Many studies have demonstrated the crucial role of vocabulary in predicting reading performance in general. More recent work has indicated that one particular facet of vocabulary (its depth) is more closely related to language comprehension, especially inferential comprehension. On this basis, we developed a training application to specifically improve vocabulary depth. The objective of this study was to test the effectiveness of a mobile application designed to improve vocabulary depth. The effectiveness of this training was examined on 3rd and 4th grade children's vocabulary (breadth and depth), decoding and comprehension performances. A randomized waiting-list control paradigm was used in which an experimental group first received the intervention during the first 4 weeks (between pretest and post-test1), thereafter, a waiting control group received the training for the next 4 weeks (between postest1 and posttest2). Results showed that the developed application led to significant improvements in terms of vocabulary depth performance, as well as a significant transfer effect to reading comprehension. However, we did not observe such a beneficial effect on either vocabulary breadth or written word identification. These results are discussed in terms of the links between vocabulary depth and comprehension, and the opportunities the app presents for remedying language comprehension deficits in children.

中文翻译：

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ProVoc：训练词汇深度以培养儿童阅读理解能力的应用程序

许多研究已经证明了词汇在总体上预测阅读表现方面的关键作用。最近的研究表明，词汇的一个特定方面（其深度）与语言理解更密切相关，尤其是推理理解。在此基础上，我们开发了一个训练应用程序，专门提高词汇深度。本研究的目的是测试旨在提高词汇深度的移动应用程序的有效性。该培训的有效性在 3 年级和 4 年级儿童的词汇（广度和深度）、解码和理解能力方面进行了检验。一个随机的等待列表控制使用范式，其中实验组在前 4 周（前测和后测 1 之间）首先接受干预，然后等待控制组接受接下来的 4 周（后测 1 和后测 2 之间）的训练。结果表明，开发的应用程序在词汇深度表现方面取得了显着改善，并对阅读理解产生了显着的转移效应。然而，我们没有观察到对词汇广度或书面单词识别的这种有益影响。这些结果是根据词汇深度和理解能力之间的联系，以及该应用程序为纠正儿童语言理解缺陷提供的机会进行讨论的。