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Sources of support for learning words in conversation: evidence from mealtimes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 1997

DIANE E. BEALS
DIANE E. BEALS
Affiliation:
Washington University
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Abstract

This study examines mealtimes of preschoolers' families to determine whether rare words are used in informative ways so that a child could learn their meanings. Is there an association between informative use of rare words and the child's later vocabulary? Each use of rare words in 160 transcripts was coded for whether it was informative or uninformative. Each informative exchange was coded for type of strategy used to provide support: physical or social context, prior knowledge, and semantic support. There were 1,631 exchanges around rare words. About two-thirds of these exchanges were informative uses from which the child could learn the word's meaning. The most frequent strategy used was semantic support, accounting for two-thirds of strategies used. The frequency of use of rare words was positively correlated with age-five and age-seven PPVT scores.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , October 1997 , pp. 673 - 694
Copyright
1997 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

I would like to thank Patton Tabors for ongoing generative discussions about the direction and potential of this work, and for her assistance with reliability checks. The careful comments by two anonymous reviewers were very helpful in making this a stronger paper. I also thank Washington University for a Faculty Research Grant to carry out the analysis in this study. Special thanks to the families who allowed the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development to listen in on their mealtimes, to all the researchers on the project who have contributed to this work (especially Catherine Snow and David Dickinson), and to the Ford Foundation and Spencer Foundation who funded the project. This paper is dedicated to the memory of my friend, Donald R. Beasley.