Teaching Sight Vocabulary with and without Context before Silent Reading: A Field Test of the “Focus of Attention” Hypothesis

Abstract

This study examines the role of written context and word meaning-emphasis procedures in teaching children sight vocabulary. It serves as a field test of Samuels' (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Samuels, 1967; Singer, Samuels, & Spiroff, 1973–74) “focus of attention” hypothesis. This hypothesis argues that introducing sight vocabulary in the presence of written context or pictures distracts learners, and precludes their focusing all of their attention on the important visual or graphic characteristics of the word. This position is in conflict with the traditional, context approach to teaching sight vocabulary, which advocates presenting the words in the context of a written sentence, discussing the word's meaning, or presenting the word in association with a picture. Previous research in this area is limited by such factors as presenting words printed in artificial alphabets; not teaching words, but simply exposing and pronouncing them; and isolated word instruction not followed by meaningful, silent reading. In the present study, 16 disabled readers were taught sight words by one of two methods: context, which emphasized context, meaning, usage, and the visual characteristics of the words; and minimal-context, which emphasized only the visual characteristics. Each subject was taught 80 words during 4 weeks of individual remedial instruction. Using number of words learned or retained per minute of instruction as the dependent variable, children in the minimal-context method learned at twice the rate, though there was no significant difference between the two groups in actual number of words learned or retained. It was concluded from this field study, that sight vocabulary teaching procedures that emphasize context, meaning and usage do not facilitate learning sight vocabulary. The findings are interpreted as supporting Samuels' “focus of attention” hypothesis.