One of the youngest students in our program, a six-year-old, has perhaps the most sophisticated vocabulary among all our students. She once solemnly told me, "I go to my room and sob when I get into trouble." On another occasion, she thought something was wonderful, then remembered an equally fitting descriptor: "Or I could say it's exquisite. That's a fancy word for wonderful." Regarding an upcoming visit to relatives, she shared that "they have a new corral" on the ranch. This particular student loves the Fancy Nancy series by Jane O'Connor, so it's no surprise that she uses big words. Her large vocabulary, however, is unusual among our students, all of whom speak English as a second language. How has she been able to develop and actively use a large lexicon? How can we encourage other students to do the same?
Vocabulary is one of the essential components of literacy, and a child's vocabulary size is a strong predictor of future academic success. Four elements clearly help pave the way toward a large vocabulary: everyday conversation, rich experiences, reading, and explicit instruction.
Home conversations impact children from a very early age. Many research studies, including a 2013 Stanford University study by psychologists Anne Fernald and Adriana Weisleder, have demonstrated a strong correlation between the size of a young child's vocabulary and how much their parents talk to them. In essence, the more direct talk, the greater the vocabulary size. One important takeaway from Fernald and Weisleder's study: socioeconomic status does not have to determine the size of child's vocabulary. Parents of all income levels and backgrounds can help increase their children's vocabulary simply by speaking with them frequently throughout the day.
Experiences also open the door to vocabulary development. Visiting the zoo and learning new animal names is a prime example. How about enjoying new foods, such as tabouli from the Middle East? When we bring out the Snap Circuits kits, the students learn to identify positive and negative terminals on the batteries, the resistor, integrated circuits, etc. The children in our Literacy Movement Workshop this summer are learning a lot of new vocabulary through Peter and the Wolf: instruments such as bassoon and oboe and dance terminology such as choreography and Chassé. When we have a new sensory experience, it's human nature to want to know, "What am I seeing? Hearing? Eating? What do you call this movement?"
Books are a rich resource for sophisticated vocabulary. Research indicates that picture books contain many more rare words than everyday conversation and employ more formal language than daily conversation. In a study by Jessica Montag and colleagues at Indiana University, there were 1.72 times more unique words in a sample of one hundred picture books than in child-directed speech. According to the Huffington Post, another study by Dominic Massaro at the University of California, Santa Cruz found that picture books are "two to three times" more likely than home conversations to contain words beyond the 5000 most common English words.
Lastly, explicit instruction is an important method of vocabulary acquisition, albeit the most formal. Who could forget the word lists, the weekly quizzes from former school days? In our Reading & Math Buddy sessions nowadays, we take more time to focus on the meaning of words we encounter in our readings, to be sure the students don't just "decode" but understand the word in context. This means a more intentional study for our middle elementary students, as we discuss not only meaning, but also synonyms, antonyms, and parts of speech.
The six-year-old in our program has picked up rich vocabulary through her conversations at home, books, experiences, and attentive listening in formal learning contexts. As I consider her vocabulary development, these are a few applications to systematically implement into our programs:
1. Encourage volunteers to include informal vocabulary instruction as they talk through picture books with younger readers.
2. Include formal word lists for older readers in instruction time.
3. Design programs that introduce families to a variety of experiences and contexts. More arts programming, more recreational opportunities, more science, more game days for conversational opportunities.
4. Encourage parents to continuously dialogue with their children and provide diversity of experience.
As our students gain greater proficiency in decoding, we must ensure that they have the vocabulary to connect with the sounds, so that their reading has meaning.
Vocabulary is one of the essential components of literacy, and a child's vocabulary size is a strong predictor of future academic success. Four elements clearly help pave the way toward a large vocabulary: everyday conversation, rich experiences, reading, and explicit instruction.
Home conversations impact children from a very early age. Many research studies, including a 2013 Stanford University study by psychologists Anne Fernald and Adriana Weisleder, have demonstrated a strong correlation between the size of a young child's vocabulary and how much their parents talk to them. In essence, the more direct talk, the greater the vocabulary size. One important takeaway from Fernald and Weisleder's study: socioeconomic status does not have to determine the size of child's vocabulary. Parents of all income levels and backgrounds can help increase their children's vocabulary simply by speaking with them frequently throughout the day.
Experiences also open the door to vocabulary development. Visiting the zoo and learning new animal names is a prime example. How about enjoying new foods, such as tabouli from the Middle East? When we bring out the Snap Circuits kits, the students learn to identify positive and negative terminals on the batteries, the resistor, integrated circuits, etc. The children in our Literacy Movement Workshop this summer are learning a lot of new vocabulary through Peter and the Wolf: instruments such as bassoon and oboe and dance terminology such as choreography and Chassé. When we have a new sensory experience, it's human nature to want to know, "What am I seeing? Hearing? Eating? What do you call this movement?"
Books are a rich resource for sophisticated vocabulary. Research indicates that picture books contain many more rare words than everyday conversation and employ more formal language than daily conversation. In a study by Jessica Montag and colleagues at Indiana University, there were 1.72 times more unique words in a sample of one hundred picture books than in child-directed speech. According to the Huffington Post, another study by Dominic Massaro at the University of California, Santa Cruz found that picture books are "two to three times" more likely than home conversations to contain words beyond the 5000 most common English words.
Lastly, explicit instruction is an important method of vocabulary acquisition, albeit the most formal. Who could forget the word lists, the weekly quizzes from former school days? In our Reading & Math Buddy sessions nowadays, we take more time to focus on the meaning of words we encounter in our readings, to be sure the students don't just "decode" but understand the word in context. This means a more intentional study for our middle elementary students, as we discuss not only meaning, but also synonyms, antonyms, and parts of speech.
The six-year-old in our program has picked up rich vocabulary through her conversations at home, books, experiences, and attentive listening in formal learning contexts. As I consider her vocabulary development, these are a few applications to systematically implement into our programs:
1. Encourage volunteers to include informal vocabulary instruction as they talk through picture books with younger readers.
2. Include formal word lists for older readers in instruction time.
3. Design programs that introduce families to a variety of experiences and contexts. More arts programming, more recreational opportunities, more science, more game days for conversational opportunities.
4. Encourage parents to continuously dialogue with their children and provide diversity of experience.
As our students gain greater proficiency in decoding, we must ensure that they have the vocabulary to connect with the sounds, so that their reading has meaning.