Vocabulary
What is vocabulary?
“Vocabulary refers to student’s knowledge of, and memory for, words meanings. Vocabulary knowledge is demonstrated not only through reading and writing, but also through oral language – listening and speaking” (LETRS, pg.4).
- Receptive: listening and reading
- Expressive: speaking and writing
It is important to learn how to communicate effectively whether using technology, our voices, and other methods of communication. Learning how to communicate is a learning process. Listening requires one to take in sound. Knowing what to do with the sound is the next step. Speaking requires one to produce sounds.
Students’ word knowledge is linked strongly to academic success because students who have large vocabularies can understand new ideas and concepts more quickly than students with limited vocabularies. The high correlation in the research literature of word knowledge with reading comprehension indicates that if students do not adequately and steadily grow their vocabulary knowledge, reading comprehension will be affected (Chall & Jacobs, 2003).
Students need to be provided many opportunities to listen, speak, read, and write words in and across all content areas.
- A student who reads 21 minutes per day outside of school reads almost 2 million words per year.
- A student who reads less than a minute per day outside of school reads only 8,000 to 21,000 words per year (Texas Reading Initiative, 2002).
Tiers of Vocabulary
- Tier 1 – common words – exs: baby, chair, phone, boy, girl
- Tier 2 – words to teach, high-usage words – exs: saunter, compare, summarize, formulate, faltered, calibrate
- Tier 3 – low frequency words, content words – exs: isotope, integer, peninsula, dividend, magma
| Cranston Public School Videos |
| Semantic Map |
| Frayer Model |
| Sorting Words by Categories |
| Writing Definitions |
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| Home Activities |
| Encourage students to read everyday |
| Practice new words they are learning |
| Listen to adults read and talk |
| Play Games (Up Words, Boggle, Scrabble, Crossword Puzzles, Wordle, Flashcards,Word Scrambles…) |
| Vocabulary Resources |
| Reading Rockets - Reading 101 for Parents: Vocabulary |
| University of Florida Literacy Institute – Parent Resource Hub |
| Online Etymology Dictionary |
| Visuwords |
| Freerice |
For additional information, please contact your child's classroom teacher.