Theoretical Framework
This study is based on the Mathew Effect Principle,
which Richard Merton and Harriet Zuckerman first proposed
in 1968. In subsequent years, the theory is applied to
reading-focused education by Keith Stanovich, a
psychologist who studied reading and language
difficulties. The "Matthew Effect" in education proposes
that those who are already proficient in a particular are
more likely to get more opportunities to excel compared
to those who are struggling in that area are likely to
fall further behind. As a result, there is a significant
gap between those who are still proficient and those who
are still struggling.
The theory supports Stanovich's (1886) contention
that the amount of reading experience plays a key role in
moderating the relationship between reading abilities and
vocabulary. According to the hypothesis, "the effect of
reading" can be used to explain both the individual
benefits that people can acquire and obtain from reading
as well as vocabulary growth.
When a child is not exposed to reading from an early
age, they may lose interest in reading and miss out on
the chance to learn novel concepts, background knowledge,
and information. On the other hand, children who are
exposed to reading early on are more likely to enjoy it,
be interested in reading, and expand their vocabulary. In
other words, according to the "Matthew Effect" theory,
the "word-rich" tend to get richer while the "word-poor"
are likely to fall further behind.
The Simple View of Reading Model, created by Gough
and Tummer in 1986, is an additional framework. This
suggests that word recognition and language comprehension
are the two main factors in reading comprehension.
According to the model, a reader's capacity for word
recognition and decode words, also known as their word
decoding skills is crucial for reading comprehension
since it enables them to access the meaning of the text.
The approach also acknowledges that reading comprehension
is equally dependent on language comprehension, or the
reader's capacity to comprehend and interpret the content
of the text.
According to the concept, readers who have great
word recognition abilities but poor language
comprehension abilities are more likely to have trouble
understanding what they are reading. This might be
relevant to the study of the status of vocabulary
proficiency among students concentrating in humanities
and social sciences in CCDC. The study might specifically
look at to determine if there is a discrepancy between
vocabulary knowledge and language comprehension
capabilities, or whether student with greater vocabulary
skills also have stronger language comprehension skills.