Effects of Parents’ Word Instruction on Preschoolers’ Receptive Vocabulary Size: Mediating Effect of Word Awareness

Abstract

Objectives: Word awareness is an important factor in word instruction for children in late preschool. This study aimed to verify whether parents’ word instruction promotes the growth of preschoolers’ receptive vocabulary size and whether the relation between the two variables is mediated by preschoolers’ word awareness.Methods: The study recruited 200 pairs of five to six-year-old preschoolers and their parents from 14 childcare centers in Sejong and Daejeon, South Korea. Experimenters asked the preschoolers to answer questions on word unit awareness, word arbitrariness awareness, word morphology awareness, word type awareness, and receptive vocabulary size from experimenters and videos. Parents were asked to answer the items on word instruction.Results: First, parents’ word instruction, preschoolers’ word awareness and receptive vocabulary size were positively correlated. Second, parents’ word instruction had a direct effect on preschoolers’ receptive vocabulary size and an indirect effect via preschoolers’ word awareness. Lastly, the partial mediating effects of word unit awareness, word arbitrariness awareness, word morphology awareness, and word type awareness on the relation between parents’ word instruction and receptive vocabulary size were all significant.Conclusion: This study revealed the importance of parents’ word instruction to enhance preschoolers’ awareness of various aspects of words. The present results offer useful information for developing vocabulary instruction programs for preschoolers and parents.