An experimental evaluation of the effects of using training sentences to aide young children's word recall

Abstract

Using a task that is similar to real-world early reading of environmental print, this study explored how two encoding conditions impacted young children's ability to remember names associated with symbols. Sixty-five children from prekindergarten (n = 20), kindergarten (n = 20), and first grade (n = 25) were randomly assigned to either an experimental or control group. Both groups heard 15 words accompanied by 15 black-and-white line drawings, but the experimental group also heard training sentences. Results indicated that the experimental group had significantly poorer recall accuracy for the symbol names when compared with the control group. Older children in both groups were found to be more effective than younger children at the symbol naming task. Practical applications and theoretical implications are discussed.