Document Type

Article

Abstract

Research indicates that when literate children and adults hear a new word that they have never seen in print, they create an expectation for how the word may be spelled. However, studies have not yet examined the extent to which orthographic knowledge plays a role in children's spoken vocabulary learning when words are taught without print. The current study used structural equation modelling to examine the relation between children's word reading ability and their ability to learn novel words from spoken instruction. Children (N = 335; 7–9 years; 52% female; <  1% American Indian/Alaskan Native, 33% Black, 1% Multiracial, <  1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 2% Other; 57% White; 6% did not report race; 2% Hispanic/Latino, 97% Not Hispanic/Latino; <  1% did not report ethnicity) completed norm-referenced language and reading assessments and experimental measures of spoken word learning. Word reading ability and vocabulary knowledge uniquely predicted spoken word learning with respective medium-small and medium-large effects after controlling for phonological memory, general language ability, and nonverbal cognition. Thus, orthographic skill has important effects on vocabulary learning, unaccounted for in previous research, that should be addressed in current theory and practice.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.70062

Rights

© 2026 The Author(s). Infant and Child Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

APA Citation

Bryant, T. J., Duff, D., Bell, B., Fitton, L., & Adlof, S. M. (2026). Invisible Print? Reading Skill Predicts Children’s Learning of Novel Spoken Words. Infant and Child Development, 35(1). https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.70062

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