Orthographic Support for Verb Identification in Typically Developing Three-Year-Old Children

Children, as young as four years of age, have demonstrated enhanced noun learning when presented with orthographic representations during word learning tasks. This study sought to determine if three-year-old typically developing children would demonstrate an orthographic facilitation effect during an asynchronous computer-based verb learning task. One-hundred ten children were taught 8 novel verbs by presenting videos of novel actions paired with novel labels in sentence frames. Four novel verbs were taught with orthographic support present and four were taught without orthographic support. Participants were exposed to the words a total of two times and then given a post-test to assess identification and word recognition. Additionally, we gathered data on letter identification ability and parent-reported measures of literacy interest and experiences. Participants demonstrated no orthographic facilitation effect for learning verbs, but a marginally significant increase in sight word recognition from pretest to posttest when orthographic representations were present during the exposure phase. Most children were able to identify the letters used in the experiment; however, we lack information on required literacy skills underlying benefits from orthographic representations during word learning tasks. Certain literacy skills, extending beyond letter identification, may be essential for children to benefit from orthographic support. Future research will incorporate additional literacy skill measures, such as letter-sound correspondence and word decoding, to further elucidate specific skills necessary for optimal outcomes in orthography-supported noun and verb learning tasks.