VOCABULARY RESEARCH

RESEARCH ON VOCABULARY INSTRUCTION


The following studies show that students need large vocabularies to be successful readers and that economically disadvantaged children enter school with far fewer words.


Vocabulary knowledge is one of the most significant predictors of reading comprehension.
Davis, F.B., (1972). Research on comprehension in reading. Reading Research Quarterly, 7, 628-678.

Children with average or above-average verbal ability enter kindergarten with a receptive vocabulary of approximately 5,000-10,000 words, others enter school with knowledge of far fewer words, thus beginning their school careers at a disadvantage. Hart and Risley’s long-term study of vocabulary development in children during the first three years of life revealed these significant differences as strongly related to parental income and welfare status. Children in economically disadvantage 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.

Hart, B., & Risley, T.R. (1995) Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of you American children. Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes.

Marzano’s study shows that students need to learn specific academic vocabulary to understand specific genres and content areas.

Vocabulary knowledge differentially affects comprehension in school reading and learning, depending on the nature of what is being read. Stories and literature are much less dependent on specific terms used by authors than informational texts used in science, social studies, and mathematics. Academic vocabularies consist of words with precise meanings that are often central to content area understanding and differ from general meanings of even the same terms, (e.g., operation has a very specific meaning in mathematics; Marzano, 2004)

Marzano, R.J. (2004). Building background knowledge for academic achievement: Research on what works in schools. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development.

Definition:
Comprehensive vocabulary instruction- (from Vocabulary: Questions from the Classroom) vocabulary instruction that encompasses much more than a list of words to teach at the beginning of the week. Rather, it involves a common philosophy and shared practices among teachers in a school or district based on a solid understanding of the knowledge base of vocabulary and understanding need to be supported by curricular considerations as well as by appropriate classroom and school organization. Blachowicz, Watts-Taffe, & Fisher (2006), Graves (2006), and Nagy (2005) all agree on the following characteristics of good vocabulary instruction:
It takes place in a language-and word-rich environment that fosters what has been
Referred to as “word consciousness’.

It includes intentional teaching of selected words, providing multiple types of
information about each new word as well as opportunities for repeated exposure,
use and practice.

It includes teaching generative elements of words and word-learning strategies in
ways that give students the ability to learn new words independently.

Blachowicz,C.L.Z., Watts-Taffe, S., & Fisher, P. (2006). Integrated vocabulary instruction: Meeting the needs of diverse learners in grades 1-5. Naperville, IL: Learning Point Associates.

Graves, M.F. (2006). The vocabulary book. New York: Teachers College Press.

Nagy, W.E. (2005). Why vocabulary instruction needs to be long term and comprehensive. In E.H. Hiebert & M.L. Kamil (Eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice (p 27-44). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Some class time needs to be devoted to vocabulary instruction but in context is best. Commercial vocabulary programs have not been successful in producing documented growth in word knowledge.

Definition: (from Questions from the classroom) language-rich environment is one in which children’s opportunities to read, hear, use, and talk about new vocabulary are many and varied. Naturally, these environments contain books and other reading materials, both narrative and expository, on a variety of topics appropriate for a variety of reading levels.

Duke’s study involved looking at low socioeconomic schools and high socioeconomic schools to compare how print-rich the environments were. Low SES classrooms had smaller libraries, 40% fewer books and magazines, less displays of books and magazines in the classrooms and fewer texts on walls and other surfaces.

Lower socioeconomic schools may contribute to lower levels of achievement by limiting students to literacy in the form of print rich environments.


The following studies show that reading aloud to children can increase their incidental vocabulary learning whether teachers explain words or not, but they learn more with explanations.

Eller et al. and Robbins& Her, documented the fact that young students can learn word meanings incidentally from read-aloud experiences.

Eller, G., Pappas, C., & Brown, E. (1988). The lexical development of kindergartners: Learning from written context. Journal of Reading Behavior, 20, 5-24.
Robbins, C., & Ehri, L.C. (1994). Reading storybooks to kindergarteners helps them learn new vocabulary words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 54-64.


Elley’s studied classroom teachers reading stories aloud to 7 and 8 year olds. Seven classes of 7-year-olds showed vocabulary gains of 15 percent from one story, without any teacher explanation. Three classes of 8-year-olds who received no teacher explanation showed gains of 15 percent, and three classes that did receive explanation showed 40 percent. Follow-up tests showed that this incidental vocabulary learning was relatively permanent, and low-scoring children gained as much as high-scoring children.

Elley, W.B. (1988). Vocabulary acquisition from listening to stories. Reading Research Quarterly, 24, 174-187.