Effects of induced orthographic and semantic knowledge on subsequent learning: a test of the partial knowledge hypothesis

We present two studies that took a different approach, controlling both familiarity and the nature of the familiarizing episode. We controlled familiarity with novel words through pre-exposure (“pre-familiarization”) in isolation, to induce form-based familiarity, or in sentences that provided few clues to meaning, to induce partial semantic knowledge. The number of pre-exposures varied (0, 1, or 4). After the pre-familiarization phase, we presented the words in several highly informative sentences to support meaning acquisition. Participants included both adults and typically developing children, ages 9–12. Participants’ self-rated familiarity with target words, and their knowledge of the words’ meanings and orthography were each measured at baseline, immediately after learning, and 1 week later. Orthographic and semantic word learning showed contrasting effects of pre-familiarization. For orthographic learning, it was the number, rather than the type, of pre-familiarizations that mattered most. By contrast, the number of pre-familiarizations had little impact on word semantic learning; further, pre-familiarization in low-constraint sentences did not consistently boost subsequent learning. These findings suggest that familiarity with a word prior to instruction does not necessarily improve word-learning outcomes, and they highlight the importance of repeated exposures to high quality contexts for robust word learning.
Source: Reading and Writing - Category: Child Development Source Type: research