What cues do children use to infer the meaning of unknown words while reading? Empirical data from German-speaking third graders

Abstract

During the development of reading skills in primary school, children begin to make guesses about unfamiliar words when reading a text. This process of lexical inference is an important source of new vocabulary acquisition. In the present study, 55 children with a wide range of reading skills and vocabulary knowledge were asked to infer the meaning of unknown words (i.e., pseudowords) inserted into a short story and to provide insight into their inferencing processes. The results show that children use a variety of cues. While learners with higher reading skills and vocabulary knowledge tend to be more successful inferencers and rely more on contextual cues, the evidence for the use of phonological cues is limited. Furthermore, in 20 percent of the cases, children were able to recall the meaning of a pseudoword already mentioned in the text.

Keywords

• lexical inferencing
• inferencing strategies
• reading acquisition
• vocabulary acquisition