Esl Preschoolers’ English Vocabulary Acquisition From Storybook Reading

Reading Research Quarterly
Vol. 40, No. 4
October/November/December 2005
© 2005 International Reading Association
(pp. 406–408)
doi:10.1598/RRQ.40.4.1

IRA OUTSTANDING DISSERTATION AWARD FOR 2005
THE INTERNATIONAL READING ASSOCIATION’S OUTSTANDING
DISSERTATION AWARD, which has been given yearly since 1964, recognizes
exceptional contributions made by doctoral students in reading orrelated fields.
Candidates may be self-nominated or nominated by their dissertation advisors.
Each submits a monograph based on the dissertation, which must have been
completed during the previous academic year. These monographs undergo rigorous review by the Association’s Subcommittee on the Outstanding Dissertation
Award. The winner and other finalists are recognized at IRA’s Annual Conventionin April or May. The award also carries with it a monetary prize made possible
by a donation from Scott Foresman, a U.S. educational publishing house.
The following summary of the 2005 award-winning dissertation has been
provided for RRQ by its author.

ESL preschoolers’ English
vocabulary acquisition from
storybook reading
MOLLY FULLER COLLINS
Boston University, Massachusetts, USA

Interest in the relationship between early language development and children’s later
reading skill has prompted researchers to look back further and further into children’s language experiences and competence prior to formal schooling. It is now
commonly recognized that a number of specific skills and understandings are required as a foundation for learning to read and for continuing to advancein reading skill beyond the beginning reading phase (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002).
Vocabulary is one of several important components of oral language skill (National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research
Network, 2005). Prior vocabulary research demonstrates correlations with later
school success (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Snow, Tabors, Nicholson, & Kurland,1994), shows causal relationships with reading comprehension (Dickinson,
McCabe, Anastasopoulos, Peisner-Feinberg, & Poe, 2003; Storch & Whitehurst,
2002), and points out the difficulty of changing the trajectory of vocabulary acqui406

IRA Outstanding Dissertation Award for 2005

sition once it is established very early in childhood
(Hart & Risley, 1995).
Influences on early vocabularydevelopment include a range of experiences, such as story reading,
involvement in conversations, and exposure to novel
words. Research on the effects of storybook reading
to monolingual English-speaking children reveals
several benefits to vocabulary acquisition.
Monolinguals acquire new vocabulary from storybook reading not only through the use of explanation but also through incidentalexposures to new
words (Elley, 1989; Robbins & Ehri, 1994;
Sénéchal, 1997; Sénéchal, Thomas, & Monker,
1995). Children with high initial vocabulary levels
experience larger gains in new vocabulary than children with low initial vocabulary levels (Reese & Cox,
1999; Robbins & Ehri, 1994). Despite the corpus of
knowledge about the benefits of storybook reading
to monolingual children, a dearth ofresearch exists
on the benefits of storybook reading to secondlanguage learners of English.
The present study focused on some of the gaps
in current knowledge about vocabulary acquisition
from storybook reading. First, the study examined
the effects of storybook reading on the vocabulary
acquisition of 4- and 5-year-olds. Second, the study
not only employed repeated readings of stories butalso employed the use of rich explanations of target
words during the reading. Third, the study contributes to knowledge of vocabulary acquisition of
second-language learners because it examines ESL
preschoolers’ English vocabulary acquisition. Next,
the present study examined not only the role of initial L2 vocabulary knowledge to vocabulary acquisition but also the role of initial L1...