Introduction to this Special Issue: Vocabulary Growth and Reading Skill

Abstract

Vocabulary growth is the increased representation of word meanings and their corresponding word forms. Such growth entails both more words (quantity of representations) and more refined meaning knowledge about words (quality of representations). Prior to literacy, words are acquired through speech, of course. Implicit knowledge about the sounds of words used in spoken-word recognition may gradually evolve into knowledge about word phonology that is necessary for the acquisition of phonological awareness and literacy. With reading come opportunities to learn new word meanings and to refine word meanings through reading experience. Because semantic knowledge is typically acquired over many exposures, both children and adults have incomplete knowledge of many word meanings, with incremental refinement of meaning knowledge occurring with experience. Reading skill should be important in the ability to learn new words through reading. Beyond the obvious assumption that more skill leads to more reading and thus more word learning, there are questions about how vocabulary and reading development are related and how individual differences in vocabulary can be explained. This special issue addresses these and related questions