Scaffolding attention and partial word learning through interactive coviewing of educational media: An eye-tracking study with low-income preschoolers.

This study was designed to examine the effects of coviewing on low-income children’s attention to and understanding of novel words in educational media. In addition, we sought to understand coviewing’s contribution to children’s receptive and expressive word learning when some target words were repeated more or less frequently. Using a within-subjects design, 83 preschoolers viewed 2 educational media stories, 1 with an adult coviewer, and the other without, in a counterbalanced approach. Eye-tracking technology recorded children’s attention throughout viewing; pre- and posttests examined children’s gains in receptive and expressive word identification. Results indicated that children’s attention to target words was greater in the coviewing condition but appeared to contribute to expressive word learning only of lower repetition words. Attention mediated the relationship between coviewing and low-repetition word learning for expressive, but not receptive, vocabulary. Regardless of condition, children learned more words when they were repeated more frequently. This study provides further evidence that low-income children can pick up at least partial word knowledge on their own, particularly when words are repeated frequently. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved)