Adults naturally comment and pose questions during joint book reading (JBR), a recognized context for vocabulary acquisition. An original story containing 10 nonsense words mapped to novel referents was read to 40 typically developing preschoolers. Children who heard scripted questions and comments identified approximately two more words than children in a control group, and the groups who heard comments named more new words than the control and questions-only groups. Unlike investigations of synonym learning during JBR, comments appeared more effective than questions. Future research will address an exposure advantage for comments and extend results to children with language impairment.
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