Woordenschatontwikkeling Allochtone Kleuters

This paper presents the results of a study on the effect of the vocabulary programme Taalplan Kleuters on the vocabulary acquisition of four- and five-year-old non-native speakers of Dutch. The basic question to be answered was the following:What is the effect of a very structured and systematic vocabulary programme like Taalplan Kleuters on the vocabulary acquisition of four- and five-year-old non-native speakers of Dutch in comparison with the effect of the less structured programme Knoop het in je oren for four-year-old non-native speakers of Dutch and Laat wat van je horen for five-year-old non-native speakers of Dutch?"For this study I used four groups of four- and five-year-old children: two experimental groups, one of four-year-olds and one of five-year-olds, and two control groups of the same age. In total 94 children took part in the study, which was conducted in the period from September till December 1993 at a primary school with 450 pupils, 95% of whom were of non-Dutch origin.All the children took two pre-tests: a programme related test (Taalplan Kleuters') and a non-related test ('Passieve en Actieve woordenschattaak' from the 'Taaltoets Allochtone Kinderen'). After these tests the experimental group worked with Taalplan Kleuters. The controlgroup consisting of four-year-old children worked with Knoop het in je oren while the controlgroup consisting of five-year-olds worked with Laat wat van je horen.After three months the children took the same tests again. The results showed that the two experimental groups scored significantly higher on both tests.