Investigating video as a means to promote vocabulary for at-risk children

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2013.03.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Two kindergarten studies focused on using video to support word learning.

  • Results suggested that video and books have comparable effects on vocabulary.

  • Findings showed that repeated viewings are more effective than single viewings.

  • Analyses revealed differences by receptive and expressive outcomes.

  • However, results did not differ by levels of incoming vocabulary.

Abstract

Two studies on the role of video on vocabulary learning were conducted in kindergarten classrooms with substantial numbers of children from low-income and Dual Language Learning (DLL) backgrounds. In the first study (n = 78), the effect of video viewing was compared with the effect of book reading on vocabulary learning. In the second study (n = 89), the effect of repeated viewing of video was compared with the effect of single viewing of video on vocabulary learning. Pre-test and post-test receptive and expressive vocabulary measures, which were aligned with the content in the studies, were administered. Analysis of Variance was used to test the effect of condition (i.e., video viewing versus book reading and single versus repeated reading) on children’s word knowledge. Results showed no difference in vocabulary learning between the video viewing and book reading conditions. Findings showed that there was no difference in vocabulary learning between children in the single and repeated viewing condition on the receptive measure, but children in the repeated viewing condition showed higher gains in vocabulary on the expressive measure. No differences were found in either study between children with higher and lower vocabulary knowledge.

Introduction

Young children with limited vocabulary knowledge are at risk for encountering difficulties in reading throughout school (Hemphill and Tivnan, 2008, Snow et al., 2007). Due to limited experiences with words in a variety of contexts, children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and children from homes in which English is not the primary language often have substantially lower vocabulary knowledge than their more advantaged peers (Hammer, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2010). Therefore, supporting early word learning, especially for children most at risk of having limited vocabulary knowledge, is an important objective in early childhood education. There is considerable evidence that introducing words through read alouds, particularly repeated read alouds, is an effective way to ameliorate this problem (e.g., Beck et al., 2007, Biemiller and Boote, 2006, Coyne et al., 2010). Given the rich language in books, read alouds are an ideal context for vocabulary instruction (De Temple & Snow, 2003). Recent research suggests that the use of video might be another context ripe for vocabulary instruction in elementary schools, particularly for Dual Language Learners (i.e., DLLs) who are learning English in school and speak a language other than or in addition to English at home (Silverman & Hines, 2009). Videos bring stories alive through sound, action, and zoom shots. Therefore, they offer more multifaceted nonverbal support than books (Kamil, Intrator, & Kim, 2000; Verhallen & Bus, 2010). This nonverbal support may be especially helpful for supporting the word knowledge of children with limited vocabulary. Yet, many teachers shy away from showing video in their classrooms because videos have garnered a reputation as non-instructional babysitters (Hobbs, 2006). What is needed is further research on the use of video in schools to determine the potential of video as a medium for vocabulary instruction.

This paper reports on two quasi-experimental studies investigating the effects of video viewing on vocabulary learning. Both studies use content from educational television programming for children produced by WGBH Boston, an affiliate of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The studies are set in kindergarten classrooms in public schools with high numbers of children from low socioeconomic and DLL backgrounds. The first study compares the effect of read alouds and video viewing on vocabulary learning. The second study examines the effect of video viewing once versus three times. Both studies examine differences for children with higher and lower vocabulary knowledge. The small number of classrooms and the short duration of the studies presented here require that the results be seen as exploratory in nature. However, the findings of these studies will add to the limited research base on the use of video to support word learning for at-risk children.

According to the Dual Coding Theory (Paivio, 1986), there are two paths for information processing in the brain. One path processes verbal information and the other processes nonverbal information. These two paths operate somewhat independently of each other, and may even have separate memory systems (Reed, 2006). Presenting information verbally and nonverbally distributes the cognitive load of either system (i.e., neither system needs to carry the entire cognitive load on its own), and connecting information across the two systems provides a more complete representation of a concept than could be established through either system alone (Mayer & Moreno, 2003). Thus, coding information verbally and non-verbally results in greater learning and retention over time. Applying the Dual Coding Theory to vocabulary learning, it is likely that hearing a word in spoken context and seeing a visual representation of the word together would provide more support for word learning than either simply hearing the word in spoken context or seeing a visual representation in isolation.

Reading illustrated books to children is one way to connect verbal and visual support for word learning (De Temple & Snow, 2003). However, videos provide not only words and pictures, but also action, zoom shots, and sound effects that may enhance children’s word knowledge. Viewing video, with its many audio and visual affordances, may support children in developing more robust conceptualizations of words than viewing the static pictures in books (Neuman, 1992). Information about words that is presented redundantly (e.g., audio and visual) may support children in learning word meaning more deeply (Mayer & Moreno, 2002). Additionally, features of video such as zoom shots and sound effects may more effectively, perhaps, draw children’s attention to salient information essential to word meaning (Kamil, Intrator, & Kim, 2000). Such saliency may be particularly important for vocabulary instruction when words refer to an action or a specific part of an object that is not easily conveyed through text in print or speech. Nonverbal support for word learning may be especially important for children with limited vocabulary knowledge because these children have fewer words with which to comprehend new words through verbal communication alone (Silverman & Hines, 2009).

While providing verbal and nonverbal information about words is one way to support children’s vocabulary acquisition, repetition is another way to encourage children’s word learning. Research suggests that children’s word learning increases with multiple, meaningful encounters with words (e.g., Jenkins et al., 1984, Nagy et al., 1987, Stahl, 2003). With each exposure, children’s memory for the connections between words and their referents strengthens incrementally (Nation, Long, & Richards, 2007). Young children and DLL children who may need additional time to process the language they hear need multiple opportunities to associate words and their meanings (De Temple and Snow, 2003, Penno et al., 2002, Sénéchal, 1997). Combining multiple exposures with both verbal and nonverbal information may be particularly supportive for children who need extra support with vocabulary learning. Studies on reading books to children have shown positive effects for repeated reading (Biemiller & Boote, 2006), and research suggests that repeated exposures to video may also promote vocabulary learning (e.g., Verhallen, Bus, & de Jong, 2006). However, research is needed to replicate and extend findings on the effects of repeated video viewing on vocabulary learning with different populations and content.

Research on vocabulary instruction through read alouds suggests that instructional practices such as acting out and illustrating words, defining words, contextualizing words, and analyzing words are related to children’s vocabulary growth (Silverman & Crandell, 2010). In fact, Nagy and Scott (2000) suggest that focusing on the multidimensionality of words may prove optimally supportive of children’s word learning. Given the potential of video for showing various aspects of words through audio, visual, and action features, it is no wonder that researchers have explored whether using video might support word learning. For example, Wright et al. (2001), studying the effect of television viewing by children ages two to five, found a strong correlation between children’s viewing of educational programs and their vocabulary knowledge. Similarly, Rice, Huston, Truglio, and Wright (1990) found that viewing Sesame Street at age 3 had positive effects on the vocabulary of children at age 5. Additionally, Uchikoshi (2006) found that bilingual kindergarteners who watched Arthur and/or Between the Lions at home grew faster in vocabulary than their peers who did not watch these shows at home. Accordingly, some school-based interventions have begun to incorporate the use of video (e.g., Chambers et al., 2008, Neuman et al., 2011).

However, this line of research does not shed light on how viewing video compares to listening to books as contexts for word learning. While many studies show an advantage of video over print presentations (e.g., Furnham et al., 2002, Molen and Voort, 2000, Xin and Rieth, 2001), other studies suggest that learning is equal across these media (e.g., Neuman, 1992), and still other studies indicate that live reading of print leads to more learning than video (e.g., Terrell & Daniloff, 1996). Two studies, in particular, are relevant to the present research. On the one hand, Verhallen et al. (2006), working with 5-year olds learning Dutch as a second language, found that children’s language skills improved more after viewing electronic books that included animated features (i.e., video, sound, and music) than after viewing electronic books with static pictures (i.e., similar to printed text). On the other hand, Korat and Shamir (2007), comparing listening to adults read a printed text versus listening to an electronic book with kindergarten children from low and middle socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds in Israel, found that children in both intervention groups improved in vocabulary and both gained more than a control group, but children in the two intervention groups did not differ in vocabulary learning. Given the discrepancies in the extant research base on how print and video media compare as contexts for vocabulary learning, more research is needed along these lines.

Following studies that show positive effects on children’s vocabulary of repeated exposure to picture books during read alouds (Biemiller & Boote, 2006), researchers have investigated the effects of repeated exposure to electronic books that include video. For example, in their study comparing electronic books with static pictures versus animation, Verhallen et al. (2006) found that, “The added value of multimedia books was strengthened over sessions” (p. 410). In another study comparing effects of repeated exposure, Korat and Blau (2010) evaluated effects of multiple readings of an electronic storybook, which included “dynamic visuals that dramatize story details  as well as extra music and film effects that may ‘bring the story content to life’” (p. 453), with preschool and kindergarten children from lower and middle socioeconomic groups. Children in the experimental condition experienced the electronic storybook three or five times. There were differential effects by grade level and economic background. For kindergarten children, there was an effect of repeated reading over children in a control condition on vocabulary learning, but there was no difference for three versus five readings. Pre-kindergarten children from low-income backgrounds improved in word knowledge over the controls after five readings whereas pre-kindergarten children from middle-income homes improved in word knowledge over the controls after only three readings. Given the divergent effects of repeated exposure to electronic books that include video seen in these studies, further research is needed.

Given that studies on vocabulary instruction show differential learning on receptive and expressive vocabulary (e.g., Sénéchal, 1997), some studies have investigated whether the effects of video-viewing on vocabulary depends on the task with which vocabulary is measured. For example, Verhallen and Bus (2010) examined the effect of digital storybooks on the vocabulary learning of 5-year-old children from low-income, immigrant backgrounds using receptive and expressive vocabulary tasks. Children were presented with digital storybooks with static pictures or video images over the course of four sessions. In the receptive task, children were presented with three pictures and one spoken word and asked to choose the picture that matched the word. In the expressive task, children were presented with a picture from the storybook and a cloze sentence about the picture to complete. There was no difference between the static picture and the video conditions on the receptive task, but there was a difference on the expressive task such that children in the video condition grew more in word knowledge than children in the static picture condition. The authors surmised that static pictures are sufficient for initial understanding of words, which may be captured through receptive tasks, but video is more supportive of deeper word knowledge, which may be captured through expressive tasks. Interestingly, the authors found that words were learned either on the receptive task or the expressive task, but not often on both at the same time, indicating that these measures tap word learning in different ways. To fully estimate the effect of video, these authors suggest, both receptive and expressive assessment tasks should be used. However, few studies on video and vocabulary learning have assessed vocabulary with both expressive and receptive measures. Therefore, additional research is needed using both task types.

In line with research that shows differential effects of vocabulary instruction depending on student characteristics (e.g., Silverman, 2007, Silverman and Crandell, 2010), some studies have evaluated whether there are differential effects of video-viewing. For example, Dockrell, Braisby, and Best (2007) found differential effects of video viewing depending on whether children were older or younger. These researchers conducted a study of the learning of science vocabulary introduced through educational video with two groups of children. One group consisted of 4 and 5 year olds and the other group consisted of 6 and 7 year olds. In this study, older children and children with greater pre-test knowledge learned more words than younger children and children with less pre-test knowledge of the words. In another study comparing word learning through video with children who have more and less vocabulary knowledge, Silverman and Hines (2009), working in pre-kindergarten through second grade classrooms with monolingual English speaking and DLL children, compared the vocabulary learning of children who heard read alouds with the vocabulary learning of children who heard the same read alouds and watched video clips related to those read alouds. Results showed that the vocabulary learning of monolingual English children, who had higher pre-test vocabulary knowledge, was the same regardless of condition, but the vocabulary learning of DLL children, who had lower pre-test vocabulary knowledge, was greater in the condition with read alouds and video than the condition with read alouds alone. Together, these studies suggest that there may be differential effects of video-viewing for students with more and less vocabulary knowledge, but none of these studies specifically investigated the role of prior vocabulary knowledge on the effects of video-viewing. Future research is needed in this direction.

Despite this growing body of research on the use of video to promote vocabulary, further research is needed to begin to converge on findings about the role of video in vocabulary learning. There is not enough research to reach firm conclusions about whether videos are comparable to books as media for vocabulary learning, whether the effect of repeated viewings of video is similar to the effect of repeated readings of books on children’s vocabulary, whether the effects of video viewing differ for receptive and expressive vocabulary, and whether the effects of video depend on children’s background characteristics. The studies presented here aim to add to the research base on the role of video in vocabulary learning.

The two studies discussed here were conducted in kindergarten classrooms in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. Most of the children in the studies were from low-income and/or DLL backgrounds. The studies were implemented with funding from and in collaboration with WGBH Boston, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting affiliate that produces the educational children’s television programs Martha Speaks and Arthur, which were used for content in both studies. Martha Speaks and Arthur are both based on children’s books. The Martha Speaks television series targets vocabulary development by explicitly defining and reusing key words related to story themes. The Arthur television series focuses on language and literacy development through tightly-woven narratives. The author of this manuscript is a consultant for Martha Speaks, but she conducted the studies as an independent researcher. WGBH funded the studies to add to the research base on the use of multimedia for building language and literacy.

The following research questions guided the studies discussed here.

Study One. How does the effect of listening to books compare with the effect of viewing video on kindergarten children’s learning of target words introduced in the study? Does this depend on whether word learning is assessed through a receptive or an expressive task? Does this depend on students’ general vocabulary knowledge as measured on a norm-referenced assessment?

Study Two. What is the effect of single viewing versus repeated viewings (i.e., three viewings) on kindergarten children’s learning of target words introduced in the study? Does this depend on whether word learning is assessed through a receptive or an expressive task? Does this depend on students’ general vocabulary knowledge as measured on a norm-referenced assessment?

Section snippets

Methods

To answer the first research question on comparing listening to books and viewing video, a study was conducted in kindergarten classrooms at two elementary schools. Teachers from six classrooms volunteered to participate in the study (i.e., four from School A and two from School B). Ninety percent of students in School A and 23% of students in School B received Free and Reduced Meals (FARMS), an indicator of low-socioeconomic status. Fifty-two percent of students in School A and 31% of students

Methods

The second study reported here served to address the question of whether repeated viewing of videos is effective for promoting vocabulary knowledge. Eighty-nine kindergarten students from six classrooms at two elementary schools (i.e., School C and D) participated in the study. These schools were different from the ones used in study one. Therefore, there are some differences in sample characteristics. At School C, 84% of students received FARMS and 54% were LEP. At School D, 74% received FARMS

Discussion

As society becomes more and more infused with multimedia, researchers are investigating ways to harness different media for instructional purposes. Previous research suggests that video shows promise as a medium through which to support the vocabulary of children at risk for reading difficulty (Silverman & Hines, 2009; Verhallen & Bus, 2006; Verhallen et al., 2006). However, additional research is needed to more fully understand the role of video in vocabulary learning. The studies presented

Conclusions

The definition of literacy is expanding to various forms of multimedia. Thus, research is needed on the educational benefits of different types of content delivery. One area that shows promise of capitalizing on different types of multimedia is vocabulary instruction. Given that multidimensional and engaging instruction in vocabulary is most effective, the sound effects, lighting, and other camera features of video that can enhance stories may prove to be supportive of vocabulary learning. The

References (48)

  • J.E. Dockrell et al.

    Children’s acquisition of science terms: Simple exposure is insufficient

    Learning and Instruction

    (2007)
  • M.W. Smith et al.

    Describing oral language opportunities and environments in head start and other preschool classrooms

    Early Childhood Research Quarterly

    (1994)
  • S. August et al.

    The critical role of vocabulary development for English language learners

    Learning Disabilities Research & Practice

    (2005)
  • I.L. Beck et al.

    Increasing young low-income children’s oral vocabulary repertoires through rich and focused instruction

    Elementary School Journal

    (2007)
  • I.L. Beck et al.

    Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction

    (2002)
  • A.J. Biemiller et al.

    An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in the primary grades

    Journal of Educational Psychology

    (2006)
  • B. Chambers et al.

    Technology infusion in success for all: Reading outcomes for first graders

    The Elementary School Journal

    (2008)
  • M.D. Coyne et al.

    Direct vocabulary instruction in kindergarten: teaching for breadth versus depth

    The Elementary School Journal

    (2009)
  • M.D. Coyne et al.

    Direct and extended vocabulary instruction in kindergarten: Investigating transfer effects

    Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness

    (2010)
  • M.D. Coyne et al.

    Vocabulary instruction for young children at risk of experiencing reading difficulties: Teaching word meanings through shared storybook readings

  • J. De Temple et al.

    Learning words from books

  • L.M. Dunn et al.

    Peabody picture vocabulary test-fourth edition (PPVT-IV)

    (2007)
  • A. Furnham et al.

    Children’s and adults’ recall of children’s news stories in both print and audio-visual presentation modalities

    Applied Cognitive Psychology

    (2002)
  • C.S. Hammer et al.

    The language and literacy development of Head Start children: A study using the family and child experiences survey database

    Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools

    (2010)
  • L. Hemphill et al.

    The importance of early vocabulary for literacy achievement in high-poverty schools

    Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk

    (2008)
  • R. Hobbs

    Non-optimal uses of video in the classroom

    Learning, Media and Technology

    (2006)
  • J. Jenkins et al.

    Learning vocabulary through reading

    American Educational Research Journal

    (1984)
  • M.L. Kamil et al.

    The effects of other technologies on literacy and literacy learning

  • O. Korat et al.

    Repeated reading of CD-ROM storybook as a support for emergent literacy: A developmental perspective in two SES groups

    Journal of Educational Computing Research

    (2010)
  • O. Korat et al.

    Electronic books versus adult readers: Effects on children’s emergent literacy as a function of social class

    Journal of Computer Assisted Learning

    (2007)
  • C. Leung et al.

    Difficulty of words encountered in first-grade basal readers: A Rasch model for preschool ELL and monolingual English speakers

    American Educational Research Journal

    (2011)
  • J. Mancilla-Martinez et al.

    Early home language use and later vocabulary development

    Journal of Educational Psychology

    (2011)
  • R.E. Mayer et al.

    Animation as an aid to multimedia learning

    Educational Psychology Review

    (2002)
  • R.E. Mayer et al.

    Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning

    Educational Psychologist

    (2003)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text