Early Vocabulary Development

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Vocabulary development refers to the knowledge of stored information about the meanings and pronunciations of words necessary for communication. Vocabulary development is important for beginning reading in that when a student comes to a word and sounds it out, he or she is also determining if the word makes sense based on his or her understanding of the word (Antunez, B. 2002. English Language Learners and the Five Essential Components of Reading Instruction). In order for any student, much less an ELL student, to learn how to comprehend what they read or write they need to understand what the words they are reading mean. If they have no meaning associated to the word then they have no comprehension of what what they just read. According …show more content…

When the student comes from a poor socioeconomic background or a home that speaks another language, these students will most likely enter school with very low vocabulary word bank. When these children begin preschool and kindergarten, they are significantly behind in vocabulary development compared to their higher-income peers. (restated in A Tiered Intervention Model for Early vocabulary Instruction ). Hart and Risley, 2003, stated that by 3 years old, children from homes of professional parents had accumulated vocabularies of approximately 1,100 words, children from working-class families knew approximately 750 words, and children from homes receiving public assistance knew 520 words (restated in Akhavan p7). Children in economically disadvantaged households were exposed to significantly fewer words, which was related to their own vocabulary use as well as their rate of vocabulary growth during these formative years. To further emphasize the importance of early experiences with vocabulary, knowledge of vocabulary appears to be a critical correlate to the development of phonemic awareness in young children, as important emergent literacy skill (Goswami, 2001 restated by Blachowicz, C., Fisher, P., Ogle, D., …show more content…

The teacher introduces the word, definition, give examples of using the word correctly in a sentence and allows the students to think of additional sentences with the word. Teachers should heighten ELLs vocabulary by engaging them in playful activities, games, or acting out the word. After this, that goes on the word wall where the student can see the word, see the picture that defines the word, and they can refer to it when needed. Patrick C. Manyak adds that teachers have stressed that the presence of the images on the word wall has been crucial for their ELs (Manyak, P. 2010. Vocabulary Instruction for English Learners: Lessons From MCVIP. The Reading Teacher, 64(2), pp143-146). Another way of teaching vocabulary is explicit teaching of the word in context where the students are exposed to the word on several occasions. This could be pictures books that are age appropriate, read alouds, guided reading, and shared reading. These books engage the ELL learners by giving them a visual (the picture) to go along with the words and they are at the ELLs reading level so they are not overwhelmed. Incidental word learning, through listening or reading, is important to students’ general vocabulary development (Blachowiz, C., Fisher, P., Ogle, D., & Watts-Taffe, S. 2006. Vocabulary: Questions from the classroom, Reading Research Quarterly. Vol.41, No.

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