Fostering Child Engagement With Multimodal Methods to Promote Word Learning in Guided Play

• In Event: Playing With Words: How Multimodal Interactions Nurture Children's Vocabulary Development

Abstract

This presentation will share research findings that highlight the importance of preschool children’s active engagement in a guided play activity for vocabulary learning. According to Perfetti’s (2007) lexical quality hypothesis, word identities are conceptualized as mental representations that are comprised of knowledge about a word’s form and meaning. Furthermore, knowledge about individual words falls on a continuum from low to high quality. Multiple and diverse encounters with words have been shown to deepen lexical quality (McKeown & Beck, 2014). However, the majority of word acquisition research examines the teacher’s role in providing children with input about word meaning. Very few studies focus on lexical encounters from the child’s perspective.

The present study examined child and teacher use of taught words during a guided play activity designed to build upon initial instruction during repeated book readings. Participants included four preschool classroom teachers and 51 children. Teachers read the story four times to the whole class over two weeks. Following each book reading, teachers lead play sessions with three or four children. Book-related prop sets supported children’s story reenactment and elicited conversation and thinking about words. Four target words were the focus of conversation during each play session. Children’s growth in vocabulary knowledge was assessed before and after the intervention.

A fine-grained coding method identified three types of child word use: independent/spontaneous use, grammatically flexible use, and responses to teacher questions. Child utterances were also coded for references to multimodal semantic information about word meaning (e.g., synonym, function, perceptual qualities, gesture, use of prop). If a child used the word charge while moving a toy horse across the floor (“I’m charging!”) it received semantic information codes for gesture and prop. Variables were the sum of each behavior across four play sessions divided by total length of sessions in minutes.

Each predictor variable was entered into a separate multilevel model with covariates (PPVT baseline score, age, and pretest score). Associations were tested among each child-level predictor for child engagement and the breadth and depth measure outcomes, accounting for the nesting of children (n = 51) in playgroups (n = 13). Finally, due to small sample size we used standardized mean difference effect sizes to interpret the significance of the magnitude of effects (Farran, Meador, Christopher, Nesbitt, & Bilbrey, 2017).

Children’s verbal engagement with taught words was positively associated with their vocabulary learning gains. The type of engagement associated with the largest effect size was child use of words in ways that revealed associations with semantic information (d = 0.73, breadth measure; d = 0.70, depth measure). Furthermore, children referenced props more frequently than any other semantic information category, which emphasizes the importance of nonverbal supports for both using and learning new words. These findings support the premise that guided play nurtures development through engaging children as active participants in the learning process (Chi, 2009).

Author

• Katherine M Newman, Vanderbilt University