Effective Vocabulary Strategies for K-8 Students
Learning Words and Concepts to Improve Expression and Comprehension
Jul 3, 2009
Direct instruction of vocabulary before and after reading improves comprehension, while expanding the expressive abilities of the student. In short, students who know lots of words can be more precise in their thinking and have greater depth in their understanding of both content area information and literary text, and these skills will transfer into other areas of learning, speaking, and writing.
Choosing Vocabulary Words
Choose vocabulary words carefully. Vocabulary instruction should promote independent understanding of the words whenever possible, and should focus on words that are essential to the understanding of the text, rather than simply on the words that are the biggest or most difficult to decode. Teachers can also promote comprehension and strategic reading by choosing to teach some words before reading and others afterwards.
For example, if the word is explained within the text, it should be reviewed after reading so that students may first discover the meaning themselves. However, when words are not easily understood within the context of the passage, but are important to the understanding of the text, they should be taught before reading. Words that are not central to the ideas in the text should only be taught if they are otherwise useful to know.
Finally, do not choose too many words. Large lists of vocabulary words to memorize can be intimidating to most students, and seem impossible to struggling readers. It is far better to effectively teach five to ten words and have students remember them, rather than attempting a large list and have them soon forgotten.
Pre-Reading Vocabulary Strategies
Pre-reading vocabulary instruction has three primary purposes, each resulting in greater comprehension: to activate prior knowledge about a topic by generating words and concepts that will assist in understanding the text; to ensure fluency by making sure that students can move through the text without being stuck on unknown words; and to engage students with the text by helping them predict and verify as they read.
Strategies include building word banks that include the chosen words and others related to the topic; using graphic organizers to show relationships among the words or to develop an understanding of the concepts related to the words; using story structure as an organizer for predicting word use; previewing text in relation to the chosen words; and practicing word analysis to assist with fluency and decoding of these and similar words.
Post-Reading Vocabulary Strategies
Post-reading vocabulary strategies are used to check the understanding of words that were learned within the context of the passage, and to review, or teach in depth, important words and concepts from the text. Words that are interesting or useful to know in other contexts, but are not central to the understanding of the passage, should also be taught after the initial reading is completed.
Strategies include conceptual mapping, where the vocabulary words are part of a larger generation of categories and ideas related to the topic and what was learned from the passage; word mapping, where one word is explored in depth through its definition, properties or characteristics, and examples; and feature analyses, where several related words are compared and contrasted based on defining characteristics.
Students with large vocabularies are able to think more precisely about any topic and express themselves with greater clarity and depth. By choosing a short, but essential, list of vocabulary words, and strategically teaching them either before or after reading, K-8 teachers can also greatly improve reading comprehension and fluency in their students.
Further Reading
Paynter, Diane and others. For the Love of Words: Vocabulary Instruction That Works, Grades K-6. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2005.
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