Language is our main form of communication, and with language comes vocabulary. Simply put vocabulary is the persons’ understanding of words being used to communicate. Vocabulary building starts at birth by the child responding to caregivers. Caregivers of young children quickly learn what different sounds and gestures that the baby makes indicating their needs. At the same time, the child is building their communication understanding and their brains continue to develop their personal vocabulary.
If you’re around young children, two to three years old, you begin to realize that many have an understanding even though their spoken vocabulary is still very limited. They are able to complete simple tasks such as, “Get your cup,” yet they are unable to say those words. This is because much of our environmental vocabulary is absorbed and applied as we experience the interaction with the activity or object. As our brains develop the skills of inference and application develop allowing our vocabulary to expand and out ability to communicate with others.
We know there is a large vocabulary gap between socioeconomic classes (Hirsch, 2003). Sparks (2013) showed that low-income children’s vocabulary entering school was between 500 and 600 words. The old school approach of teaching vocabulary by introducing the words as they are presented in the curriculum has shown that struggling students were not able to retain or use those words later in the year (Sparks, 2013). Vocabulary is something absorbed and the student does not take ownership of the word until exposure and understanding along with the application are fully experienced.
Vocabulary is first a language skill. It begins to develop at birth and continues throughout life. Every language has its own vocabulary which ultimately leads to comprehension. Vocabulary as a reading skill plays just as important a role as comprehension. The reader needs knowledge and a base vocabulary to be able to infer words from meaning in conversations prior to using reading to build vocabulary. There is a point with every reader when the fastest way to expand vocabulary is through reading rather than conversation. Until the student has mastered their decoding and use of language inference skill they will struggle with both vocabulary and comprehension. To keep this from happening the reader has to have strong language skills so that they can then transfer them to their reading.
Students who struggle with reading will often struggle when it comes to gaining vocabulary and comprehension from text and then applying it. If you have a reader who has this struggle, you need to step back and see how strong their ability to pick up the meaning of new words is from conversations. Just because they are able to read the word and pronounce it correctly does not mean they have the ability to decipher the meaning of the word from the context of the sentence. If this is the case the reader needs additional instruction and language support.
There is no question that vocabulary is a key element to reading. Knowing the sequence in which students develop vocabulary will provide the support your students need and lead to better comprehension in their reading. So the next time you have the opportunity to work with vocabulary, stop and quickly evaluate by asking yourself, “Am I providing the type of vocabulary instruction my students need?”
References:
Hirsch, E.D., Jr. “Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge of Words and the World: Scientific Insights to the Fourth-Grade Slump and the Nationan’s Stagnant Comprehension Scores.” American Educator, Spring 2003, pp. 10-29
Sparks, S.D. “Students Must Learn More Words, Say Studies.” Education Week, February 5, 2013.
