Vocabulary is what most of us would think it is. It is the knowledge of the meaning of words. The difference from what I thought of as vocabulary and what I have come to think of it is how much oral language contributes to it. When I think of vocabulary I think of the vocab tests I took in school and that I have given to my students. However, I have come to understand that those types of vocabulary lessons and tests will have a limited impact on students’ vocabulary skills. However, a students’ oral vocabulary can have a big impact on their learning and vocabulary skills.
Just like the phonemic awareness skills that I have talked about in another post, vocabulary can be learned orally. As children learn to speak and they have conversations with their families and the people around them, they are developing their strongest vocabulary skills. If there is not enough conversation or the people they talk to have limited vocabularies, then their vocabularies will be limited too. This is why it is imperative that we force children to put their devices down and have conversations. They need to talk to each other and to their families and to their teachers. They need to research things they love and talk about them. They need to do book talks and describe the meaning of unknown words that they learn in their reading. This is because their oral vocabulary is the biggest indicator of their vocabulary skills. If a student has accurate and automatic Phonemic Awareness, accurate and automatic Phonological (phonics) Awareness and a limited oral vocabulary they will still struggle to map words efficiently. Because words are mapped by meaning, students who can decode words, but don’t know what they mean will struggle to map them quickly. They can still map them based on their knowledge of the meaning of the letter sounds and the reasons for the letters making those sounds. This knowledge and meaning will not be as useful as the meaning of the words themselves, though. However, if a student has that accurate and automatic foundation in phonemic and phonological awareness AND a strong oral vocabulary then they will grow their sight vocabulary much faster. This means that they will increase their fluency in reading much faster and efficiently.
This does NOT mean that there is no place for vocabulary tests, roots lessons and learning new words during Read Alouds, Book Studies, Science and Social Studies lessons. It does mean that we cannot rely on them for the building of students’ vocabularies. We need to build students’ vocabularies through class discussions, debate and life experiences and activities. We need to share with our students the value of face-to-face conversations. We need to draw them in by using big words and calling things like sounds by their actual names like phonemes. We need to call digraphs digraphs instead of just letter teams or pairs. Every opportunity you have to expose children to new words and meanings we must take.
The main takeaways are that vocabulary comes mainly through oral language and that we should do our best to provide our children and students with a rich oral vocabulary environment. When children or students have a limited oral vocabulary we can help them by providing these rich oral environments. We can still use vocabulary tests and roots lessons to build on what they know, but we need to remember that there is no substitute for having conversations! That is why we feel like we know that students or children have learned or mastered words when they start to use them when they talk. Vocabulary should be a never ending adventure in learning, there is always more to learn! Let me know some of the strategies that you have used successfully to help children grow their vocabularies!
Also, if you enjoyed this post you may enjoy these posts on the other pillars of reading:
2 comments on “Vocabulary, What It Is and What It Isn’t.”
cassbeth
Right or wrong (I’ve heard both arguments) my husband and I chose to not use baby talk with our children. For both of our children their comprehension skills came much sooner than their language and I wanted their language to be accurate when they were finally able to use it.
Also, as tiring as it can be sometimes, we both take the time to truly answer the question, “what does _____ mean?” until our child understands and can connect the word to the definition and use it in context in conversation.
audreavore9981
That’s a fabulous way to boost their oral vocabulary which will only enhance their reading journey as it comes! Removing baby talk doesn’t have to remove love or warm fuzzies and I think that is the most important thing for young children to have.