Teaching Tuesday: Vocabulicious

The scholarly version of my point can be found in this long-ass article. 

So, one large predictor of reading success - which is a predictor of life success - is vocabulary. When I was teaching, I remember sitting through some inservice where we learned that the average middle class child will hear 32 MILLION more words than the average low income child by the time the kids are four. 

FOUR. 

Talk about starting out ten steps behind. Some teachers I knew took this to mean that they should only use simple words with their low income students. Some teachers I knew took this to mean that they should have their students copy words out of the dictionary all the time. 

Neither group made up much of their word deficit. Which killed their reading comprehension. Which killed their learning by about fifth grade. 

What breaks my heart more than anything in all this is that kids like to learn new words. The first year I taught second grade, I had the worst class I ever had. I had some of the most challenging students I've ever known, including a kid who was prone to throwing chairs during math lessons. I felt like I could barely get them under control, let alone teach them anything. Until we read some picture book together - possibly Graeme Base's Animalia - and one kid asked what a word in the book meant. Now, I always had a policy of encouraging kids to raise their hands when they heard a word they didn't understand - one I continue with my own kids - but the kids in that class generally ignored my policy. The word in question happened to be queue, which is really quite apropos for your average elementary school. So an hour or so later, I told them to queue up instead of line up. 

Their faces literally lit up when they realized they recognized an unfamiliar word. From then on, I read them books with the most challenging vocabulary I could find and I made a point of using multi-syllabic words as much as possible. They started actually listening when I was speaking; they became fascinated with using "big words". 

Consequently, I actually started doing some research how to teach vocabulary and make up word deficits. Now, as a parent, I don't do the logical, explicit instruction I eventually started doing as a  teacher. But I do use "big words" with my kids and encourage them to always ask what words mean. When they were little, I narrated what we were doing all the time and used the proper terminology for everything. And I can't tell you how many people have been impressed with their vocabularies. From teachers to random strangers at the grocery store to Lovebug's former speech therapist. 

Having a good vocabulary isn't just about doing well on the SATs, or improving reading comprehension, though of course it certainly helps those things. But it can also help with with decoding - it's a lot easier to sound out a word if you've actually heard it before. It can help kids understand the world around them, especially in relation to nature and geography. It can help kids learn how to classify and categorize and sort more easily. It can help kids write more clearly. It can help kids communicate more effectively. It can help kids feel smart and confident. 

So how do you provide your kids with a good vocabulary? 

• Read aloud from lots of different types of literature - fiction, poetry, narrative non-fiction, memoir, non-fiction, magazines and newspapers. 
• Encourage them to ask what words mean. When I'm reading aloud to them, they know they can lay a hand on my arm to signal that they have a question. More often than not, the question is about the meaning of a new word. 
• Use proper terminology. If your toddler is into trains, don't just talk about the choo-choo. Point out the engine, point out the cars. Eventually your toddler will be able to bore relatives with descriptions of steam engines. 
• Remember when I talked about how I have to repeat directions all the time? And I throw rhymes in, mostly to practice rhymes but also to distract myself from discipline failures? Well, once kids get the rhyme thing figured out, you can try using new vocabulary words each time you repeat directions. Start with, "Pick up your clothes!" and move onto, "Gather your apparel!" and "Collect your attire!" 
• If you feel unhappy about your own vocabulary, grab a word-a-day calendar or just start going through a dictionary together. Make it a family activity to learn a new word each day, or see how many times each family member can use the new word in a day. 

What are your thoughts? Do you think a larger vocabulary is helpful? What do you do to help your kids? 

 -