Reading as an ecological niche for lexicon development

Este é o resumo do trabalho que a Prof. Rosângela Gabriel e eu apresentamos no II Fórum Mundial de Dislexia.

According to previous studies (NAGY; ANDERSON, 1984; CUNNINGHAM, 2005; JOHANSSON, 2008) written texts present higher levels of lexical diversity and lexical density when compared to speech interactions. While listening to the oral reading of written texts or during autonomous reading,
the listener/reader is exposed to new words (sequences of phonemes and related concepts) appearing in relevant contexts and yet to new meanings for known words or to unexpected uses of words, as in metaphorical, idiomatic or ironical expressions. The intrinsic relationship between reading and lexical-semantic knowledge is postulated by the Matthew Effect (STANOVICH, 1986) which consists of the cumulative relationship between reading and lexical-semantic knowledge. Therefore frequent reading promotes readers lexical-semantic enrichment and, consequently, reflects in higher levels of
reading comprehension. In the present work we explore this relationship and how it can shed light on the development of teaching reading strategies. Initially, we present examples of lexical inferences built by participants while reading aloud children´s books in group with the teacher (SOUSA; GABRIEL, 2011). Secondly, strategies of meaning mediation used by the teacher in order to guide the learning of new words (labels and meanings) and new meanings for known words are presented.
Reading aloud in group can be seen as a joint attentional interaction and collective intentionality guided by the teacher in order to focus attention on new words and meanings in a meaningful context (TOMASELLO, 1999, 2014), creating an active, exploratory and interactive attitude towards reading
(KINTSCH, 1998; BECK et al. 2002).

Keywords: reading comprehension, lexical meaning inference, matthew effect, learning, teaching mediation