Words in worlds: Why and how a sense of meaning develops in contexts.
Item
-
Title
-
Words in worlds: Why and how a sense of meaning develops in contexts.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9630492
-
identifier
-
9630492
-
Creator
-
Mitchell, Gloria.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Katherine Nelson
-
Date
-
1996
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Psychology, Developmental | Education, Elementary | Education, Educational Psychology
-
Abstract
-
This study addressed the questions of why and how word meaning develops in school-aged children. The critical factors contributing to word meaning development were examined through a study of the word meaning development of two children, D.C. and M.L., over the six-month period of the study. The intent of the study was to compare not the children, but the development of word meanings within the study's different word encounter activities as experienced by the different developmental systems of the two children. The children's uses of the words and responses to inquiries concerning the words are presented and analyzed.;The children were interviewed on their understandings of words chosen from six children's books. "Unknown" and "familiar" words were experienced in Written, Oral/Charade, Repeated Word and Pretest Only activities ("Activities"), and the children listened to the readings of the books in which they heard the words within the stories. All the Activities involved hearing and speaking, but the Written and Oral/Charade Activities incorporated different functions--specifically, reading and writing in the Written Activities, and acting out and "watching and guessing" in the Oral/Charade Activities. Verbal interviews, in which the responses were coded as "unknown", "frontier", or "known", provided the data for the pre, post, and post/post tests.;For both D.C. and M.L., the development of word meaning in the Written and Oral/Charade Activities was significant, but there was no significant difference in word meaning development between these two Activities. These results suggest that acting out and "watching and guessing" the word acted out were as effective as reading and writing in enhancing word meaning development. The words encountered within the Written Activities were used in spontaneous speech significantly more often by both children. Word meaning development in the Pretest Only Activities was not significant; whereas, it was within the Repeated Word Activities at different test points in time for both children.;The children's rich oral responses detailing their developing sense of word meanings suggest that individual longitudinal studies provide an important source through which to examine why and how word meaning develops in school-aged children.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
