Vocabulary

by Andrew Biemiller

In recent years, we have seen a tremendous emphasis on the importance of phonics instruction to ensure educational progress. We also have seen that while more children learn to “read” with increased phonics instruction, there have not been commensurate gains in reading comprehension (e.g., Gregory, Earl, and O’Donoghue, 1993; Madden et al., 1993; Pinnell et al., 1994). What is missing for many children who master phonics but don’t comprehend well is vocabulary, the words they need to know in order to understand what they’re reading. Thus vocabulary is the “missing link” in reading/language instruction in our school system. Because vocabulary deficits particularly affect less advantaged and second-language children, I will be arguing that such “deficits” are fundamentally more remediable than many other school learning problems.

http://www.wordsmartedu.com/Biemiller_Teaching_Vocab.pdf

http://www.albany.edu/~rj7552/isp361/final/goal10a.html

The child will develop comprehension skills and strategies that will enhance
his/her ability to construct the meaning of texts heard or read. This is a
summary page from the Beck et al text, summarized by the SUNY-Albany
Child Research and Study Center.  It links to videoclips.

http://www.prel.org/programs/rel/prodserv.asp

A Focus on Vocabulary explores vocabulary development as a component of
reading comprehension by describing what research says about how students
acquire vocabulary and about instruction that helps students develop the
kind of vocabulary knowledge that will contribute to their reading success.
It begins with a definition of vocabulary and continues with discussion of
why vocabulary is important in reading comprehension, what “knowing” a word
means, key instructional strategies, and issues related to vocabulary
development for English Language Learners (ELLs). A Focus on Vocabulary is
the second in the Research-Based Practices in Early Reading series published
by the Regional Educational Laboratory at PREL. The document is available
online only and can be accessed in HTML (116K), Color PDF (5.5M) or Black &
White PDF (2.5M) format. Users are asked to complete a survey to access this
free, online document.