Grounding Word Learning in Space

Humans and objects, and thus social interactions about objects, exist within space. Words direct listeners' attention to specific regions of space. Thus, a strong correspondence exists between where one looks, one's bodily orientation, and what one sees. This leads to further correspondence with what one remembers. Here, we present data suggesting that children use associations between space and objects and space and words to link words and objects—space binds labels to their referents. We tested this claim in four experiments, showing that the spatial consistency of where objects are presented affects children's word learning. Next, we demonstrate that a process model that grounds word learning in the known neural dynamics of spatial attention, spatial memory, and associative learning can capture the suite of results reported here. This model also predicts that space is special, a prediction supported in a fifth experiment that shows children do not use color as a cue to bind words and objects. In a final experiment, we ask whether spatial consistency affects word learning in naturalistic word learning contexts. Children of parents who spontaneously keep objects in a consistent spatial location during naming interactions learn words more effectively. Together, the model and data show that space is a powerful tool that can effectively ground word learning in social contexts

Spanish Vocabulary Acquisition and Implementation: The Effect in a Mixed-aged Montessori Primary Classroom

This action research project studied the effects of introducing Spanish vocabulary words to a mixed-ages Montessori primary classroom on Spanish vocabulary acquisition and implementation. Spanish vocabulary words were presented in group lessons in half-hour intervals twice a week for four weeks using flashcards. There were three sets of cards –color, fruit, and grace and courtesy. Lessons were given in the Montessori three-period lesson format. Data collection tools provided data that supported successful results with a steady increase in Spanish vocabulary acquisition and implementation. At the conclusion of the study, future research could explore the use of real objects, using extensions to children who show greater interest in acquiring more words, and using songs to teach words. This study was able to provide strong evidence for the positive impact on Spanish vocabulary acquisition and implementation

Adjective Acquisition: Developmental Changes in the Use of the Shape Bias, Syntax, Shape Consistency, and Semantic Attributes.

When learning vocabulary, children must determine the meaning of each word that they hear. In hypothesizing about word meanings, children follow certain principles that simplify vocabulary acquisition. Among these principles are several that lead children to follow a shape bias. Under the shape bias, children assume that words extend to objects that share a common shape. This shape bias is useful for learning count nouns, which often include whole-object shape as an important aspect of meaning. However, the shape bias is not useful for the development of other word classes, such as adjectives. In this study, several variables were examined in their relation to preschoolers\u27 and adults\u27 use of the shape bias in an experimental word learning setting. In response to syntactic frame, the shape bias was lower when novel words were presented as adjectives rather than as count nouns or when no words were presented, although this effect did not occur across all conditions tested. Responses varied when different attributes, namely colors, textures, emotions, or damages, were presented as the alternative to shape as the referent of novel words. Children found texture particularly salient, resulting in a low shape bias when texture was available. Adults found emotions to be most salient and color the least salient of the four domains. When novel words labeled two objects that contrasted in shape, use of the shape bias was lower than when words labeled two identical objects. When responses to unfamiliar and familiar objects were compared, adults showed a greater shape bias when unfamiliar objects were labeled, as predicted by several word learning principles. Children in contrast showed a greater shape bias for the familiar objects. Word learning principles are discussed, particularly the lexical principles framework (Golinkoff, Mervis, Hirsh-Pasek, 1994) and its ability to account for acquisition of adjectives. The framework contains some principles that apply to adjectives, but other principles might be necessary to account for acquisition of adjectives, such as a newly proposed principle of property scope. According to property scope, adjectives should be extended on the basis of a single property of objects

Media Berbasis Information and Communication Technology (Ict) Dalam Pembelajaran Sains Pada Anak Usia Dini

The purpose of this research was to develop learning media based on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in learning primary school science in the form of powerpoint with fruit theme. The desig of this research used by Research and Development (R & D) were adapted from the Borg and Gall models. The subjects of this research consisted of a teacher and ten A group children for small group trials, while for large group trials in two teachers with two classes with nine each. To made effective media there were some things to gave attention such as the text introduced to the child begins with lowercase instead of capital letters, written spelling made in the media raised by letter because in the early class children the introduction of words easier to do with spelling alphabet. Then the inserted image wasn't too much and the animation was too big can disturb the focus and concentration of the child on the material displayed. As well as the color of writing, the size of the writing should be enlarged with a bright color so didn't make difficult for children to spell the text presented. In addition, the selection of videos tailored to the material and media objectives, so that the results of this research was ICT-based media in the form of powerpoint appropriate to use teachers in science learning for childhood

It's all in the name : early writing: from imitating print to phonetic writing

Children as young as three years old succeed in imitating adult writing. About a hundred years ago, Alexander Luria’s case studies suggested that to denote meaning 6-year-olds’ scribbles include figurative devices such as color or number: a black scribble for ‘smoke’ and four small strokes to represent four little chicks. In our literate society, children as young as four years old use symbols such as letters and numbers. Writing begins with emotionally charged words: the child’s own name or mama. Letters from those words influence how children write unknown words. They compose letter strings (randomly ordered symbols) with letters from these names. Surprisingly name letters also give the initial impetus to phonetic spelling. When children begin to invent partly correct spellings, they start with representing the first letter of their proper name phonetically.LEI Universiteit LeidenGedragsveranderingen bij leerlingen en hun lerare

What Emotions Do Jason Reynolds’ Young Adult Novels Convey? A Sentiment Analysis

“The All-White world of children’s books” (Larrick, 1965) is still mainly White and heavily skewed in one direction. Black children are either entirely absent from the books or misrepresented in the stories. Although there has been a notable increase in publishing African American books over the past several years, “characters of color are [often] limited to the townships of occasional historical books that concern themselves with the legacies of civil rights and slavery” (Myers, 2014). These characters “are never given a pass card to traverse the lands of adventure, curiosity, imagination or personal growth” (Myers, 2014). With a focus on African American Young Adult books, in this paper, we show how Natural Language Processing (NLP) and sentiment analysis can be used as alternate tools to identify emotional patterns in diverse YA novels. We follow the approach for emotion analysis suggested by Mohammad (2012) and use manually created lexicons that contain Plutchik’s eight basic emotions. Also, we measure how the use of the emotion words changes through the course of our selected books and demonstrate the flow of the basic eight emotions as well as the sentiment associated with the emotion words in the sample books

Authors of pictures, draughtsmen of words

Human thought is unique. We have the ability to create and share meaning through the use of various kinds of symbol systems. This study explored the shared dynamics of visual and verbal symbolic thought processes and their consequences for the acquisition of literacy. In particular, the study focused on the writing, reading, and drawing processes of the children in a process-based first-grade classroom. Research methods included participant/observations, open-ended interviews, audio-taped classroom discussions and interviews, and samples of the writing and drawing of the children in the entire class, with a special focus on five of the students. A detailed analysis of the data revealed that young children strive to transfer the many dimensions of their mental images to the page, especially the dimensions of time, space, movement, and color. As they transfer these images, they rely on both words and pictures in a complementary manner, depending on the task at hand and the cognitive bias of the child. This research calls for an extension of the definition of literacy to include multi-literacies, and further investigations of the fine-tuning of these literacies that occurs beyond elementary school into adulthood

Exploring Topics and Genres in Storytime Books: A Text Mining Approach

Objective – While storytime programs for preschool children are offered in nearly all public libraries in the United States, little is known about the books librarians use in these programs. This study employed text analysis to explore topics and genres of books recommended for public library storytime programs. Methods – In the study, the researchers randomly selected 429 children books recommended for preschool storytime programs. Two corpuses of text were extracted from the titles, abstracts, and subject terms from bibliographic data. Multiple text mining methods were employed to investigate the content of the selected books, including term frequency, bi-gram analysis, topic modeling, and sentiment analysis. Results – The findings revealed popular topics in storytime books, including animals/creatures, color, alphabet, nature, movements, families, friends, and others. The analysis of bibliographic data described various genres and formats of storytime books, such as juvenile fiction, rhymes, board books, pictorial work, poetry, folklore, and nonfiction. Sentiment analysis results reveal that storytime books included a variety of words representing various dimensions of sentiment. Conclusion – The findings suggested that books recommended for storytime programs are centered around topics of interest to children that also support school readiness. In addition to selecting fictionalized stories that will support children in developing the academic concepts and socio-emotional skills necessary for later success, librarians should also be mindful of integrating informational texts into storytime programs

Independent writing in grades one and two

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University Page misnomered no 14

Young children retain fast mapped object labels better than shape, color, and texture words

We compared short- and long-term retention of fast mapped color, shape and texture words as well as object labels. In an exposure session, 354 3- and 4-year-old children were shown a set of two familiar and three novel stimuli. One of the novel stimuli was labeled with a new object label, color, shape or texture word. Retention of the mapping between the new word and the novel object or property was measured either five minutes or one week later. After five minutes, retention was significantly above chance in all conditions. However, after one week only the mappings for object labels were retained above chance levels. Our findings suggest that fast mapped object labels are retained long-term better than color, shape and texture words. The results also highlight the importance of comparing short- and long-term retention when studying children’s word learning