Story repetition helps kids acquire new vocabulary
By ANIMonday, February 21, 2011
SYDNEY - Academics have indicated that children who demand the same story be read to them over and over again may be learning more than those who choose a different tale every time.
Research at the University of Sussex has found that repetition in reading storybooks is more likely to help a child acquire a new vocabulary.
Psychologist Dr Jessica Horst and her team devised an experiment in which groups of three-year-olds were exposed to two new words.
Each word was a made-up name for an unfamiliar object, such as a “sprock”, which was a hand-held device used for mixing food.
Over the course of a week, one group heard three different stories with the same new words.
Another group heard only one of the stories with the same new words.
Each book contained drawings of the new objects.
When tested after a week, those who had heard one story were much better at recalling and remembering the new words than those who had been exposed to three different stories.
“This research suggests that it’s not the number of books, but the repetition of each book that leads to greater learning,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Horst as saying. (ANI)
