title: Evidence for semantic involvement in regular and exception word reading in emergent readers of English.
abstract: We investigated the relationship between semantic knowledge and word reading. A sample of 27 6-year-old children read words both in isolation and in context. Lexical knowledge was assessed using general and item-specific tasks. General semantic knowledge was measured using standardized tasks in which children defined words and made judgments about the relationships between words. Item-specific knowledge of to-be-read words was assessed using auditory lexical decision (lexical phonology) and definitions (semantic) tasks. Regressions and mixed-effects models indicated a close relationship between semantic knowledge (but not lexical phonology) and both regular and exception word reading. Thus, during the early stages of learning to read, semantic knowledge may support word reading irrespective of regularity. Contextual support particularly benefitted reading of exception words. We found evidence that lexical-semantic knowledge and context make separable contributions to word reading.
authors.affiliation: Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham Hill, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK. Electronic address: jessie.ricketts@rhul.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Jessie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ricketts
authors.affiliation: Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YW, UK.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Davies
authors.affiliation: UCL Institute of Education, London WC1H 0AL, UK.
authors.forename: Jackie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Masterson
authors.affiliation: UCL Institute of Education, London WC1H 0AL, UK.
authors.forename: Morag
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stuart
authors.affiliation: University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 2JD, UK.
authors.forename: Fiona J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Duff
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology; D007802:Language; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary
keywords: Context; Lexical phonology; Mixed-effects models; Semantic; Vocabulary; Word reading