What some experts have to say about vocabulary...

I have found that everyone has an opinion on how to teach vocabulary. I have also found that these opinions change based on how old the students are, what they are learning, if they know anything about that subject ahead of time, how much they read, what their background is, where they live, how much money their parents make, if their parents spoke to them in the womb, the list goes on and on. Out of the many theories out there, I picked a few that I thought were interesting and that seemed to line up with how I see vocabulary working in my own classroom. I will add more ideas, theories, and opinions on vocabulary in additional posts as well. Here’s a start...

When Kids Can’t Read, What Teachers Can Do
Kylene Beers

I would encourage all teachers of middle school or older students to read this book. It has a lot of great information about all things reading, including vocabulary. Her main premise is that students should learn words they hear often and will actually use regularly. For example, perhaps students are only required to learn 5 words a week. Teachers will use those same 5 words in their speech in the weeks prior to students being asked to use them. Students will hear them being used and then will also expected to use them in conversations with each other. Beers argues that the more students hear and use vocabulary words, the more they will truly have mastery over them. To me, this also means that vocabulary words that students need to know specific to a certain content area should be simply discussed in class as they read. True vocabulary practice should be left for words that they will hear and use consistently (activities showing how this works is coming in new entries!)

Vocabulary Processes
Judith A. Scott and William E. Nagy

These two know their stuff on vocabulary, but I want to pay special attention to what they say about what it means to “know a word.” They assert that “knowing” a word depends on exposure to the words, the various ways students hear the word being used, and the idea that students know that most words relate to other words. Obviously it is not as simple as “Yes, they know it!” or “Nope, they don’t!”. Your students may in fact “know” a word to a certain degree. Our job then as teachers is to increase this degree or measure at which they “know” vocabulary words.

“Big Ideas and Concepts Regarding Vocabulary”
http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/voc/voc_what.php
University of Oregon

As I was scrolling around on the web, I ran across this website. It contains a lot of information that you could perhaps find in many places, but it’s all contained in one site, concise, and it has a large references page which I found helpful in finding more research and other vocabulary-interested authors. A few interesting tidbits I found here...

“Children who enter school with limited vocabulary knowledge grow more discrepant over time from their peers...” (Baker, Simmons, and Kame’enui, 1997)

“After the primary grades, the “achievement gap” between socioeconomic groups is a language gap.” (Hirsh, 2002)

“For English Language Learners, the “achievement gap” is primarily a vocabulary gap.” (Carlo, et al., 2004)