VOCABULARY

Vocabulary is all about words — the words in a language or a special set of words you are
trying to learn. Vocabulary is so important, we even created a web site to help expand yours.

First used in the 1500s to mean a list of words with explanations, the noun vocabulary came to
refer to the “range of language of a person or group” about two hundred years later. A lot of
hobbies, like fishing or knitting, require that you learn their unique vocabulary before you can
get the most out of them. If you're in a rush, vocab is a faster way to say vocabulary.

TYPES OF VOCABULARY

Reading vocabulary[edit]

A literate person's vocabulary is all the words they can recognize when reading. This is
generally the largest type of vocabulary simply because a reader tends to be exposed to more
words by reading than by listening.

Listening vocabulary[edit]

A person's listening vocabulary is all the words they can recognize when listening to speech.
People may still understand words they were not exposed to before using cues such as tone,
gestures, the topic of discussion and the social context of the conversation.

Speaking vocabulary[edit]

A person's speaking vocabulary is all the words they use in speech. It is likely to be a subset of
the listening vocabulary. Due to the spontaneous nature of speech, words are often misused.
This misuse, though slight and unintentional, may be compensated by facial expressions and
tone of voice.

Writing vocabulary[edit]

Words are used in various forms of writing from formal essays to social media feeds. Many
written words do not commonly appear in speech. Writers generally use a limited set of words
when communicating.[citation needed] For example, if there are a number of synonyms, a
writer may have a preference as to which of them to use, and they are unlikely to use technical
vocabulary relating to a subject in which they have no knowledge or interest.

Final vocabulary

The American philosopher Richard Rorty characterized a person's "final vocabulary" as follows:
 All human beings carry about a set of words which they employ to justify their
actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate
praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies, our long-term projects,
our deepest self-doubts and our highest hopes… I shall call these words a
person's “final vocabulary”. Those words are as far as he can go with language;
beyond them is only helpless passivity or a resort to force. (Contingency, Irony,
and Solidarity p. 73)[5]

Why is vocabulary s-o-o important?

Vocabulary is critical to reading success for three reasons:

1. Comprehension improves when you know what the words mean. Since
comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading, you cannot overestimate the
importance of vocabulary development.
2. Words are the currency of communication. A robust vocabulary improves all areas of
communication — listening, speaking, reading and writing.
3. How many times have you asked your students or your own children to “use your
words"? When children and adolescents improve their vocabulary, their academic and
social confidence and competence improve, too.

What words do I teach?

Knowing what words to teach is the first step in providing effective vocabulary practice. I have
a favorite mnemonic device that helps me remember the types of words I want to teach
explicitly:

 Type A Words: These words are like Type A personalities. They work hard in order to
convey the meaning of the text being read. There are two sources for these
words: Academic Language and the Content Areas. Academic Language describes the
language of schooling — words used across disciplines like genre and glossary.
Content Area words are specific to the discipline — words like organization in social
studies and organism in science. If you want your students to “get it,” these are the
must-know words.
 Type B Words: These words are the Basics. There are hundreds of high-frequency
words. The basics make up a large percentage of student reading and writing.
 Students must be able to read words like the, is, and, are, been and because — well,
because.
 Type C Words: The Connectors act as signal words. There may be some overlap with
the basic words. Students need to understand the signals for cause and effect
relationships, sequence and other important indicators of how text is organized.
 Type D Words: D is for Difficult — words with multiple meanings are challenging for
all students and may be especially so for English-Language Learners. You may have
students who simply freeze when a question is asked such as “What are the factors
that contributed to the Civil War?” However, they could have answered the question
correctly if asked, “What were the causes of the Civil War?” Students may think they
know the word factor — from Fear Factor on television or from factors in
mathematics and yet they may be challenged when the word is used in another
context.

When considering words with multiple meanings also pay attention to the
consonant-vowel-consonant words children encounter when first learning to read —
words like jam and ham. These words have accessible meanings if you think of the
sweet, sticky stuff on toast (jam) or something you may eat with eggs in the morning
(ham). It is a lot more difficult if you “elaborate” as Dr. Maryanne Wolf of Tufts
University describes:

So learning to decode should not be meaning-free, but should provide a great

opportunity for teaching the meanings of words including multiple ones. This
kind of experience with words improves comprehension.

 Type X Words: X is for the eXtras. These are the words that will not be encountered
frequently but in a certain story or context are important to meaning. A good example
of this type of word is spindle in “Sleeping Beauty.” It is important to the fairy tale, but
it is not a very high-utility word. I just tell kids what words like this mean without any
special teaching.

How do I teach?

Words! Words! Words! A student’s vocabulary — the words he or she can understand when
reading and listening and use when writing and speaking are critical to success in school. This
is the reason vocabulary is an essential element of effective reading programs as described in
up-to-date research documents. The importance of vocabulary is made clear by Dr. Catherine
Snow when she presents the following on what teachers need to teach:

 26 letters of the alphabet

 44 phonemes
 75,000 words

It is clear that teachers must teach the sounds and letters systematically and explicitly — the
challenge is how to teach 75,000 words.

Most basal reading programs teach about 20 words a week for about 24 weeks. If students
learn 480 words for 12 years of schooling, it will not add up to the 75,000 to 120,000 (according
to various estimates) words students need to succeed. To help students develop a robust
vocabulary, all teachers, at every grade and in every subject, are vocabulary teachers. The
following methods are supported by the research provided in the next section.

 Direct Instruction: Explicit teaching of carefully selected words improves

understanding and helps students’ vocabulary grow. Often, it is best to pre-teach key
words.
 Wide reading: Reading of texts helps expose students to many words including rare
words — not high in frequency but high in important meaning. “Time on text” will
have the highest payoff in terms of helping students learn many, many words.
 Words In Context: Students will learn most new words in the context of reading and
writing. The two best ways I can think of to enrich the context for word learning is to
read and discuss books.
 Books: My favorite book of the moment for teaching vocabulary is Alvie Eats Soupby
Ross Collins. Even though is it is a picture book, it could be used from kindergarten
through the early middle grades with concrete words like soup to abstract ones
like irony. One of my favorite parts is the many words used to express concern about
Alvie’s soup diet. Students need to be systematically exposed to book knowledge by
being read to and by reading text on their own. The text must be carefully selected in
order to connect students’ content from all of the arts and sciences.

 Talk: Try to infuse formal and informal conversation to model effective use of
language and to focus on the introduction of new vocabulary. I used to write particular
phrases or words to introduce each week in my lesson plan book. On one occasion
 when no one seemed to be doing well independently I said, “I am at the brink of my
endurance!” I had everyone’s attention as they wanted to figure out what I meant.
After our talk, I heard the phrase used on the playground and the individual words
used in a variety of ways.
 Word Study: When students learn about the parts of words, prefixes and suffixes, and
about root words, they are able to figure out many new words. Also, looking at the
origin of words — words from other languages — increases word and world
knowledge.
 Word Consciousness: Being on the lookout for words, finding out what they mean,
engaging in wordplay, looking for multiple meanings and looking up words in the
dictionary all support the acquisition a powerful vocabulary.