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In staff rooms across the UK, comments about students entering school with weak vocabulary, students not being able to access the vocabulary in the KS2 SATS paper or secondary school students not knowing relatively simple words needed to understand a text are often heard. The so called ‘word gap’ is a concern in many schools, but the question remains: what do we do about it?
When the English National Curriculum was updated in 2014, it pushed vocabulary front and centre with such remarks as ‘Pupils’ acquisition and command of vocabulary are key to their learning and progress across the whole curriculum’.1 Examples of the importance of vocabulary to understanding curriculum content can be seen from Art and Design (‘perspective’) to Geography (‘environment’), History (‘evidence’) and Science (‘adaptation’). To fully understand these subject areas, students must understand the vocabulary.
Much has been written about the specific impact that vocabulary has on reading comprehension. Phonics skills enable the reader to decipher the word on the page, but to understand it, knowledge of the word’s meaning is essential. As the Simple View of Reading suggests, to be a successful reader, children need both phonics and language skills.2 A significant number of children master phonics quite well, but then struggle to understand what they read, as they do not have the wider vocabulary required to access more demanding books from KS2 and onwards.
It is established that vocabulary impacts both on curriculum access and reading, but what do we mean by the term ‘vocabulary’? What do you immediately think of when you think of ‘vocabulary’? Is it spelling lists? Reading, or perhaps even looking words up in dictionaries? Vocabulary is, of course, all of those things, but also more. As words may be read, written, spoken or listened to, it is useful to think of us as having four interrelated vocabularies. These four vocabularies all interact with each other, with understanding being the main driver in Early Years, before giving way to reading someway through Key Stage 3.
Barbara Bleiman argued rather eloquently in the TES last year that over-focusing on vocabulary may be counterproductive and that instead we should be focusing more broadly on language.3 She is absolutely correct, because vocabulary is learned within a context and a word in isolation is next to meaningless. Words needs to be learned and used within real contexts and so it makes my heart sink whenever I hear about students being given lists of words to learn or look up in dictionaries. Every word has nuances, and every speaker will use words in their own way, so we need to model the use of words to our students, so they learn not only words’ meanings, but also their applications.
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Within language as a whole, vocabulary does hold a special place, as to master any new subject area a learner must master the terminology. Imagine you were to take up a new hobby, such as sailing. You would soon encounter all manner of new words, such as ‘leeward, helm and jib’, that you would need to understand and use if you were to have any chance of becoming a competent sailor. The same principle applies to any new topic within the curriculum. When students master new vocabulary, they master the topic.
Vocabulary reflects our world experiences. The wider our experiences, the greater our vocabulary learning opportunities. It is no surprise at all, therefore, to learn that students who grow up in poverty are most likely to have less developed vocabularies. This word gap starts early and once open it is extremely challenging, and, some would argue, impossible to close. Parents play an important role in vocabulary learning, not just in Early Years, but right through childhood, so engaging all families in word learning is a key part of vocabulary teaching. It is easy to blame parents for ‘always being on the mobile’ but some parents may have difficulties with vocabulary themselves, and so this needs to be considered.
Schools are becoming increasingly aware of the word gap, especially since it was highlighted in the DfE’s 2017 report Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential.4 Some go looking for a quick fix, and before you are tempted to join them, consider that the average adult has a vocabulary of approximately 30,000 words. Some argue it is more like 50,000. To achieve even the lower figure, a child needs to learn seven words per day throughout their school life. To catch up, even a little, requires a student to learn several hundred words more than their word leaning trajectory predicts. This is simply not possible in one short-term intervention, or arguably even in one year. To have any chance of closing the vocabulary gap, it requires a whole-school, year-on-year approach.
So what can schools do to improve students’ vocabulary? Considering how central vocabulary is to learning, it is surprising how few studies there have been and how weak the evidence is. As stated previously, to see even a small change with vocabulary takes several years, and so the research studies are long-term and complex. While we wait for those studies to appear, a good starting point is the good practice that is happening in your own school. Every school has teachers who love words, so they are often the ones to talk to, because what they do will often be effective. In the approach that I have developed with Anna Branagan (Word Aware), we looked at best practice from schools and Speech and Language Therapy, as well as the research literature, and simplified this all into ten principles.5
- Make words a priority
- Expose students to an engaging vocabulary. Celebrate and have fun with words.
- Maintain a sustained effort
- There is no quick fix, so it needs every class in a school to be involved. Work together as a staff team.
- Link oral and written vocabulary
- Spoken language supports early reading and later reading supports spoken language, so aim to develop both.
- Analyse word components
- A large part of later vocabulary growth comes from awareness of word components, so awareness and use of prefixes and suffixes is a key skill
- Use a range of methods
- Vocabulary teaching is a long-term process so build a repertoire of methods that are appropriate to each age group, but also keep your teaching fresh
- Go with the child (at the right rate)
- The words that students are exposed to need to offer the right level of challenge. In Word Aware we call these ‘Goldilocks’ words, as they are not too easy, and not too hard, but are just right.
- Use multiple exposures
- Words need to be encountered a number of times in order to be learned. A quick mention will not be enough for children to learn a word.
- Teach words in context
- As words are such nuanced entities, they need to be taught in real meaningful contexts if they are to be used appropriately.
- Teach word learning strategies
- Most word learning happens independently away from any teacher, but equipping students with strategies will help them to build their vocabulary.
- Active and specific teaching of words
- You cannot teach every word, but by selecting and teaching important words, you can help to lay the foundations for vocabulary growth.
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There are many paths to these principles, but the key to success with vocabulary is to work together as a team to build on your existing good practice. As a school, as yourself, ‘what are we doing now that works and what could we do better?’ Look at each one of the above principles, read more widely around the topic and, over time, build a systematic approach that works for you and your students.
5 simple things to get you started with vocabulary
- Read high-quality fiction to your class regularly
- Show enjoyment of words that you encounter
- Play word games, from ‘I spy’ to ‘Scattegories ’or any other favourites
- Make word learning real by providing opportunities for ‘hands on’ experiences, from real objects to trips
- Hold a ‘word assembly’ with each class nominating a word they like and the headteacher selecting a word of the week for the whole school.
Stephen Parsons is a Speech and Language Therapist, trainer and co-author of the Word Aware books, which are about teaching vocabulary. www.thinkingtalking.co.uk @WordAware
Notes
- Department for Education (2013). The national curriculum in England key stages 1 and 2 framework document.https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-primary-curriculum
- Gough, P. & Tunmer, W. (1986). Decoding, reading and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7: 6–10.
- Bleiman, B. (2018). A dictionary is hard to swallow. TES, July 6. https://www.tes.com/news/tes-magazine/tes-magazine/a-dictionary-a-hard-thing-swallow
- Department for Education (2017). Unlocking talent, fulfilling potential. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/667690/Social_Mobility_Action_Plan_-_for_printing.pdf
- Parsons, S. & Branagan, A. (2013). Word aware: Teaching vocabulary across the day across the curriculum. Speechmark, London.