Automated Vocabulary Instruction in a Reading Tutor

This paper presents a within-subject, randomized experiment to compare automated interventions for teaching vocabulary to young readers using Project LISTEN's Reading Tutor. The experiment compared three conditions: no explicit instruction, a quick definition, and a quick definition plus a poststory battery of extended instruction based on a published instructional sequence for human teachers. A month long study with elementary school children indicates that the quick instruction, which lasts about seven seconds, has immediate effects on learning gains that did not persist. Extended instruction which lasted about thirty seconds longer than the quick instruction had a persistent effect and produced gains on a posttest one week later.