Icelandic children’s vocabulary between ages 4 and 8: Longitudinal study of growth-rate and stability

• Main Author: Ragnarsdóttir, Hrafnhildur
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Icelandic
• Published: Menntavísindasvið Háskóla Íslands 2019
• Subjects: language development from age four to eight; vocabulary; Isl-PPV T; growth-rate; stability; gender differences; longitudinal study; málþroski á mótum leik- og grunnskóla; orðaforði; Ísl-PPVT; vaxtarhraði; stöðugleiki; kynjamunur; langtímarannsókn; Reykjavík; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ojs.hi.is/index.php/netla/article/view/2928

Multiple studies of children learning English have confirmed the amazing speed of children’s vocabulary growth in the preschool and primary school years as well as its vital importance for children’s future literacy development and learning. Already at this early age, however, important individual differences in vocabulary size are consistently reported and they tend to increase rather than decrease with age. Until recently, research on Icelandic children’s language development has been rather sparse and fragmentary, hampered among other things by the lack of assessment tools. The longitudinal project reported on in this paper, Development in early childhood: language development, literacy, and self-regulation, is the first of its kind in Iceland. The overall goal of the project was to develop necessary assessment tools and provide up to date scientific evidence of Icelandic children’s language (vocabulary, morphology, listening comprehension and spoken and written text construction) and literacy (phonological awareness, letter knowledge, word reading, spelling, reading comprehension) development between ages 4 and 8 and investigate their mutual interactions. Furthermore, we wanted to explore the range of individual differences at this age and how they were related to various background variables, social-cognitive skills and to the children’s later literacy development. In the present paper the focus is on one aspect of the study: The growth-rate of Icelandic children’s vocabulary from age 4 to 8, as measured by a test of receptive vocabulary developed for this project, Isl-PPVT.The study employed a sequential design, including two groups of monolingual Icelandic children that overlapped in first grade (age 6). The younger group included 111 4-year-old children (Mean age = 4;6, SD = 0;3) from eight preschools in Reykjavík, 56 girls and 55 boys, and the older 111 6-year-olds (M = 6;6, SD = 6;3) in 1st grade, including 65 boys and 46 girls. All children were followed up for three years and the younger group was ...