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The effect of explicit instruction on learning vocabulary and text comprehension

Abstract:

The present study examined whether vocabulary intervention improves text comprehension by explicitly teaching words. The participants were institutionalized students aged between 9 and 12 years (n= 23), who completed five sessions based on solid vocabulary instruction. The semantic understanding of the taught words was measured before and after the intervention. Subsequently, they read two matched texts, one containing taught words (ie, explicit instruction) and one without (ie, minimal guidance instruction). The data suggest that solid vocabulary instruction significantly improved word comprehension. Specifically, they performed better in terms of the number of words learned and the amount of responses to implicit and explicit questions. It is recommended for teachers to conduct direct and explicit vocabulary interventions to improve reading comprehension in institutionalized students.