ERIC Number: EJ1260629
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2020
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1088-8438
EISSN: N/A
Both Semantic Diversity and Frequency Influence Children's Sentence Reading
Pagán, Ascensión; Bird, Megan; Hsiao, Yaling; Nation, Kate
Scientific Studies of Reading, v24 n4 p356-364 2020
Semantic diversity -- a metric that captures variations in previous contextual experience with a word -- influences children's lexical decision and reading aloud. We investigated the effects of semantic diversity and frequency on children's reading of words embedded in sentences, while eye movements were recorded. If semantic diversity and frequency reflect different aspects of experience that influence reading in different ways, they should show independent effects and perhaps even different processing signatures during reading. Forty-nine 9-year-olds read sentences containing high/low frequency and high/low diversity words, manipulated orthogonally. We observed main effects of both variables, with high frequency and high semantic diversity words being read more easily. These results show that variations in the amount and nature of contextual experience influence how easily words are processed during reading.
Descriptors: Semantics, Decision Making, Oral Reading, Sentences, Eye Movements, Reading Processes, Word Frequency, Context Effect, Elementary School Students, Foreign Countries, Grade 5, Reading Tests, Accuracy, Reading Comprehension, Computational Linguistics
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education; Grade 5; Intermediate Grades; Middle Schools
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom (England)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A