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The Effects of Long-Term Vocabulary Instruction on Reading Comprehension: A Replication

Margaret G. McKeown, Isabel L. Beck, Richard C. Omanson and Charles A. Perfetti Journal of Literacy Research 1983 15: 3 DOI: 10.1080/10862968309547474 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jlr.sagepub.com/content/15/1/3

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Journal of Reading Behavior 1983, Volume XV, No. 1

THE EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION ON READING COMPREHENSION: A REPLICATION

Margaret G. McKeown, Isabel L. Beck, Richard C. Omanson, and Charles A. Perfetti

University of Pittsburgh, Learning Research and Development Center, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

Abstract. A study that investigated the relationship between vocabulary instruction and reading comprehension was replicated and extended. The original study showed substantial gains in accuracy of word knowledge and speed of lexical access, but only marginal gains in comprehension. This latter result was attributable to methodological problems, and thus the comprehension measure was revised. In the present study, fourth graders were taught 104 words over a five-month period. Following instruction, these children and a group of uninstructed children matched on preinstruction vocabulary and comprehension ability performed tasks to measure accuracy of word knowledge, speed of lexical access, and comprehension of stories containing taught words. Instructed children showed substantial advantage in all tasks. Reasons for these results, in contrast to studies that have failed to improve comprehension through vocabulary instruction, are discussed. Based on strong correlational evidence of a relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension (Davis, 1944, 1968; Singer, 1965; Thurstone, 1946), it seems plausible to hypothesize that instruction that increases vocabulary knowledge will increase comprehension. However, studies that have attempted to improve comprehension through vocabulary training have brought equivocal reThe research reported in this paper was supported by the Learning Research and Development Center, funded in part as a research and development center by the National Institute of Education (NIE), Department of Education. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of NIE, and no official endorsement should be inferred. The authors wish to thank John Abbruzzese, Cynthia Beebe, Carol Hughes, and Martha Pople for their assistance with the data collection and analysis.
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Journal of Reading Behavior

suits. While such studies are successful in increasing vocabulary knowledge (Draper & Moeller, 1971; Kameenui, Carnine, & Freschi, 1982; Jenkins, Pany, & Schreck, 1978; Tuinman & Brady, 1974), only a few report improved comprehension (Draper & Moeller, 1971; Kameenui, Carnine, & Freschi, 1982). A possible explanation for this outcome is that a difference exists between acquiring knowledge of a word's meaning and knowing the word well enough to aid comprehension of text. This article reports a replication and refinement of an investigation (Beck, Perfetti, & McKeown, 1982), which hypothesized that, for vocabulary instruction to affect reading comprehension, the instructional strategies must not be limited to establishing an accurate association between a word and its definition. Instead, instruction needs to consider additional aspects of semantic processing, such as fluent access to word meanings during reading and the richness of semantic network connections available to relate concepts. In order to affect semantic processing, instruction may need to provide frequent and varied encounters with the words being taught. The instruction developed for the original study attended directly to three components of semantic processing: accuracy of word knowledge, fluency of lexical access, and richness of semantic networks. In addition, the original study examined two levels of frequency of encounters with the new words, called many and some, both of which were considerably greater than is commonly found in vocabulary instruction. Assessment measures in the original study measured three possible outcomes of instruction, accuracy of word knowledge, fluency of lexical access, and text comprehension.1 To assess accuracy of word knowledge, a multiple-choice test was given for all the words taught in the program. A semantic decision task which required children to decide whether a word shown to them fit a target category directly measured speed of lexical access. Comprehension, the instructional goal of primary interest in the present study, was measured through a probed recall of stories written around words from the many and some instructional conditions. The word-level outcomes of the original study showed that the children who received the vocabulary instruction scored significantly better on the test of word knowledge and performed significantly faster and more accurately on the responsetimed tasks. The results of the story comprehension task, however, were equivocal. Only the "many words" story showed a difference between the groups, and this was a marginally significant difference in favor of the instructed (27%) over the uninstructed (19%) children. The story written with some words was poorly recalled by both instructed and uninstructed subjects. However, further analysis
Two other outcome measures, a sentence verification task and performance on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, were also reported on in this study but are not directly germane to this discussion.
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Vocabulary Instruction and Comprehension

suggested problems with stories and, perhaps, the comprehension measure, that were suppressing the relationship between instruction and comprehension. Three problems were identified in the methodology of the story comprehension task. The first problem was that the "some words" story was discovered to have a more complex plot structure than the others, involving more characters and multiple goals. Second, the story plots seemed over-contrived, due to their construction around a large set of taught words. The third problem was our assessment measure, which was a probed recall. The use of probes to elicit recall may have forced the children to use the probe structure rather than their own structure to generate recall. This may have obscured differences in comprehension that are reflected in children's ability to construct a plot structure with which to guide recall. In the present study, three refinements toward solving these problems were made to the stories and the assessment measure. First, the stories were revised to ensure similar plot structures and shortened to contain fewer taught words, thus eliminating the more contrived aspects. Second, probed recall was replaced by a free recall task. Third, an additional measure of comprehension, a set of 25 multiple-choice questions, was added.

METHOD Subjects The subjects in this study were fourth-graders in two schools from a small urban public school district. The school populations were drawn from a lower SES neighborhood and were about 70% black. One fourth-grade class from each school was designated as experimental. The remaining three fourth-grade classrooms in the two schools were designated as control. The children chosen as subjects were those in the experimental and control classrooms who could be matched pairwise within three points of their combined scores on the Reading and Vocabulary subtests, Form 7, of the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (Hieronymus, Lindquist, & Hoover, 1979), which were administered as pretests. Forty-one such pairs were created and maintained throughout the study. The combined mean on the Vocabulary and Reading subtests was 27.78 for the experimental group, with a standard deviation of 12.94. The control group had a mean of 26.78, with a standard deviation of 12.73. Instructional Program The instruction created for the study was a vocabulary program designed to teach 104 difficult words to fourth-graders in approximately 75 lessons, each 30 minutes in length, over a five-month period. An initial set of words for the program was taken from the fourth-grade materials of the Ginn Reading 720 series (Clymer
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Journal of Reading Behavior

et al., 1976). Words judged as likely to be unknown, yet useful and interesting for fourth-graders to learn, were chosen from Ginn's target vocabulary. Since the plan of instruction involved presenting sets of words grouped according to some semantic relationship, the initial set of words was sorted to derive category groupings. To fill out the categories derived, words were added from other sources such as the Dale and Eichholz (1960) word lists. The words chosen for instruction were grouped into global semantic categories of eight to ten words each. For example, the following words were taught under the label Moods: cautious, jovial, glum, placid, indignant, impatient, enthusiastic, diligent, and envious. Each set of words was presented, practiced in varied ways, and then tested during a five-day cycle of instruction. Two frequency conditions were designed within the instruction to explore whether differential exposure to target words would produce differential learning outcomes. In the first frequency condition, called some, eight to ten new words were taught and reinforced through daily vocabulary lessons for five days. In the second frequency condition, termed many, a subset of 43 words from the some condition was maintained over time. The many words reappeared in the instruction of new words in subsequent weeks and were also treated in specially-designed review cycles. In this manner, the words in the many subset appeared 16 to 22 additional times each. Thus, while the some words had 10 to 18 instructional exposures, the many words had between 26 and 40 exposures. The instruction was designed to include a range of task requirements such as matching words and definitions, associating a word with a context, creating contexts for words, and comparing and contrasting words to discover relationships. The rationale here was that requiring students to manipulate words in rich ways should produce a deeper understanding of the words and more flexibility in using the words. The following description outlines the activities of the five-day cycles. On the first day of each cycle, definitions are established for the set of words, and then students interact with the words and their meanings. First, the students receive logsheets on which the words to be learned and their definitions appear. In some cycles the definitions are provided on the logsheets, and in other cycles the definitions are established through class discussion and then recorded. The logsheets become the student's permanent record of the words being learned. After definitions are established, one or two activities occur with the aim of getting the students involved with using the words. Day 2 of each cycle includes the generation of sentences for each target word and some additional activity that provides fairly easy practice with word meanings. For the sentence activity, sentence stems are provided on the logsheets and students must complete each sentence together, as a whole class activity. The activities for Day 3 of each cycle usually require students to generate contexts containing the new words. The purpose of these activities is to
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Vocabulary Instruction and Comprehension

broaden the students' understanding of the words by promoting the establishment of relations between new words and already known words. The fourth day of the cycle always includes an activity called "Ready, Set, Go," followed by an exercise that encourages students to think about the words in new ways. Ready, Set, Go aims to increase fluent access to word meaning by requiring students to match words and definitions while being timed. Students complete four "laps" of matching, attempting to better their previous time while maintaining accuracy. On the final day of each five-day cycle, students take a multiple-choice test on the set of words studied. In a typical cycle, students receive approximately two and a half hours of instruction on the set of words, which includes at least ten encounters with each word. Two other aspects of the instruction beyond the five-day cycle should be mentioned. One is that the program contains a motivational device to promote the students' use of words outside of vocabulary class. Students can earn points toward becoming a "Word Wizard" by bringing evidence that they have seen, heard, or used target words outside of class. Another aspect of the program is the inclusion of review cycles in which the many words, those words selected to be maintained throughout the program, receive practice. There are six such review cycles in the program, designed around two or three instructional sessions. (For a more complete description of the instruction see Beck, McCaslin, & McKeown, 1980; Beck, Perfetti, & McKeown, 1982.) Assessment Measures The assessment of the instruction focused on accuracy, fluency, and text comprehension. The assessment measures included the instructional many and some words and a third set of uninstructed control words, labeled none words. The none words were selected to correspond to pairs of some and many words in difficulty, as indicated by their exclusion from the Dale-Chall List of 3,000 Familiar Words (1948) and the fourth-grade norms of the Dale and Eichholz list (1960), in semantic category, and in number of syllables. Examples of these triads, showing some, many, and none words, respectively, are rival, tyrant, exile, and squint, glimpse, scowl. Vocabulary knowledge tests. Our assessment of the accuracy with which the children knew the instructed words consisted of a vocabulary test, given as a pretest and a posttest, that contained items for each many, some, and none word. The test format was multiple-choice, with the target word used as the stem and four alternatives offered in the form of brief definitions. For each item, the three distractors were chosen to conform to the semantic category of the target word. Pretest and posttest versions of the test were created by changing the order of the items and of the alternatives within each item.
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Journal of Reading Behavior

Semantic decision task. Our assessment of the fluency with which the children knew the instructed words consisted of a semantic decision task given only as a posttest. The task required children to decide if a word presented to them belonged to a specified category. The category used for the task was people, since this allowed us to draw from various sets of instructed words. The stimulus materials for this task were created around "quads" of words, each containing a many, a some, a none, and a common word. A word was considered common if it appeared on the Dale-Chall List of 3,000 Familiar Words (1948), or had a familiarity index above 80% for fourth graders on the Dale and Eichholz list (1960). The task contained 24 positive instances (six quads of nouns depicting types of people) and 24 negative instances (six quads of verbs). The words were randomly ordered and presented one at a time to the child by a slide projector. For each word, the child was asked "Can this word be a person?". Both accuracy and latency of the student's responses were recorded. Comprehension tasks. The assessment of the effect of the instruction on comprehension was based on the comprehension of stories created around many, some, and none words. To assess this effect, story recall and multiple-choice questions were used. For the story recall task, the children read and then recalled three stories (called many, some, and none) that were written to contain 30 many, some, and none words, respectively. The target words (i.e., many, some, and none) were distributed throughout each story, and comprised approximately 11% of each text. All three stories consisted of a setting, a conflict, and a resolution. Summaries of these story components are presented in Table 1. To establish the equivalence of the three stories, a narrative analysis procedure developed by Omanson (1982) was applied to each story. Omanson's analysis identifies clauses that portray an event or state as content units and the relations that connect these units. On the basis of the relations, the content units are classified as either central or noncentral to the narrative. Central content roughly approximates the plot of a narrative, whereas noncentral contentat least for these stories provides supporting detail. Previous studies (Beck, Omanson, & McKeown, 1982; Omanson, 1982) using Omanson's analysis have reported reliabilities of .91 and .90. The three stories were written to be roughly equivalent in number of sentences (21 to 23), paragraphs (7 to 10), content units (36), and words (272 to 275). For each story, approximately half the target words were included in central content units and half in noncentral units. Using the Dale-Chall (1948), Fry (1968), and Spache (1974) formulas, readabilities were established for each story at the fourth-grade level when the target words were excluded and at the seventh-grade level when the words were included. The stories were administered as posttests in separate sessions for each subject, and in a counterbalanced order. The children read the stories silently and then
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Vocabulary Instruction and Comprehension

TABLE 1 Story Components of the Many, Some, and None Stories

Content Units Story Component Summary

Many Story 1-6 7-26 Setting Conflict Sam is an ambitious violin novice who gives a concert. A woman interrupts Sam by talking to an acquaintance, and by eating food from a table. Soon everyone begins to talk with each other and Sam walks off stage. A friend of Sam's suggests that the audience play music with Sam. Everyone plays and leaves feeling placid. Some Story 1-2 3-22 Setting Conflict Sally thinks Andy is a glutton and decides to teach him a lesson. At lunch, Sally complains about the small portion Andy gives her. Andy then discovers his food has been taken and throws bread at Sally which brings their mother out. Mother demands an explanation, so Sally returns Andy's food when he begins to storm out of the room. So mother has Andy and Sally make up and they enjoy the rest of their meal. None Story 1-3 4-28 Setting Conflict Some kids are debating about what to do about the terrible food at camp. The kids confront the cook about his cooking which results in a food fight. The camp counselor discovers the fight and argues with the kids about the food. The counselor suggests the kids buy the cook a new cookbook. The kids give the cookbook to the cook and thereafter enjoy good food.

27-36

Resolution

23-31

Resolution

29-36

Resolution

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10

Journal of Reading Behavior

recalled the stories. The recalls were tape recorded and later transcribed and scored as to whether the gist of each content unit had been included. Our second measure of the vocabulary instruction's effect on comprehension of stories containing the instructed words was a story question task given after each story recall. The task involved answering 25 multiple-choice questions, each with three choices, that queried the content of the story just recalled. For each story, 10 queried central content, 8 queried noncentral content, and 7 queried implied content. Procedure All children were given the vocabulary knowledge test as a pretest. After the pretesting was completed, the experimental classrooms were then given five months of the previously described vocabulary instruction during daily thirty-minute periods. During the class period that the experimental classrooms received vocabulary instruction, the control classrooms received language arts instruction in topics such as grammar, communication skills, and vocabulary in a traditional textbook/ workbook format. At the end of the five-month instruction, the experimental and control groups were given the vocabulary knowledge posttest, the semantic decision task, and the story recall task.

RESULTS The results of this experiment address two issues, whether the vocabulary instruction was successful in producing accurate and fluent knowledge of the instructed words, and whether text comprehension was affected. The first issue is a prerequisite of the second in the sense that implied in our hypothesis about the nature of successful vocabulary instruction is the notion that instruction must improve both word knowledge and lexical access if it is to affect comprehension. Analyses on all measures were done originally with school as a betweensubjects factor. There were no main effects of school and only one significant interaction. This interaction reflected a greater improvement in accuracy of word knowledge for the experimental group in one school over the other, although both experimental groups improved significantly. The analyses reported below were done with the subjects from both schools combined. Accuracy of Word Knowledge The instruction was successful in enhancing the accuracy of the knowledge of the instructed words, and thus a major finding of the original study (Beck, Perfetti, & McKeown, 1982) was replicated. Our index of the accuracy of children's knowlDownloaded from jlr.sagepub.com by guest on December 12, 2012

Vocabulary Instruction and Comprehension

11

edge of the instructed words was the multiple-choice vocabulary test on the meanings of the many, some, and none words given before and after the instruction. The results, which are presented in Table 2, indicated that on the pretest, both experimental and control groups scored near the chance level of .25 on each type of word. On the posttest, however, the experimental children scored higher on the many and some words (.80 and .71), than did the control children (.32). The two groups performed equally poorly on the none words (.34 and .31). TABLE 2 Mean Proportion Correct on Vocabulary Knowledge Test for the Experimental and Control Groups
Group Test Pretest Many Some None Posttest Many Some None .80 .71 .34 .32 .32 .31
.28 .28 .24

Story

Experimental

Control

.26

.28 .25

An analysis of variance with condition as a between-subject factor and testing time and word type as within-subject factors revealed a reliable interaction among condition, testing time, and word type, F(2,160) = 90.65, p < .01. Newman-Keuls post-hoc tests indicated that, on the pretest, there were no reliable differences among word types or between groups. On the posttest, however, the experimental children scored higher than the control children on the many and some words, p < .01, but not on the none words, p > .05. Also, experimental children scored higher on the many and some words than they did on the none words, p < .01, whereas control children's scores on these three word types did not reliably differ, p > .05. Fluency of Lexical Access The instruction was also successful in enhancing lexical access of the instructed words, and thus a second major finding of the original study was replicated. The index of the children's fluency of access to the instructed words was their performance on the semantic decision task. The data presented are for correct responses only. These results, which are shown in Table 3, indicated that the experimental children had faster categorizing reaction times with the many and some
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Journal of Reading Behavior

TABLE 3 Mean Reaction Time on the Semantic Decision Task by the Experimental and Control Groups
Group Words Common Many Some None Mean seconds per word. Experimental 2.13 2.22 2.56 3.12 Control 2.01 2.% 2.82 2.94

words than did the control children. The two groups had similar reaction times for common words and none words. An analysis of variance with condition as a between-subject factor and word type as a within-subject factor indicated that this pattern was reliable. There was a reliable, F(3,240) = 11.08, p < .01, interaction between condition and word type. Newman-Keuls post-hoc tests indicated that the difference between the experimental and control groups was reliable for the many words, p < .01, and some word, p < .05, but not for the common or none words, p > .05. Moreover, the experimental children categorized common words no faster than many words, p > .05, but reliably faster than some words, p < .01, which in turn were categorized faster than none words, p < .01. Control children, on the other hand, categorized common words faster than many words, p < .01, which were not categorized any faster than some or none words, p > .05. Thus, the instruction was successful in enhancing the experimental children's accuracy of their knowledge about and fluency in using the many and some words. Text Comprehension The instruction similarly enhanced children's comprehension of stories containing instructed words and thus strengthens the conclusion which had been tentatively reached in the original study. There were two indices of comprehension, story recall and answers to multiple-choice questions. Story recall. The first index of comprehension we examined was story recall. Both levels of instruction (many and some) enhanced the recall of stories containing the instructed words. These results are presented in Table 4. Experimental children's recall of the many and some stories (.25 and .24 for total story content) was greater than that of the control children's (. 11 and .13). The two groups of children did not differ in their recall of the none story (.13 versus .14). For both groups, the recall of central content was greater than the recall of noncentral content.
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TABLE 4 Proportion Correct on Story Recall and Questions for the Experimental and Control Groups
Group Measure Recall Central Many Some None Noncentral Many Some None Questions Many Some None .17 .15 .10 .66 .58 .44 .05 .10 .09 .42 .48 .44 Experimental Control

.33 .33 .16

.16 .17 .19

An analysis of variance with condition as a between-subject factor and story and centrality as within-subject factors confirmed a reliable interaction between story and condition, F(2,160) = 22.71, p < .01. Newman-Keuls post-hoc tests showed that the experimental children recalled more than the control children on the many and some stories,/? < .01. Moreover, the experimental children's recall of the many and some stories was reliably greater than their recall of the none story, p < .01, although the difference in their recall of the many and some stories was not reliable, p > .05. In contrast, the control children's recalls of all three stories were not reliably different from each other, p > .05. The analysis of variance also revealed a number of reliable interactions, all of which are reflected in the reliable interaction among condition, story and centrality, F(l,160) = 8.61, p < .01. This interaction reflected the fact that the magnitude of the difference between the experimental and control children's recall of the many and some stories varied across centrality. For both central and noncentral content, however, the Newman-Keuls test indicated that experimental children recalled reliably more on the many and some stories than the control children, p < .05. Thus, even though the effects of story and condition interacted with centrality, post-hoc tests showed that both levels of instruction resulted in greater recall of both the general plot (central content) and the specific details (noncentral content) of the story. To examine and display the qualitative differences between the recalls of these two groups, synthesized recall protocols for the many, some, and none stories were
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Journal of Reading Behavior

generated to represent the prototypical recall of each group. First, the length of each prototypical recall was established as the mean number of units recalled by that group. The prototypical recalls were then created by selecting the proposition best recalled by the group, then the next best recalled proposition, and so forth, until the established number of propositions had been reached. This method of examining recall patterns is similar to that used by Spilich, Vesonder, Chiesi, and Voss (1979) and by Omanson, Beck, Voss, and McKeown (in press). The generated protocols are presented in Table 5. As shown in Table 5, there are differences between the experimental and control groups' prototypical recalls of the many and some stories. The experimental TABLE 5 Prototypical Recalls of the Many, Some, and None Stories for the Experimental and Control Groups
Experimental Many Story Sam was a novice at playing the violin. One night he gave a concert. A few minutes later a woman decided she had a big appetite. She began to devour everything she could see. "Couldn't you fast just for this concert?," Sam asked. Sam thrust his violin on the stage. Just then an ally of Sam's seized him. "Why don't we all play music together tonight?," he said to Sam. Some people began to play musical instruments they found in the back room and felt placid. One night Sam gave a concert. "Why don't we all play music together tonight?," someone said to Sam. Some people began to play musical instruments they found in the back room. At the end of the evening, everyone went home, . Control

Some Story Sally thought her brother Andy was a glutton and she wanted to teach him a lesson. One day they dashed home for lunch. Andy served lunch for himself and for Sally. "My lunch has been filched," he said. He hurled a basket of bread, which made their mother lurch in the doorway. Mother said, "Now you two shouldn't be foes any longer." Then they were jovial for the rest of lunch. Sally wanted to teach Andy a lesson. One day they dashed home for lunch. Andy was indignant about Sally's lie. Their mother lurched in the doorway. "Now tell me what's going on," she said,

None Story Some kids scampered into the kitchen and said to the cook, "We have to talk to you about the food. We can hardly digest any of the meals." Jim replied, "You kids should buy the cook a good cookbook." The kids bought the cookbook. Some kids scampered into the kitchen. Jim strided inside. "We can hardly digest any of the meals," the kids said. Jim replied, "You kids should buy the cook a good cookbook." The kids bought the cookbook.

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children's prototypical recall of the many stories contains 10 units. It provides a good summary of the story in that it includes the initial setting that Sam is a novice who gives a concert, the conflict that he is interrupted by the audience which causes him to throw down his violin, and the resolution to the conflict offered by Sam's ally that the audience also play music which results in the audience being content. In contrast, the control group's prototypical recall contains 4 units. It does not provide as good a summary in that it omits from the setting the fact that Sam was a novice, it omits the entire conflict of Sam being interrupted while playing, and consequently, the audience also playing instruments is not depicted as a resolution. The experimental group's prototypical recall of the some story contains 9 units. It also provides a good summary of the story in that it includes the initial setting that Sally wants to teach her brother a lesson because he is a glutton, the conflict that Andy's lunch is stolen which causes a fight between Sally and Andy, and the resolution, initiated by their mother, in which the children become friendly toward each other. Notice that the experimental group's prototypical recall of the some story differs from their prototypical recall of the many story in only one respect: the manner in which the conflict is resolved in the some story, returning the stolen food, is not included. The control group's prototypical recall of the some story contains 5 units. It does not provide as good a summary because it omits from the setting Sally's motivation for wanting to teach Andy a lesson, it includes from the conflict only Andy's reaction without describing the conflict itself or the ensuing fight, and it includes from the resolution only mother's initial arrival without describing how the conflict is resolved. In contrast to the many and some stories, the experimental and control children's prototypical recalls of the none story are similar to each other and to the control children's prototypical recalls of the many and some stories. The prototypical recalls of the none story of both groups contain 5 units. Neither recall provides a good summary of the story because both recalls omit the initial setting that the boys are at summer camp and want better food, they omit from the conflict the food fight between the boys and the cook, and they include from the resolution only the buying of the cookbook without describing that the children did get better food and, as a result, were content. Story questions. The second index of comprehension we considered was answers to multiple-choice questions. As previously described, there were 25 questions for each story, 10 of which queried central content, 8 of which queried noncentral content, and 7 of which queried implied content. An initial analysis of variance with condition as a between-subject factor and story (many, some, and none) and question type (central, noncentral, and implied) as within-subject factors did not reveal any interactions between condition and question type. Consequently, question type was eliminated as a factor, and the performance of experimental and
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Journal of Reading Behavior

control children on the total number of questions answered correctly was examined for each story. These results, which are presented in Table 4, indicate that the experimental children correctly answered a greater proportion of questions about the many and some stories (.66 and .58) than did the control children (.42 and .48). The two groups of children, however, correctly answered an equivalent proportion of questions about the none story (.44). Thus, results provide additional evidence that both the many and some levels of instruction enhanced comprehension of stories containing the instructed words. An analysis of variance with condition as a between-subject factor and story as a within-subject factor indicated that the above interaction between condition and story was reliable, F(2,160) = 20.91, p < .01. Newman-Keuls post-hoc tests revealed that the proportion of questions correctly answered by the experimental children on the many and some stories was reliably greater than the proportion correctly answered by the control children, p < .01. The two groups did not reliably differ in the proportion of questions about the none story correctly answered, p > .05. Moreover, the experimental children correctly answered a greater proportion of questions about the many story than they did about the some story, p < .05, and a greater proportion of questions about the some story than they did about the none story, p < .01. In contrast, the control children did not differ in the proportion of questions correctly answered about each of the three stories,/? > .05. DISCUSSION The results of this replication strongly support the conclusion suggested by the original study that intensive vocabulary instruction designed to promote deep and fluent word knowledge enhances text comprehension. The effect on comprehension of stories containing instructed words was shown in three ways: (1) by an increased amount of recall; (2) by the improved quality of the experimental group's recall,, which provided a more coherent summary of the stories; and (3) by a greater proportion of correct responses to multiple-choice questions about the stories. In addition, the results of this study replicated the gains in accuracy of word knowledge and fluency of lexical access that were found in the original study. These results speak to two issues. One concerns the frequency of instructional encounters sufficient to produce gains, and the other concerns the nature of the instruction. Regarding the frequency of encounters, it must be noted that the gains obtained by the instructed children held for both the many and some conditions. This was true even though the many words had about twice as many encounters as the some. However, the many words did show an advantage over the some in the vocabulary knowledge test, in speed of lexical access, and on the comprehension questions asked about stories containing taught words. Thus it seems that certain children or certain words did benefit from the additional encounters. The control of issues such
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Vocabulary Instruction and Comprehension

17

as individual learner differences and varying levels of word learnability is an interesting aspect of vocabulary study, but is beyond the scope of this present work. The major point here is that our some condition was sufficient to yield improvement in comprehension. However, note that even this condition, with at least 10 encounters per word, represents much more instructional time than is usually devoted to instruction in word meaning. A question for further study is whether even fewer encounters would yield comprehension gains. Regarding the nature of the instruction, the results of this study support our initial contention that if instruction is to influence comprehension it must go beyond establishing accurate responses to words. The instruction in this study was of a very different nature from that of studies that have failed to demonstrate a relationship between vocabulary instruction and comprehension, a difference we have characterized as richness of instruction. The instruction in this study was designed to provide a deep and fluent knowledge of words. Opportunities were provided for children to practice and apply the words in various contexts, such as describing a time they might have beckoned to someone, or something they have heard that made a commotion. Words were considered in relationship to each other, such as deciding if a virtuoso could also be a rival, and in relationship to known words and concepts, such as thinking of an activity that would be appropriate for a miser. Games, some of which included a time element, were often used to reinforce the word meanings. An important component of each lesson was that children were asked to justify and explain their reasons for the answers they gave. In short, the instruction provided a variety of opportunities for children to learn new words and challenged them to explore and extend the newly learned concepts in a lively, verbal environment. This is in contrast to instruction in other studies that typically promoted only an accurate knowledge of a word's definition in an environment that did not foster interaction and manipulation of ideas. Results of earlier studies have led to the conclusion that improved accuracy of word knowledge does not explain the relationship that exists between vocabulary and reading comprehension. In this study, some other facets of vocabulary knowledge that might contribute to this relationship were demonstrated. The facets involved here were fluency of access to word meaning and expanded semantic network connections, both of which were promoted by vocabulary instruction that provided rich opportunities for children to acquire, explore, and develop word knowledge.

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Journal of Reading Behavior

REFERENCES BECK, I. L., McCASLIN, E. S., & McKEOWN, M. G. The rationale and design of a program to teach vocabulary to fourth-grade students (LRDC Publication 1980/25). Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, Learning Research and Development Center, 1980. BECK, I. L., OMANSON, R. C., & McKEOWN, M. G. An instructional redesign of reading lessons: Effects on comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 1982, 17, 462481. BECK, I. L., PERFETTI, C. A., & McKEOWN, M. G. The effects of long-term vocabulary instruction on lexical access and reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1982, 74, 506-521. CLYMER, T., et al. Reading 720. Lexington, MA: Ginn, 1976. DALE, E., & CHALL, J. S. A formula for predicting readability. Educational Research Bulletin, 1948, 27, 11-28. DALE, E., & EICHHOLZ, G. Children's knowledge of words: An interim report. Columbus: The Ohio State University, Bureau of Education, 1960. DAVIS, F. B. Fundamental factors of comprehension in reading. Psychometrika, 1944, 9, 185-197. DAVIS, F. B. Research in comprehension in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 1968, 3, 499-545. DRAPER, A. G., & MOELLER, G. H. We think with words (therefore, to improve thinking, teach vocabulary). Phi Delta Kappan, 1971, 52, 482-484. FRY, E. A readability formula that saves time. Journal of Reading, 1968, 11, 513-516. HIERONYMUS, A. N., LINDQUIST, E. F., & HOOVER, H. D. Iowa tests of basic skills. Iowa City: University of Iowa, 1979. JENKINS, J. R., PANY, D., & SCHRECK, J. Vocabulary and reading comprehension: Instructional effects (Technical Report #100). Urbana: University of Illinois, Center for the Study of Reading, 1978. KAMEENUI, E. J., CARNINE, D. W., & FRESCHI, R. Effects of text construction and instructional procedures for teaching word meanings on comprehension and recall. Reading Research Quarterly, 1982, 17, 367-388. OMANSON, R. C. The relation between centrality and story grammar categories. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1982, 21, 326-337. OMANSON, R. C. An analysis of narratives: Identifying Central, Supportive, and Distracting content. Discourse Processes, 1982, 5, 195-224. OMANSON, R. C , BECK, I. L., VOSS, J. F., & McKEOWN, M. G. The effects of reading lessons on comprehension: A processing description. Cognition and Instruction, in press. SINGER, H. A developmental model of speed of reading in grades 3 through 6. Reading Research Quarterly, 1965, 1, 29-49. SPACHE, G. D. Good reading for poor readers. Champaign, IL: Garrad, 1974. SPILICH, G. J., VESONDER, G. T., CHIESI, H. L., & VOSS, J. F. Text processing of domain-related information for individuals with high and low domain knowledge. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1979, 18, 275-290. THURSTONE, L. L. A note on a reanalysis of Davis' reading tests. Psychometrika, 1946, 11, 185-188. TUINMAN, J. J., & BRADY, M. E. How does vocabulary account for variance on reading comprehension tests? A preliminary instructional analysis. In P. Nacke (Ed.), Twentythird national reading conference yearbook. Clemson, SC: The National Reading Conference, 1974.
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