38 



Indiana University Studies 



Factoids in Knowledge of Words 



Just why any particular word should produce a particular 

 per cent of error is an important question. Evidently if a child 

 has never seen a word he cannot fairly be expected to know it. 

 True, if it contains a known phonogram or other familiar element 

 he may work out its sound or meaning or both, but, in general, 

 the words one knows visually are the Avords he has seen. If, 

 therefore, one fails to recognize or classify a word because it is a 

 new^ word that word becomes a measure of his range of reading 

 experience ; and hence a measure of the person himself. If the 

 majority of persons of his age, race, and opportunities do know 

 the word in question while he does not, his ignorance places him 

 somewhere in the lower 50 per cent of his social level. How 

 significant such a measure will be depends on how impoi'tant the 

 word is for actual life, but it is evident that such ignorance of many 

 words in general use cannot be anything but serious. 



The fortune or accident of having previously seen the word 

 is only one of the determinative facts in word knowledge. Of 

 two words previously seen, one may be remembered and the other 

 not. Thus one may have seen toth "camel" and "armadillo" 

 but remember only the former because he has seen it much oftener. 

 Practically everyone who can read at all knows "camel". Many of 

 those who do not know "armadillo" have seen it, but not suffi- 

 ciently often to fix it in mind. Just how^ often an}^ word must 

 be seen in order to be made a permanent part of any person's 

 visual vocabulary no one seems to know, even approximately. 

 Many words the child meets far oftener than necessary for learn- 

 ing. "The" is such a word, also "and", ''boy", "girl", etc. 

 Such words are vastly "overlearned". Other words are learned 

 just sufficiently for recognition, and are soon forgotten. Still 

 others are but partially learned and produce but a vague feeling 

 of familiarity on recurrence. It is entirely possible to determine 

 the number of repetitions needed by children of any age for the 

 solid acquisition of any word. We can hardly profess to make 

 much headway in the science of teaching reading until this is done. 

 Practically we should need to provide for a substantial amount 

 of "overlearning", but just the amount of such "overlearning" 

 needed is a definitely measureable fact and should be determined. 



All words will not behave alike as regards needed repetitions. 

 Of two words presented equally often, one will be forgotten and 

 the other remembered. Many factors such as recency, position, 



