Beyond Picture Cards: Exploring the Effectiveness of Using Songs With Pictures in Preschool Children's Vocabulary Learning

• In Event: Enhancing Language Learning in Early Childhood Classrooms

Abstract

Direct vocabulary instruction using picture cards and shared book reading assists primary grade children in learning words (Dickinson et al., 2019; Hadley et al., 2016; Pollard-Durodola et al., 2017). However, few studies explore the effectiveness of other instructional activities, such as songs, in building children’s knowledge about words. This paper analyzes whether songs contribute to enhancing preschool children’s word knowledge beyond picture card-only instruction. We address the following research question: (1) Do children show increased word learning when words are taught with picture cards and songs compared to picture cards alone?

Data were drawn from four preschool classrooms serving high poverty communities (N = 60). Children in the study participated in three music sessions in their preschool classroom, and sessions were led by a researcher with music education training. Using a within-subjects design, all children participated in a picture card + song activity and a picture card-only activity. Children were taught six words in each activity and exposure to words was equated across the conditions. Receptive and productive definitional vocabulary assessments were administered before and after the intervention, and multilevel models were used to analyze children’s pre-and posttest growth on both tasks.

The results show no significant differences in children’s receptive scores between words taught with the picture card + song activity compared to the picture card-only activity (p > .05). However, children made significantly greater growth in the productive definitional responses for words taught with a picture cards + a song compared to picture cards-only (p < .05), despite controlling for children’s native language, maternal education, and pretest scores. The findings suggest that adding a song to picture card instruction of target words helped foster children’s depth of knowledge. This study holds implications for using songs to teach vocabulary in preschool settings. The presentation will discuss patterns in children’s responses on the productive definitional task and reflect on the unique benefits of songs for non-native English speakers.

Authors

• Jessica Lawson-Adams, Vanderbilt University

• David K. Dickinson, Vanderbilt University