Word Learning and Literacy

Word learning is an important part in developing a child's language abilities. More importantly, children's vocabulary can predict their literacy skills later. Based on language acquisition research, we provide intervention strategies and tips to help your child improve vocabulary skills.

How does your child develop vocabulary?

Research has led to the discovery of two main pathways that that your child uses to develop vocabulary. In the early years of language acquisition, children use a decoding pathway, which is responsible for letter knowledge, phonetics and more surface level knowledge of word learning. As children get older, the decoding pathway is used less and the language comprehension pathway takes over, which incorporates skills such as vocabulary variation, grammar, and comprehension. While children eventually acquire the language comprehension pathway, the decoding pathway is important in serving as a foundation for development. It predicts literacy performance in later years, so it is important to work on decoding skills at an early age.

Why your child's early vocabulary is important: Findings from the research

Vocabulary at 19 months has been found to predict reading comprehension ability at age 12.
A correlation has also been found between maternal vocabulary and children's vocabulary and reading .

Growing Vocabulary!

Here are 6 ways to help grow your child’s vocabulary:

1. Frequency Matters

What it means: Children learn the words they encounter the most, so the more you talk with your child, the more chances they have to hear a word and fully understand its meaning.
How to use it: Talking with your child often and reading the same book will give them repeated exposure to words that they will come to learn.

2. Make it Interesting

What it means: Just like adults, children learn more about what they care about.
How to use it: Whether it’s dinosaurs, trains, princesses, or puzzles that your child is currently into, make the most of her interest by engaging in conversations about the things she likes. These are the kinds of topics she’ll learn the most while talking about!

3. Make it Responsive

What it means: Engaging children in conversation is more effective and meaningful than just talking at them, so allow them to play an active role in daily interactions.
How to use it: Ask your child questions and give them time to respond.

4. Focus on Meaning

What it means: There’s a reason your child feels the need to ask “What’s that?” 500 times per day, and it’s not because he just wants to learn the names of objects around him. More than just labels, young children want to know ABOUT what they see. When they say “What’s that?” they’re asking “What does that do?”, “Whose is it?”, “How does that work?”, etc.
How to use it: Next time your child asks this question or seems curious about a new object, don’t just give a label! Focus on deeper meaning by explaining how the object works and what it’s purpose is and your child will be much more likely to remember its name.

5. Be Clear:

What it means: A child will only learn new words and definitions if they understand what you are saying to them!
How to use it: Be aware of a child’s prior knowledge when talking with them so you can clearly communicate in a way that makes sense to them. While it is important to introduce novel words into conversation so a child can start receiving exposure to new words, the new words should be paired with more familiar words and contexts.

6. Explore Every Word:

What it means: It is helpful to learn how a word is formed and how it can be used in different contexts. Remember when you come across a new word but can guess its meaning based on the word parts? Children use the same technique to develop their vocabulary and literacy skills.
Explain how the word can be used in different situations: "You swim; he swims; little duckling; so many ducklings." Don't stop at explaining the word meaning; look into components of the word and how it is related to similar words.

7. Go Beyond the Word:

What it means: Children need more than just a memorized list of words to build a solid vocabulary. Understanding grammar and how words fit together to form sentences helps children figure out the meaning of new words from context. Knowing more words helps children understand grammar too. Both elements work together to build a diverse, usable vocabulary.
How to use it: You can help this process happen by exposing your child to complex language and real sentences, not just single words paired with images or objects.

How to Help Your Child Get the Most out of Vocabulary Learning

Basic strategies

Give the definition AND the context for the word. This will help your child to use the word correctly in the future.
Ask questions about the word that your child will be able to understand. Do this in order to help with deeper processing and better word memory.
Repeat the new word several times. Multiple exposures will help the word stick with your child and provides more examples of correct context.

What kinds of words should I be targeting?

Tier 1: learned early through interaction. Your child likely already knows words in this level and they should not be targeted.
Tier 2: high in frequency, learned through instruction. These words can be targeted for their relevance in everyday life and their moderate difficulty.
Tier 3: low frequency. Your child will need the most contextual instruction and targeting on level three, but, because of the difficulty of words the targets, should only come up when relevant.

Vocabulary Development and Implications

Intervention is needed before third grade (the end of the preliterate period).

Disadvantaged children can catch up with vocabulary, but it's harder to catch up if they fall behind after third grade.
Children of all backgrounds can benefit from intervention. Children learn certain types of words before others regardless of their background. For example, they learn nouns before verbs.

Use prefixes and suffixes to help children build their vocabulary.

Children use contextual clues to learn new words.
Using words with prefixes and suffixes is an easy way to develop vocabulary.

Encourage vocabulary learning at home.

Home support, not school support, determines the vocabulary size by the end of the preliterate period.
The amount of words and different types of words spoken by the parents are related to children's vocabulary size.
There's no evidence that the elementary school environment influences vocabulary growth during early literacy development.

Intervention Strategies in Schools and Child Care Programs

Intervention is most effective when it is implemented during the preliterate period. The following strategies involve vocabulary development through story book learning, and can be modified for home or school environments.

Step 1: Designate a daily reading time.

Read stories for 20-30 minutes each day so that reading can become a habitual activity for the kids
Rotate between 10-12 stories so children can familiarize themselves with vocabulary and sentence structure

Step 2: Select appropriate vocabulary words to target.

Consider teacher input based off of each child's experience and familiarity with target vocabulary
Reinforce words that are unknown to the bottom 25% of the class to correct word learning gaps

Step 3: Before, during, and after reading time, implement the following dialogic reading methods (also discussed here):

BEFORE: adult explains vocabulary and reviews meanings to familiarize children with target words
DURING: adult takes an active reading technique to help children associate word meanings in context
AFTER: adult and children together discuss any difficult words and review target vocabulary

The best learning strategies for children will involve as many of these interactive teaching strategies as possible per session!

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