“Give me words to read the books and give me books I can read,” demanded the fifth-grade student. This student has learned the importance of vocabulary to reading. The National Reading Panel Report has outlined five essential components of early reading instruction. These five essential components are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The fifth-grade student above is expressing how important vocabulary is to being able to read.

Recent research has shown that vocabulary is one of the best predictors of academic success. Vocabulary is so closely associated with intelligence that many intelligence tests have a vocabulary section. Tests of vocabulary also are used to predict success in college.   In the workplace, a large vocabulary is often seen as a sign of a well-educated employee.

Since vocabulary is an important part of success in school and life, how can parents help their child to develop a larger vocabulary? Vocabulary instruction begins at birth.  Parents need to talk to their children about everything in their world. Parents shouldn’t talk down to their children. Children will learn whatever words they are exposed to, even quite sophisticated ones. Books are a rich source of new vocabulary. Reading to preschoolers does many things to prepare a child for school and increasing their vocabulary is one of the most important. Recent studies have shown that children who live in homes with little talk have heard thirty million fewer words by age three than children who live in homes that are rich in language. This means that some students are beginning school with a significant head start in the learning-to-read race. Learning to read is easier when a student already knows the meanings of many words that he or she will encounter.

After third grade, reading replaces talking as the largest source of new vocabulary. Children should be encouraged to read books of a variety of types. Each book is a source of new knowledge and new words. As children read, they will often be able to discover the meaning of a new word from the sentences around it. When using the story to discover the meaning of a new word does not work, a dictionary can be used to find the meaning of a new word.

Last week the Fairfield Rotary Club donated dictionaries to all the third-grade students in the Fairfield City Schools. These dictionaries will enable Fairfield’s third-graders to find the meaning of new words as they read. Dictionaries also can be used to find just the right word for a sentence or thought when a student is writing.

It is estimated that children typically enter first grade knowing between 3,000 and 6,000 words and learn between 1,000 and 3,000 new words per year.  Students know as many as 45,000 words by the end of high school.  Working together, families and the Fairfield community can ensure that our children will have the words to ensure success in their future.
           
Phyllis Gethers
Language Arts Instructional Specialist
Fairfield City School District
           
Published in the Fairfield Echo, Nov. 15, 2007.