Abstract
The acquisition of a reading vocabulary for abstract and concrete words was examined in 62 second-grade children. Words had been learned as part of a basal reader program or as part of outside reading. Word recognition speed and reading accuracy were examined for abstract and concrete words using lexical decision and word naming tasks. The size of the concreteness effect was similar for both processing tasks. In neither task did concreteness influence reaction times, but abstract words were read with less accuracy than concrete words in both tasks. Further, these concreteness effects in reading accuracy were larger for words that were part of a basal reading program than for words acquired during free reading. We conclude that word meaning influences the entry of words at a time when children are developing a sizeable reading vocabulary.
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McFalls, E.L., Schwanenflugel, P.J. & Stahl, S.A. Influence of word meaning on the acquisition of a reading vocabulary in second-grade children. Read Writ 8, 235–250 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00420277
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00420277