title: Tracing children's vocabulary development from preschool through the school-age years: an 8-year longitudinal study.
abstract: In this 8-year longitudinal study, we traced the vocabulary growth of Chinese children, explored potential precursors of vocabulary knowledge, and investigated how vocabulary growth predicted future reading skills. Two hundred and sixty-four (264) native Chinese children from Beijing were measured on a variety of reading and language tasks over 8 years. Between the ages of 4 to 10 years, they were administered tasks of vocabulary and related cognitive skills. At age 11, comprehensive reading skills, including character recognition, reading fluency, and reading comprehension were examined. Individual differences in vocabulary developmental profiles were estimated using the intercept-slope cluster method. Vocabulary development was then examined in relation to later reading outcomes. Three subgroups of lexical growth were classified, namely high-high (with a large initial vocabulary size and a fast growth rate), low-high (with a small initial vocabulary size and a fast growth rate) and low-low (with a small initial vocabulary size and a slow growth rate) groups. Low-high and low-low groups were distinguishable mostly through phonological skills, morphological skills and other reading-related cognitive skills. Childhood vocabulary development (using intercept and slope) explained subsequent reading skills. Findings suggest that language-related and reading-related cognitive skills differ among groups with different developmental trajectories of vocabulary, and the initial size and growth rate of vocabulary may be two predictors for later reading development.
authors: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China.
authors: Shuang
authors: S
authors: Song
authors: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China.
authors: Mengmeng
authors: M
authors: Su
authors: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China.
authors: Cuiping
authors: C
authors: Kang
authors: School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China.
authors: Hongyun
authors: H
authors: Liu
authors: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China.|Department of Psychology, Chengdu Medical College, China.
authors: Yuping
authors: Y
authors: Zhang
authors: Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
authors: Catherine
authors: C
authors: McBride-Chang
authors: Department of Psychology and Center for Human Growth and Development, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, USA.
authors: Twila
authors: T
authors: Tardif
authors: School of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, China.
authors: Hong
authors: H
authors: Li
authors: Peking University First Hospital, China.
authors: Weilan
authors: W
authors: Liang
authors: Peking University First Hospital, China.
authors: Zhixiang
authors: Z
authors: Zhang
authors: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, China.
authors: Hua
authors: H
authors: Shu
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D001364:Awareness; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D032882:Comprehension; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D011932:Reading; D012044:Regression Analysis; D014705:Verbal Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary