Janssen, C. 1 , Segers, E. 1 , McQueen, J. M. 1, 2, 3 & Verhoeven, L. 1
1 Radboud University Nijmegen, Behavioural Science Institute, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
2 Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
3 Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Vocabulary knowledge is strongly connected to later success in school, however, second language learners often enter primary school with limited vocabulary in the target language. Speech decoding skill, phonological awareness and lexical specificity are phonological variables that have been shown to be related to children?s vocabulary. Improvement of these variables may enhance vocabulary development of both first and second language learners. In this study, the role of lexical specificity in word learning was explored. Lexical specificity is defined as knowledge on how words ought to sound and is highly related with phonological awareness. First language learners (4-year-old monolingual Dutch children) and second language learners (4-year-old Turkish-Dutch bilingual children) were compared in their improvement on phonological awareness after having received a lexical specificity training. Preliminary results show that lexical specificity training enhances phoneme blending, the ability to identify a word when hearing parts of the word in isolation (a component of phonological awareness), both in first and second language learners. Moreover, phonological overlap of the Dutch and the Turkish language in stimulus materials of the lexical specificity training contributed most to the gain in phoneme blending for the second language learners. A first step has been taken in finding a way to close the gap in word knowledge between young first and second language learners.