The efficacy of dictionary use while reading for learning new words

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Education
• Audiology

Background:

• Students with severe to profound hearing loss often face challenges in vocabulary acquisition.
• Effective vocabulary learning strategies are crucial for academic success in this population.
• The role of different dictionary types in supporting reading comprehension for deaf and hard-of-hearing students requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of three distinct dictionary types for vocabulary acquisition in high school students with severe to profound hearing loss.
• To compare the efficacy of an online bilingual multimedia English-ASL dictionary (OBMEAD), a paper English-ASL dictionary (PBEAD), and an online monolingual English dictionary (OMED).

Main Methods:

• A study involving high school students with severe to profound hearing loss.
• Participants utilized three types of dictionaries while reading to learn unknown vocabulary.
• Assessment of vocabulary acquisition through immediate and later recall measures.

Main Results:

• The online bilingual multimedia English-ASL dictionary (OBMEAD) demonstrated superior performance for immediate recall of target vocabulary.
• For later recall, no significant difference was observed between the OBMEAD and the paper English-ASL dictionary (PBEAD).
• Both the OBMEAD and PBEAD yielded statistically superior recall compared to the online monolingual English dictionary (OMED).

Conclusions:

• Online bilingual multimedia English-ASL dictionaries are highly effective for immediate vocabulary acquisition in deaf and hard-of-hearing high school students.
• Both online bilingual multimedia and paper English-ASL dictionaries offer significant benefits for vocabulary retention over monolingual English dictionaries.
• The findings support the integration of accessible, multimedia-rich bilingual resources to enhance reading comprehension and vocabulary development for students with hearing loss.