Learning Vocabulary through Reading by Joseph. R. Jenkins, Marcy L. Stain, and Katherine Wysocki

Article title : Learning Vocabulary through  Reading
Writer         : Joseph. R. Jenkins, Marcy L. Stain, and Katherine Wysocki
Journal/Newspaper : American Educational Research Journal (winter 1984), vol.21, no.4, Pp. 767-787
Date published : 1984         Number of words: 420
List no. : 298

This article examined the hypothesis that new vocabulary knowledge can be acquired through incidental learning of word meanings from context. It also examined the prior experience with the meaning of the unfamiliar words and reading ability. The method used in this research is case study which one hundred and twelve fifth grade students participated in this study. The 18 vocabulary words selected were designated as low frequency words for fifth grade students. Two days before the treatment, teachers gave their students familiarization training with all 18 words. Students were randomly assigned to different numbers of context presentations: 0, 2, 6, or 10 passages read over several days. Four posttest measures were administered: three vocabulary tests and one reading comprehension test. The result of the study is that they acquired some word meanings from context even without explicit directions to consider the unfamiliar words. Increased context presentations resulted in greater word learning, and more than two context presentations were needed to affect vocabulary acquisition. The prior exposure may itself have effectively "taught" the words, or it may have had an attention effect. Turning to the reading comprehension results, students were better able to comprehend those parts of the stories involving key vocabulary when they had previously read the vocabulary in other passages, but the quantity of these prior experiences, at least within the 2-10 range, appeared not to matter much.
The authors put their selves as instructors and observers in this study. They studied the case and gave the instruction to students to examine the hypothesis and obtain the result.
I agree that learning words from context is very useful for increasing vocabulary and it only can be acquired through reading. As Nagy, Herman and Anderson (1985) argue that teachers should promote extensive reading because it can lead to greater vocabulary growth than one program of explicit instruction alone ever could. So, learning vocabulary through reading and guessing meaning from context gives so many benefits for students.
When I was trying to guess meaning from context and learn vocabulary through reading, it really works well to improve my vocabulary. I get used to not looking for the meaning of the new words in dictionary by trying to look into the context.