Hypertext and vocabulary

In a hypertext, or any electronic text for that matter, a rich variety of help in defining words and phrases can easily be accessible to a reader. The meaning of a word could be explicated with video, animation, sound, and text upon demand (the use of multimedia in creating a hypertext is often referred to as hypermedia). The word might also be presented with other conceptually related words that could effortlessly be cross-referenced as opposed to being presented alphabetically with words that happen to share similar spellings, as is currently necessary for locating words efficiently in a standard dictionary. If you are especially interested in the connection between technology, reading, and vocabulary, you might wish to read the study Sharon Rickman and I did (Reinking & Rickman, 1990) to investigate the effects of using computers to provide the definitions of difficult words to readers while they read electronic texts.

Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted May 1997
Published by the International Reading Association, Inc.   ISSN 1096-1232