The importance of vocabulary. Reading comprehension has rightly been a focus of literacy instruction in the past few years. Yet how can a student comprehend what he's reading if he doesn't know what the words mean? According to Lehr, Osborn, and Hiebert, "one of the most enduring findings in reading research is the extent to which students' vocabulary knowledge relates to their reading comprehension." For the 10% plus of U.S. students who are English language learners, this is especially true. Their struggles to comprehend can lead to frustration, which leads to less reading, and thus to exposure to even fewer new words, and the vicious cycle continues. But it doesn't have to be that way.
It's not just about written vocabulary. The link between written vocabulary and comprehension seems obvious. But for beginning readers, oral vocabulary is also extremely important. If students see a printed word that is in their oral vocabulary, they can use that knowledge and their phonological awareness skills to sound it out, and comprehend it. Students' oral vocabulary thus becomes the link between phonics and comprehension.
ELLs and native speakers. English language learners, of course, are not the only students who struggle with oral and written vocabulary. Schools with many ELLs may also have many native English speakers from language-poor backgrounds. Fortunately, the National Reading Panel has found that the techniques of vocabulary instruction that help first-language learners also help second-language learners. Spanish-speaking students, who now make up 79% of U.S. ELL's, can get further decoding and vocabulary help from the 10,000 to 15,000 Spanish-English cognates.
Learn more. The links below offer specific strategies to help you improve your ELLs' oral and written vocabularies, and thus their reading comprehension. From background research to links to fun vocabulary computer games (which have been found to be helpful in engaging students' interest and keeping them reading), you'll find all kinds of tools to help you in the classroom.
