This study examined the effectiveness of context on the
acquisition of new vocabulary for good and poor readers. Twentyeight
Grade Three children, fourteen good readers and fourteen poor
readers, took part in a word-learning task within three conditions:
(1) strong sentence context, (2) weak sentence context, and (3) list
condition. The primary hypothesis was that poor readers would show
less learning in the list condition than good readers and that there
would be no difference in the amount of learning in the sentence
conditions. Results revealed that: (a) Words are read faster in
sentence contexts than in 1 ist contexts; (b) more learning or
greater improvement in performance occurs in list contexts and weak
sentence contexts as opposed to strong sentence contexts; and (c)
that most of these differences can be attributed to the build-up of
meaning in sentences. Results indicated that good and poor readers
learned more about words in all three condi tions. More learning and
greater performance occurred in the list condition as opposed to the
two sentence conditions for both subject groups. However, the poor
readers learned significantly more about words in both the list
condition and the weak sentence condition than the good readers
