In the study, the authors addressed two areas of inquiry: the influence of enlisting three underlying cognitive learning processes in alphabet learning, and order effects for letter name and letter sound instruction. Alphabet instruction was designed to enlist paired-associate learning (PAL) only, PAL plus orthographic learning, or PAL plus…

This study investigated: 1) the influence of alphabet instructional content (letter names, letter sounds, or both) on alphabet learning and engagement of English only and dual language learner (DLL) children, and 2) the relation between children's initial status and growth in three underlying cognitive learning processes (paired-associate,…

Purpose: The purpose was to determine whether semantic set size, a measure of the number of semantic neighbors, influenced word learning, and whether the influence of semantic set size was broad, showing effects on multiple measures both during and after learning. Method: Thirty-six preschool children were exposed to 10 nonobjects, varying in…

In a response to Halliday (1993), Gee (1994) discussed the analogies between learning a language and learning in general. The article presents two of his proposals and discusses an empirical method for studying them. The article focuses on identifying the units acquired during language learning and the relevance of the concept of an innate…

Ten boys and 10 girls ages 29-35 months, were tested individually on a memory task requiring free recall of two-item lists. No sex differences in response were noted. The mean number of correct responses and the mean number of correct pairs were higher for related items, and, in addition, the children frequently reported the last object they saw…

Contrary to the basic-level restraint hypothesis, which suggests that young children learn basic-level words more easily than specific-level words, these five studies show that although other constraints on word meaning may be in place, children are flexible in interpreting new words at different hierarchical levels. (MDM)

Eighty nursery school children were randomly divided into four groups of 20 and given a serial short-term memory task in which difficult-to-label stimuli were used. Three experimental groups were provided with labels for the stimuli. Of these, one group overtly pronounced the labels and rehearsed them during the task, one group merely pronounced…

Examined whether superior recall of items in event-based categorical relations, or "slot fillers," remained when association and typicality were controlled. Found that only children receiving the typical + high association slot-filler list showed significantly better recall than with the taxonomic-coordinate list, with no differences…