What does it mean to really know a word? Well, the Read Lab just like other language learning researchers around the world grapple with that question all the time. We’ve seen over and over again in our research that kids can “pick up” new words like chimpanzee, or smooze, or even applaud just from encountering them in helpful places within a storybook. (for example). But, usually what we find is that kids who are just beginning to know these words are much better at finding pictures of them (e.g., I say “where’s the smooze?” and the 3-year-old picks the right monster out of a lineup) than they are at coming up with the words themselves (e.g., I point to the picture of the smooze and say “what’s that?” and the 3-year-old says “a monster” instead of “snooze”).
This is so common in language learning studies – that comprehension is easier than production – that we often don’t pay much attention to it. And, so at first, in our recent study on learning challenging verbs from a treasure hunt storybook, again, we weren’t surprised to find that 3 and 4-year-olds were better at pointing to pictures of a little girl casting her flashlight into a cave, or demolishing part of a wall to find a treasure, or applauding for herself when she had succeeded – we were just excited that children had picked up on these hard words in the first place! (see picture of how excited we were below).
But, this week, when we took a look at all the things that children said when we pointed to the pictures and asked them, “what is she doing here?” we noticed that while not many kids answered “oh, Dr. Read it is clear that she is casting” (a couple kinda did though), all the “wrong” answers they gave us were telling us something, too. Kids weren’t just saying “I don’t know” or “She’s doing something,” they were trying to find words that they already know well and connect these new words to them.
It’s an important step in language learning, and so common it gets overlooked – kids use what words they already know to create connections to new words, so that when those knew words are known they won’t be floating around in space, or trapped within a single treasure hunt storybook, they’ll be well integrated in the child’s own mind. So, children might know a little bit more about demolishing, even before they use that word themselves – but watch out, because eventually that word will become their own!
