A recent study by Booton and colleagues, investigated whether a brief lexical inference intervention could support children aged 7–8 years in learning the multiple meanings of homonyms, words that share the same spelling but carry distinct meanings (e.g., bat, bank, bark). Despite the prevalence of homonyms in everyday English and their well-documented challenge for young readers, no effective targeted intervention had previously been identified in the literature.
The researchers conducted two separate randomized controlled trials (RCTs) across English state primary schools. In Study 1, 180 children from six schools were randomly assigned to either an inference training condition (n = 60) or a spatial reasoning active control condition (n = 120). Participants attended four 30-minute intervention sessions delivered in small groups of four over a two-week period. In Study 2, 76 children, including 37 with English as an Additional Language (EAL) and 39 with English as a first language (EL1), were assigned through stratified randomisation to either the inference training (n = 40) or an implicit exposure control involving contextualised reading (n = 36). This second study also incorporated pre-registered methodology and measured metacognitive and inference skills alongside homonym knowledge.
The inference intervention, referred to as “Word Detectives,” trained children to use contextual clues within sentences to deduce the intended meaning of a homonym. Children were taught to notice, question, and infer meanings in a structured, experimenter-led format. The control groups received time-matched activities of a different nature—either spatial reasoning tasks (Study 1) or implicit reading exposure to the same target vocabulary without explicit inference instruction (Study 2). Receptive knowledge of both taught and untaught homonyms was assessed before and after the intervention using a researcher-developed homonym recognition task, while Study 2 additionally employed the York Assessment of Reading for Comprehension (YARC) to measure standardised reading comprehension.
Results from both RCTs consistently demonstrated that children in the inference training conditions made significantly greater gains in receptive homonym knowledge than their counterparts in the control groups. In Study 2, trained children also showed improved performance on the inference task itself. Importantly, while children with EAL displayed a specific baseline disadvantage in receptive homonym knowledge relative to their EL1 peers, the intervention proved equally effective for both language groups, suggesting its broad applicability across diverse classroom populations. Furthermore, receptive knowledge of homonyms and inference ability each predicted unique variance in reading comprehension scores beyond other vocabulary measures, highlighting the educational significance of homonym understanding for broader literacy outcomes.
The study did, however, identify notable limitations. Transfer of learning to untaught homonyms was limited, although error analysis suggested emergent generalisation of the inferencing strategy. The intervention window was brief (approximately two weeks), and follow-up data beyond the immediate post-test were not collected, leaving questions about the durability of gains unanswered. The researchers call for future studies with longer intervention periods, delayed follow-up assessments, and investigations into whether the intervention could be scaled for classroom delivery by teachers rather than trained researchers.
These findings carry meaningful implications for educational practice. Explicitly teaching lexical inference as a skill, rather than relying on incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading alone, may represent an efficient and equitable approach to bolstering both vocabulary and reading comprehension in the primary years, particularly in linguistically diverse classrooms where English language learners are present.
Source (Open Access): Booton, S. A., Birchenough, J. M., Gilligan‐Lee, K., Jelley, F., & Murphy, V. A. (2026). Lexical inference training for homonyms: Two randomized controlled trials for children with English as a first and an additional language. British Journal of Educational Psychology.
