Information about education provided online, with recent results of scientific research and useful information for teachers, parents, students and the general public. Contributing to an informed debate.

Can vocabulary and knowledge be effectively developed in early childhood education? The benefits of a content-rich literacy curriculum
More people are learning to read than ever before. However, pupils’ performance in reading fluently and understanding what they read remains unsatisfactory — a trend aggravated by the covid-19 pandemic. As a result, reading comprehension has become an increasingly important focus of research. A 2025 study focusing on preschool education seeks to address two specific questions in this context. Does integrating vocabulary instruction with content knowledge help preschoolers’ reading comprehension? And do variables such as the children’s prior knowledge when they start preschool, their socioeconomic background, or the fact that they are being taught in a second language influence the outcomes?
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Reading bedtime stories: are parents helping with vocabulary building?
Reading stories to children plays a fundamental role in their acquisition of vocabulary. In “Timing story time to maximize children’s ability to retain new vocabulary”, an article published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology in 2021, a group of researchers at the University of York sought to verify to what extent children between the ages of five and seven learn new words when listening to their parents tell them stories. The study also sought to ascertain whether reading is particularly beneficial in the period prior to sleeping. They reach some interesting conclusions.
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