words. Because children could not guess the correct answer on the Production test, we consider this test a more sensitive measure of real learning, hence an especially important piece of evidence that fantastical themes can aid children’s vocabulary learning.
It is important to note that all of the books we used contained anthropomorphic animals – that is, fantasticalentities.Ifanydegreeofunrealityweresufficienttoboostchildren’slearning,wewouldnot have observed differences across our two themes. To the contrary, we found superior word learning when the books presented to children not only included anthropomorphic animals, but also focused on events that cannot occur in reality (e.g., dragons hatching out of breakfast eggs). This strongly suggests that stories focusing on fantastical elements encourage greater learning.
Why should this be the case? Why would books and toys about a fantastical theme, which removes children from their everyday world, be more supportive of word learning? One possibility is that fantasticalthemesmayencouragechildrentoexplorenewwords’meaningsmoredeeplythanrealistic themes. Engaging with fantastical elements may require greater cognitive processing than engaging with elements that are present in the real world, precisely because these elements defy the laws of Previous work has shown that children can learn new words from storybooks, and the current results confirm these findings. Children in low-income preschool classrooms who heard new vocab-ulary words presented in books and reinforced through play sessions learned these words over the course of a two-week intervention, and their comprehension learning was equivalent across the Real-istic and Fantastical themes. More impressively, children learned the Target words well enough not only to identify them in a test of their comprehension, where guessing was possible, but also to report onaspectsofthewords’meaningsinatestoftheirproductiveknowledge.Thesefindingsdemonstrate that small-group bookreading activities paired with follow-up play activities, regardless of content, can be highly effective for vocabulary learning. This approach differs somewhat from the kind of large-group bookreading and free play activities that are typically found in preschool classrooms. But elements of the current approach (e.g., the use of story-related replica objects) could easily be incorporated into a classroom, and these elements may encourage greater learning.
While children learned the new words in both theme conditions, we found that children in the Fantastical theme condition showed significantly more gains in their productive knowledge of the new words. Because children could not guess the correct answer on the Production test, we consider this test a more sensitive measure of real learning, hence an especially important piece of evidence that fantastical themes can aid children’s vocabulary learning.
It is important to note that all of the books we used contained anthropomorphic animals – that is, fantasticalentities.Ifanydegreeofunrealityweresufficienttoboostchildren’slearning,wewouldnot have observed differences across our two themes. To the contrary, we found superior word learning when the books presented to children not only included anthropomorphic animals, but also focused on events that cannot occur in reality (e.g., dragons hatching out of breakfast eggs). This strongly suggests that stories focusing on fantastical elements encourage greater learning.
Why should this be the case? Why would books and toys about a fantastical theme, which removes children from their everyday world, be more supportive of word learning? One possibility is that fantasticalthemesmayencouragechildrentoexplorenewwords’meaningsmoredeeplythanrealistic themes. Engaging with fantastical elements may require greater cognitive processing than engaging with elements that are present in the real world, precisely because these elements defy the laws of Previous work has shown that children can learn new words from storybooks, and the current results confirm these findings. Children in low-income preschool classrooms who heard new vocab-ulary words presented in books and reinforced through play sessions learned these words over the course of a two-week intervention, and their comprehension learning was equivalent across the Real-istic and Fantastical themes. More impressively, children learned the Target words well enough not only to identify them in a test of their comprehension, where guessing was possible, but also to report onaspectsofthewords’meaningsinatestoftheirproductiveknowledge.Thesefindingsdemonstrate that small-group bookreading activities paired with follow-up play activities, regardless of content, can be highly effective for vocabulary learning. This approach differs somewhat from the kind of large-group bookreading and free play activities that are typically found in preschool classrooms. But elements of the current approach (e.g., the use of story-related replica objects) could easily be incorporated into a classroom, and these elements may encourage greater learning.
While children learned the new words in both theme conditions, we found that children in the Fantastical theme condition showed significantly more gains in their productive knowledge of the new words. Because children could not guess the correct answer on the Production test, we consider this test a more sensitive measure of real learning, hence an especially important piece of evidence that fantastical themes can aid children’s vocabulary learning.
It is important to note that all of the books we used contained anthropomorphic animals – that is, fantasticalentities.Ifanydegreeofunrealityweresufficienttoboostchildren’slearning,wewouldnot have observed differences across our two themes. To the contrary, we found superior word learning when the books presented to children not only included anthropomorphic animals, but also focused on events that cannot occur in reality (e.g., dragons hatching out of breakfast eggs). This strongly suggests that stories focusing on fantastical elements encourage greater learning.
Why should this be the case? Why would books and toys about a fantastical theme, which removes children from their everyday world, be more supportive of word learning? One possibility is that fantasticalthemesmayencouragechildrentoexplorenewwords’meaningsmoredeeplythanrealistic themes. Engaging with fantastical elements may require greater cognitive processing than engaging with elements that are present in the real world, precisely because these elements defy the laws of